gravely. pylon. that's affecting things here cravel . �* pylon. that's affecting things here cravel. �* ,. , , pylon. that's affecting things here cravel.�* ,. ,, ., gravely. and scientists in china it revealed a _ gravely. and scientists in china it revealed a perfectly _ gravely. and scientists in china it revealed a perfectly preserved i revealed a perfectly preserved dinosaur embryo from at least 66 million years ago. live from our studio in singapore, this is bbc news. it's newsday. welcome to bbc news broadcasting to viewers in the uk and around the world. it's 7am in the morning in singapore and 11pm in london, where a new covid surge is breaking records. in the last 2a hours, the uk has recorded more than 100,000 new cases of coronavirus in a 24—hour period. but preliminary results from three scientific studies suggest that the 0micron variant may be milder than first feared. we start tonight's coverage with this report from our medical editor fergus walsh. another record day for covid cases and for boosterjabs, but as the 0micron wave surges, at last some positive early evidence from three separate studies, all indicating it poses less of a threat than the delta variant. research by imperial college london found around a 40% reduction in the risk of being admitted to hospitalfor a night or more compared to delta. a scottish study suggested there was a 65% lower risk of being hospitalised with 0micron, but it was based on only a few cases. while in south africa, 0micron patients were thought to be around 75% less likely to need hospital treatment. rather than 0micron being intrinsically milder, scientists think this is partly due to the build—up of immunity from previous infections and vaccination. but it is still good news. these are very encouraging signs indeed. and it does mean that the models that have been presented to us or been presented to the government, which have largely been based on or seeming rather pessimistically that 0micron was of the same severity as delta, i'm sure are being revised very rapidly at the moment. the festive getaway has begun. and there was an early christmas present for many who thought they'd be isolating on the 25th after the rules in england cut the quarantine period from ten to seven days. lee is already anticipating heading home. his lateral flow on day six was negative this morning. if tomorrow's is clear, he's free. well, it's saved christmas for me. i thought i was kind of here till midnight on boxing day in self—isolation, so i can go back to the family home now and see my young daughter. people ending isolation early are urged to be cautious and not visit crowded or poorly—ventilated places, because even after a week, it's still possible to be carrying the virus and it not show up on lateral flow tests. more than 51 million people aged over 12 in the uk have had at least one covid vaccine. nearly 31 million, three doses. now all 16 and 17—year—olds will be eligible for a booster. and those in line for firstjabs is to get even younger. in the united states and several european countries, all 5—11—year—olds are being offered covid jabs. in texas, these therapy dogs provided a useful distraction. here, only 5—11s in at—risk groups will be eligible for now. they'll get two shots eight weeks apart, each one a third of the adult dose. we know these vaccines are effective at preventing serious disease. - that's the one thing - that they do do reliably. it makes absolute sense we offerl those children that are at high risk the benefit of protection. from vaccination now that the vaccine's available for the age group. - new treatments continue to be rolled out, such as antiviral pills. which should keep many of the most vulnerable from falling seriously ill once infected. the concern is the huge number of cases, even if mostly milder, could still lead to a dangerous spike in hospital admissions next month. so, the scale of the 0micron threat remains uncertain. fergus walsh, bbc news. let's get more now on those preliminary studies which suggest that the 0micron variant could be milder than first feared. professor aziz sheikh is the lead author of the edinburgh university study. he explained the findings. in essence, we've got three core findings here. and we've been in the fortunate position of really being able to track the entire scottish population. so, the first is that we've seen 0micron just run through scotland incredibly rapidly. the first case was towards the end of november, november the 23rd, and then in the three to four weeks subsequently, we've seen that it's become the dominant variant in scotland. so, it's basically swept through the population very rapidly. the second issue and a big unanswered question that we've been grappling with is what's the risk of severe outcomes? and by that we mean covid hospitalisations or deaths. what we've been able to show when we do analyses adjusted for all sorts of other situations such as age, sex, underlying comorbidities, vaccination status is that with the relatively few cases that we've got, it seems like 0micron is basically around two thirds less likely to result in hospitalisation than delta. so, these are early data, but that seems to be a consistent finding across our analysis. the third thing that we've looked at is what's the impact of third or booster vaccination doses. and what we're seeing is as a result of these booster doses, protection against developing omicron—associated covid—19 is substantially increased. let's take a look at some of the stories in the headlines in the uk. in wales, a range of new coronavirus restrictions have been announced. this is in response to a rise in 0micron cases. if you go to a pub, bar or restaurant from december the 26th, your group won't be able to be bigger than six. nightclubs will also have to close. in northern ireland, new restrictions have also been announced. there's guidance that no more than three households should mix indoors from the 27th of december, there's strengthened guidance on working from home and there will be tighter regulations on mask—wearing, with a proper definition of exemptions. in london, a national homeless charity has booked out several hotels for people who would otherwise be sleeping rough during the festive period. the charity behind this move, crisis, has also revealed new figures which show that 227,000 families across the uk are experiencing the worst forms of homelessness, which includes people sleeping on the streets and those stuck in insecure accomodations. in the us, dr anthony fauci, chief medical adviser to president biden, issued a warning to people who plan to attend large gatherings over the festive period. if you're going to a large gathering, and there are many of these parties that have 30, 40, 50 people in which you do not know the vaccination status of individuals, those are the kind of functions in the context of covid and particularly in the context of omicron that you do not want to go to. so, to the extent possible, we urge you to stay away from those situations that could put you at a higher risk. the head of the world health organization has told a news conference that there should be enough coronavirus vaccines for all adults around the world by the end of march next year. tedros adhanom ghebreyesus said the supply of vaccines for the covax scheme was increasing. however he warned wealthy countries were rushing to give boosterjabs at the cost of poorer countries carrying out initial shots. blanket booster programmes - are likely to prolong the pandemic. rather than ending it. by diverting supply to countries that already have high levels i of vaccination coverage, - giving the virus more opportunity to spread and mutate. no country can boost its way out of the pandemic. - and boosters cannot be seen as a ticket to go ahead - with the planned celebrations without the need for- other precautions. still to come a bit later in the programme, how children in the us are finding ways to deal with the anxiety generated by covid. it's nearly a week since a super typhoon hit the philippines, killing at least 375 people and leaving hundreds of thousands without shelter. one of the worst affected areas was the popular tourist island of shargo. from there, our correspondent howard johnson sent this report. devastation as far as the eye can see. super typhoon rai first made landfall here last thursday, packing winds in excess of 150 mph and dumping huge quantities of rainfall. this dramatic footage captured the moment a new sports hall, doubling as an evacuation centre, was torn to shreds. there was no protection, there was no roof, there was no wall. we was literally lying down there. and the entire nature force was, like, bashing on us with full power, with full force. we had nothing there. the governor of the island estimates that 90% of buildings have been damaged. this is my house. this man shows me to where his home and convenience store once stood. i'm scared because, my children, there's no more food, and then my house is broken from the typhoon. i don't know how i'm going to start again my store and my home. this is a scene that we have seen many times. the roof has been ripped off like a can of sardines. the metal�*s been torn back. glass has smashed up there. and you can see the roof in tatters down here. and so many people are without shelter at the moment, and people here are calling for more support. they need more aid, they need more water, more food. and, at the moment, the supplies are coming through, but they're not getting through quickly enough. prices for filtered bottled water have doubled in the last week, forcing some to find other sources. this family are drawing water from an old well, but it isn't clean. diarrhoea cases are on the rise here. it's bad for the stomach, i but we don't have a choice. we need to drink. we don't have safe water to drink. at the island's badly damaged airport, aid is getting through, but in limited quantities. 0utside, residents have been waiting for up to three days for a flight off the island. it's leading to a sense of panic. there's nothing. there's no system. we have to figure it out ourselves. that's it. the real pandemic is not having a system. sorry. as night falls, a newly arrived philippine red cross team help islanders to speak with loved ones using their satellite phone. help is on hand here, but there needs to be a lot, lot more. howard johnson, bbc news, siargao island. a well—known statue commemorating tiananmen square has reportedly been removed from a university campus in hong kong. the removal of the eight—metre—high copper statue, created by danish sculptorjens galschiot, was ordered back in october. construction workers are said to have laboured overnight to dismantle the piece, known as the pillar of shame. the artwork, which depicts piled up corpses and anguished faces, was one of hong kong's few remaining public memorials to tiananmen square. the united nations security council has passed a resolution to allow aid to afghanistan without breaching sanctions against the taliban. the resolution could unlock desperately needed help for millions of afghans facing hunger this winter after the taliban take—over. 0ur chief international correspondent lyse doucet says finding a way round international sanctions has been a big stumbling block. the real challenge for those aid agencies, people who want to help afghanistan, is that many taliban leaders are under united nations or us sanctions linked to terrorism charges. and so, if you give money to those individuals or you somehow run afoul of them by giving money to ministries that they lead, you could actually face crippling sanctions and penalties. so, this move by the united nations, and also by the united states as well, to clear the way for aid which meets the basic needs, as they call it, of afghans doesn't come a day too soon. afghanistan, the un says, will become its biggest humanitarian operation in the world next year. what a tragic distinction to have. 22 million people will need aid to survive, including 10 million now said to be a step away from starvation. this is an important step in the right direction, but it's not enough. there are still... this won't pay the salaries of civil servants, including the teachers the teachers and doctors, in a country where before the taliban took charge, some 75% of the government's budget was provided by foreign aid, aid provided by governments around the world and multilateral organisations. that aid is not resuming. the banking system has all but collapsed. and then there's the issue of the financial assets of the central bank of afghanistan, which are in the united states, and are now frozen again, locked up in the financial sanctions. so, one step, but as the united nations relief coordinator said, the road ahead is neither easy nor straightforward. you're watching newsday on the bbc. still to come on the programme — look at the effect of pandemic lockdowns on it the children profit mental health. the world of music's been paying tribute to george michael, who's died from suspected heart failure at the age of 53. he sold well over 100 million albums in a career spanning more than three decades. the united states troops have been trying to overthrow the dictatorship of general manuel noriega. the pentagon said it's failed in its principal objective, to capture noriega and take him to the united states to face drugs charges. the hammer and sickle was hastily taken away. in its place, the russian flag was hoisted over what is now no longer the soviet union, but the commonwealth of independent states. | day broke slowly over lockerbie,| over the cockpit of pan am's maid of the seas nose down in the soft earth. - you could see what happens - when a plane eight storeys high, a football pitch wide, i falls from 30,000 feet. christmas has returned to albania after a communist ban lasting more than 20 years. thousands went to midnight mass in the town of shkodra, where there were anti—communist riots ten days ago. this is newsday on the bbc. i'm mariko 0i in singapore. 0ur headlines — the uk has seen a record number of confirmed coronavirus cases. more than 100,000 are reported in a single day. nearly a week after a super typhoon struck the philippines, hundreds of thousands remained displaced amid widespread destruction. the pandemic has left children falling behind academically, but parents fear their kids' mental health is suffering, too. this month, a mckinsey report found nearly a third of parents in the us are worried about their child's mental health. those concerns are higher among black, hispanic and asian families. laura trevelyan went to meet one mother and her daughter in new york city to find out how they're dealing with the pandemic. a festive outing forjackie and her daughter, jordyn. for the first—grader, it's exciting to be in town. jackie worries about her six—year—old, though, who developed anxiety during the pandemic after her preschool classes ended abruptly. i came out of the pandemic with some anxiety myself, and so i'm passing through the skills i picked up to cope with my own anxiety to her. so, we have a bedtime routine where before she goes to sleep, i'll sit with her, in the dark sometimes, we'll just talk about the day, the things that bothered her. she's really good at communicating herfeelings when she has a safe space. so, we do that, we talk. anxiety is something that carmen is dealing with in the classroom. it's really interesting to see how children are processing even the way that they treat each other. she teaches kindergarten and first grade in east harlem, which was hit hard by the pandemic, and families lost loved ones and livelihoods. for me, the most telling is a separation anxiety. if there's a staff member absent, there's a lot of anxiety around that. "is so—and—so going to be back? why aren't they here?" at the beginning of the school year, we saw that separation anxiety from families lasts a little longer than it usually does. usually after day two or three, the crying has subsided when we're saying goodbye to our grown—up. but it's certainly lasted a little longer. the effect of the pandemic on education is still unfolding. but one thing's clear in new york city — enrolment is down, as parents either don't feel safe sending their kids back to school, or they've left the city altogether. i spoke to bruce fuller, a sociologist who studies early childhood, about the effects of all this pandemic anxiety on how kids learn. we've long known that it's social, | emotional comfort and motivation children feel that provides - the foundation for cognitive growth and pre—literacy development, oral language development. i so, if kids are feeling anxious, - if they're wearing masks in pre—k, theyjust don't have that immediate social interaction and _ base—level confidence - upon which learning occurs. jordyn�*s preschool and kindergarten years were upended by the pandemic, yet she's doing well at school academically and learning to deal with her anxiety. we do breathing, she does breath work. we do some meditation music that helps settle her in the evening. so, we're coping, it's getting better. just as kids get back on track, parents are hoping the 0micron variant doesn't mean a return to remote learning this winter. the unknown is yet another source of anxiety. laura trevelyan, bbc news, new york. a jury in the trial of the british socialite ghislaine maxwell has decided to reconvene after christmas having not been able to reach a verdict on wednesday. ms maxwell, a close associate ofjeffrey epstein, denies eight counts of sex trafficking and other crimes. 0ur correspondent, barbara plett usher, has been following the trial in new york. the jury deliberated for two full days, but it was not able to reach a verdict before christmas. and the court has now recessed for the holiday weekend. the jurors are considering six counts against ghislaine maxwell of grooming and transporting girls for sex. and the case is narrowly focused on the accusations of four women who say that she facilitated or participated injeffrey epstein�*s abuse of her. the jurors have several times asked the judge to send them transcript of testimony or to clarify certain issues. they will come back on monday to continue deliberating about whether to convict ghislaine maxwell of all, some or none of the charges. in the meantime, ms maxwell will be spending christmas at the federal detention centre in brooklyn, where she's been for more than a year, with this decision still hanging over her. let's take a look at some other stories in the headlines. nigeria has destroyed more than 1 million doses of coronavirus vaccines after international donors delivered the vials just before their expiry date leaving no time for them to be distributed and administered. a bulldozer crushed cardboard boxes of the astrazeneca shots in front of reporters and health officials in a bid to assure the nigerian public that the expired medicines had been taken out of circulation. brigitte macron, the wife of the french president, is to sue over false claims circulating on the internet that she is transgender and was born male. the false report first appeared on a far—right website and has since been circulated by conspiracy theorists. brigitte macron has been married to emmanuel macron since 2007. she has three adult children from herfirst marriage. the european commission has launched legal action against poland, saying it has serious doubts about the independence and impartiality of its constitutional tribunal. it's the latest episode in the long—running dispute about the polish government's sweeping changes to the judiciary. poland now has two months to respond to the charges. it's already accused brussels of overstepping its powers. now to quite a remarkable discovery. scientists have found a perfectly preserved dinosaur embryo. it was discovered in southern china and thought to be at least 66 million years old. dr fion waisum ma was part of the research group. she says it's "the best dinosaur embryo everfound in history". this fossil was discovered in guangzhou city of southern china in around 2000, and then it was hidden in storage for 15 years. so, it was not until 2015 that the curator of the museum saw through the boxes in the storage and rediscovered the fossil. and then they arranged very detailed fossil preparation, so they removed the rock covering, the skeleton and finally we see this amazing fossil. this dinosaur belongs to an oviraptorosaur, so oviraptorosaur is a theropod dinosaur group that existed during the cretaceous and they are always described as birdlike because they're covered with feathers, they don't have any teeth, they have a beak. so, for this particular specimen, we see it has a very unique posture with the body curled up and its head in between its leg. and this posture is very similar to what we see in a late—stage embryo of a living bird. that's all for now. stay with bbc news. hello again. well, it's been another chilly day wednesday, but the trend is as we go into thursday the weather is turning increasingly mild. however, over recent hours, we have seen some freezing rain in scotland. that's liquid rain that can freeze on impact. you can imagine the roads and the pavements becoming very icy in some of the deeper scottish valleys for a time. but this time yesterday, it was very cold. temperatures were down toabout —10 into parts of aberdeenshire. quite a contrast with what we've got at the moment, but aside from some of those valleys, the temperatures are just about below freezing. for the most part as we head into thursday, it's actually getting milder. and across western areas — 12 degrees in plymouth, 11 in belfast — it is going to be a mild start to the day for these areas on thursday. now, thursday, there will be a lot of cloud around. we've got weather fronts bringing rain. the heaviest rain moves quickly across from northern ireland into northern england and scotland as well. further southwards, cloud, a few spots of rain, no great amounts, though. some brighter weather for wales and the south west later on, but look at the temperatures. northern ireland, most of england and wales seeing temperatures into double figures and reaching highs of 13. but still relatively cool across the far north of england and across much of scotland. now through thursday night, our weather front stops moving northwards, and itjust weakens really in situ over scotland. so, there will be a lot of cloud here, still bits and pieces of light rain, some drizzle, some mist and fog patches over the hills as well. and heading into christmas eve, there's probably also going to be some mist and fog across parts of england and wales, so we could have poor visibility for a time. through christmas eve, then, we've got another band of rain that's going to be moving into northern ireland, across wales and south west england. it does become a little bit drier for northernmost areas of scotland, but we've got some showers around and they're likely to be wintry showers into shetland. now, for christmas day itself, we've still got this temperature contrast that we've been talking about for a number of days. now, it looks like it's going to be sunny and cold across northern scotland, but i suspect there will be some wintry showers affecting eastern areas. so, that is a mixture of rain, some sleet and some snow. it's mild across the south west. you're just going to get rain and temperature into double figures, but in between, there's a small chance that we could see a few flurries over the high ground of northern england and perhaps the southern uplands scotland. but that's more of a perhaps. beyond that, into boxing day, many of us will keep the mild weather conditions, but still relatively cool air loitering in scotland. that's your weather. hello, you are watching bbc news. the headlines... daily covid—19 cases in the uk exceed 100,000 for the first time as the omicron variant continues to spread. it's the highest daily reported numbers since mass testing began in may and june of last year. the wave of omicron appears to be milder according to pre—studies published by the uk and south africa. suggesting fewer hospital treatments than with other variants. the head of the who has warned other leaders that no country can boost its weight of the pandemic and they should divert supplies to countries where vaccine is in short supply. more than 30 million people in this chinese city have been ordered to stay at home as authorities attempt to tackle a covid outbreak there. those are the headlines.