The NHS has issued an urgent vaccination warning as a ‘superflu’ sweeps across Britain with hospitalisations in London tripling and schools across the nation shutting. 

The health service said it is ‘bracing for an unprecedented flu wave this winter’ with thrice as many Londoners being hospitalised in comparison to last year.

Last week there was a daily average of 259 in beds across the capital city due to the flu – a stark contrast to a daily average of 89 last year. 

Meanwhile, there were 16,500 ambulance handovers with a daily average of 2,363 another ‘significantly’ higher figure when compared to 2024 statistics. 

The NHS has warned Londoners to get their flu jab as ‘a matter of urgency’, adding that with only a couple weeks left before Christmas, ‘now is the time to act’. 

It comes as schools are closing amid escalating flu outbreaks that are seeing hundreds of pupils off sick at a time. 

School staff have compared the situation to ‘being back in Covid times’, with some headteachers reducing singing in assemblies to cut the spread of illness.

Elsewhere, medical leaders have pleaded with junior doctors to ‘end their painful’ strikes amid safety fears as it could clash with the worst outbreak in decades.

St Martin’s School in Caerphilly, Wales, has closed after more than 250 pupils and staff fell ill

Meanwhile, London Ambulance Service has been working closely with partners in the capital since the summer to plan for a city-wide approach to a flu outbreak. 

Dr. Chris Streather, Chief Medical Director for the NHS in London, said: ‘The NHS has prepared earlier for winter than ever before, but despite this, we know that surging flu cases, coinciding with industrial action by resident doctors, will put pressure on services in the coming weeks.

‘While we’ve vaccinated over 1.8 million people this season, there are still vulnerable people who haven’t come forward. 

‘If you’re in one of the eligible groups and you haven’t had your flu vaccine yet, I urge you to come forward as soon as possible – it’s never too late.’

Dr. Fenella Wrigley, Chief Medical Officer for the London Ambulance Service, added: ‘I strongly urge all eligible people to get a flu vaccination. 

‘We are extremely busy and our 999 control rooms are taking a number of calls from people with flu or similar viral illnesses.

‘Flu can make you feel very unwell, but most healthy people recover with rest, fluids and products available at your pharmacy to manage symptoms. 

‘We need our clinicians to be available to help the people who are more seriously unwell with flu or other conditions.’

Elsewhere, the Academy of  Medical Royal Colleges has made the uncommon decision to attempt to de-escalate the row between the government and the British Medical Association (BMA).

And in doing so, the academy issued a stark warning of the ‘particularly virulent flu’ gripping the country as the outbreak could potentially be at its peak during strikes. 

The resident doctors were set to take to the picket lines between December 17 to December 22 – a move lambasted by Wes Street as a ‘cynical’ bid to ruin Christmas.

The ACMRC urged junior doctors to ‘abandon guidance’ to not inform their employers if they were striking. 

It stated this would allow NHS hospitals to find cover during the strikes and at the height of the flu outbreak. 

A statement, seen by The Times, explained staff would be working in a bid to get ‘patients home for Christmas’.

‘Second, and perhaps more significantly, there is considerable additional pressure being caused by a particularly virulent flu virus taking hold,’ it added.

‘Today, there are ten times more patients in hospital beds with flu than there were at the same time two years ago.

‘If managers were told which resident doctors are intending to take action, it would at least allow them to plan safely for emergency cover and perhaps consolidate resources on a regional basis.’

The BMA has told doctors to do the opposite as they say following the academy’s advice would ‘undermine’ their industrial action. 

Meanwhile, NHS chief executive Sir Jim Mackey has branded the union’s action in the run-up to Christmas as ‘cruel and calculated to cause mayhem’.

The NHS boss believes, by the end of this week, there will be anywhere from 5,000 to 8,000 people hospitalised by the flu – figures that exceed peaks in previous years. 

Junior doctors took industrial action with demands of a 26 percent pay rise in addition to the wage increase of 28.9 percent they were given in the last two years. 

While ministers have said they will not move on pay, the Secretary of Health did offer to cover training costs as well as an additional 2,000 jobs.  

But, the BMA rejected the proposal in just four hours without consulting their wider membership. 

A BMA spokesperson said: ‘As the Academy recognises, there is no legal obligation for resident doctors to inform their employers whether they are planning to strike. 

‘This is an important safeguard to ensure doctors exercising their legal right to take part in industrial action are not discriminated against or singled out for negative treatment by employers. 

‘In previous rounds of action we saw NHS England saying that striking doctors should face “consequences'” – illustrating exactly why doctors would not want to have to tell their employers.

‘We’ve given employers adequate notice to plan for next week’s strikes, assuming that no resident doctors will be in work, so they can plan appropriately.’

The Daily Mail has approached the BMA and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges for comment.

Amid the ‘superflu’ outbreak University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust declared a ‘critical incident’.

Royal Stoke Hospital and Stafford County Hospital face ‘extremely high demand’. Patients were urged to use A&E only for life-threatening conditions.

NHS Ayrshire and Arran has cancelled ‘routine visiting’ across all its hospitals amid ‘significant pressure’ due to a ‘sharp rise in viral respiratory infections, including flu’. 

NHS chiefs also warned that London was in the grip of an unprecedented and escalating flu wave with already cases at a record high and ‘no peak yet in sight’. 

One of the worst-hit schools has been St Martin’s in Caerphilly, South Wales, where a temporary closure has been imposed after more than 250 pupils and staff fell ill.

The secondary school’s headteacher Lee Jarvis told parents and carers about a ‘significant outbreak of flu-like illness’, saying there would be a ‘firebreak’ period.

During this time there will be a deep clean of the school, with online learning in place after 242 pupils and 12 members of staff were reported absent from St Martin’s.

Their symptoms including vomiting, diarrhoea, high temperatures, cough, headaches, fatigue and ‘general flu-like effects’ – with an average recovery time of seven days.

The school closed last Friday and is aiming to reopen tomorrow, but parents were urged to keep their children at home if they show any symptoms ‘even if mild’.

Public Health Wales confirmed it had been in contact with St Martin’s and understood ‘the school has done a risk assessment and decided to shut down temporarily’.

Elsewhere, Congleton High School in Cheshire shut for three days a fortnight ago after high numbers of pupils suffered flu-like symptoms. 

Headteacher Heidi Thurland said the closure from November 26 to 28 was to carry out a deep clean, with teaching continuing on the Arbor remote learning platform.

Simon Kidwell, headteacher of Hartford Manor Primary School and Nursery in Nantwich, Cheshire, told BBC Breakfast this morning: ‘The winter bugs spread really easily in schools.

‘We do know that we can do things to make sure that it’s safer in schools. But we’ve seen schools close to us in Cheshire close for three days, so it has been a real challenge this year.’ 

Late last month, Danesfield Middle School in Williton, Somerset, closed due to a norovirus outbreak among its pupils and staff.

The school said the closure aimed to ‘prevent further spread of the virus’, and so it could ‘carry out a deep clean and break the chain of infection’.

Meanwhile a primary school in Leeds has reduced singing in assemblies to cut the spread of flu, after one in six children were off or sent home last week.

Wigton Moor Primary School headteacher Elaine Bown said it was the ‘worst year’ for sickness since she started nearly 14 years ago. 

She said 70 children were off sick or sent home from Wigton Moor last Monday with high temperatures or coughs – and one class saw almost every pupil off on one day. 

Ms Bown told BBC Yorkshire: ‘We’ve had assemblies, but we’ve not sung in assemblies because again, we know that that’s something that spreads it quite a lot.

‘We are rehearsing for nativities at the moment and Christmas performances and we know from Covid that singing in schools is one of the worst spreaders.

‘But we are also trying hard not to cancel Christmas, we do not want to do that, so we are trying to make it as non-infectious as we can manage.’

Meanwhile the principal of a school in County Londonderry said it is like ‘being back in Covid times’ after 170 pupils were off sick on one day.

Brian Guthrie of Ebrington Primary School said some children even had to go to hospital, telling BBC News NI: ‘It’s not just been flu, it’s been stomach bugs, very sore throats and illnesses in other ways as well.

‘But over the course of last week, it was very, very challenging with the number of pupils and staff off.

‘It took me back to 2020, to be quite honest, the attendance was actually worse last week than it would have been at any of the worst points, if you like, back in Covid times so, yeah, it was a bit of a shock.’

In Scotland, East Lothian Council said its pupil sickness absence rate in the last week of November was 8.1 per cent of the school population, compared to 5.3 per cent in the same week last year.

Simon Clarke, associate professor in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, told the Daily Mail: ‘I think any requests to wear masks should be looked upon as an extension of the old “catch it, bin it, kill it” advice for flu, which was commonly issued every winter before anyone had ever heard of Covid-19.

‘Wearing masks won’t do any harm, but anyone who is ill with flu is unlikely to be able to get out of bed, let alone mix with people outside the home.

‘We’ve known for many years that children are an engine of spread for flu, and the recent data do show increasing cases of infection in educational settings.

‘However, I think the problem most likely to arise is staff getting ill. If there are not enough teachers able to come to work, a school cannot operate safely.

‘Ultimately, we have a vaccine against flu and we have a degree of population-wide immunity which will blunt the severity; we did not have a vaccine to use against Covid, so we have weapons at our disposal to tackle this.

‘People should get their vaccine, especially if they’re entitled to it free on the NHS – just because someone may have had a vaccine last year, does not mean they are covered this year.’

Meanwhile about 100 passengers and crew members on a cruise ship have fallen ill from a potentially deadly sickness bug during a 133-day world trip.

Some on board the Aida Cruises voyage which left Hamburg on November 10 have suffered symptoms including vomiting and diarrhoea.

Passengers began displaying symptoms of norovirus after stops in Boston, New York and Miami, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

At least 95 of the 2,007 passengers and six of the 640 crew members ‘reported being ill during the voyage’, with staff isolating infected passengers after the outbreak.

It comes as the NHS faces a ‘historic crisis’ this winter amid looming strikes and record numbers of people in hospital with flu – with experts now urging Britons to wear face masks.

A troublesome mutant strain of the flu hitting the UK is believed to be more infectious and leading to more severe illness and hospital admissions than last year – while also leaving people vulnerable to other catching other seasonal viruses at the same time.

A ‘drifted’ influenza A(H3N2) strain, also now known as ‘subclade K’ or ‘super flu’, is dominating cases and health leaders have warned the flu season started ‘unusually early’ this year – while virology experts are leading growing calls for mask wearing.

Officials believe surging flu rates are being largely driven by a spike among children at school aged five to 14, with H3N2 accounting for the vast majority of cases. There are now ten times as many patients in hospital compared with the same time in 2023. 

Concerns are mounting at the NHS amid a record number of people in hospital with flu in England for the time of year and fears of an ‘unprecedented wave’ of infections.

NHS England chief executive Sir Jim Mackey has warned the country could face its worst flu season on record, after Australia suffered the same earlier this year – and believes the NHS faces pressures that ‘in a lot of ways will be like the Covid period’.

Professor Nicola Lewis, World Influenza Centre director at the Francis Crick Institute, said: ‘We haven’t seen a virus like this for a while, these dynamics are unusual. H3 is always a hotter virus, it’s a nastier virus, it’s more impactful on the population.’

Amid the so-called ‘flunami’, the UK Health Security Agency said masks ‘continue to be a useful tool in limiting the spread respiratory viruses in some situations’.

Officials reissued guidance saying anyone feeling ill should wear a mask because it can reduce the number of particles with viruses released from the mouth and nose.

They also said masks can protect the person wearing them from becoming infected with other respiratory viruses such as Covid-19 or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

Mandatory mask rules have been imposed over recent weeks in parts of hospitals in London, Lincolnshire, Shropshire and Oxfordshire amid alarm at infection numbers.

Last Thursday, an NHS England board meeting was told by chief executive Sir Jim Mackey that by the end of this week there could be between 5,000 and 8,000 beds occupied by flu patients. That could exceed the highest number on record, 5,400.

Some 1,717 flu patients were in beds each day last week, more than 50 per cent higher than last year. But an average of 259 patients were in a London hospital bed each day last week with flu – three times the average of 89 this time last year.

Those who wish to be vaccinated can find a walk-in appointment by using the NHS walk-in finder.  

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Mum-of-two Cherie Townsend was found to have stabbed 66-year-old Susan Leeds to death more than seven years after her phone was recovered from the grisly scene in California

Cherie Townsend was found guilty of killing 66-year-old retired nurse Susan Leeds(Image: MediaNews Group via Getty Images)

A mum-of-two stabbed a retired nurse to death so she could score the money she needed to send her daughter to cheerleading camp, a court has found.

Cherie Townsend, 47, killed 66-year-old Susan Leeds on May 3, 2018, after descending on her in the parking structure of a shopping mall in Rolling Hills Estates, California. Townsend plunged the knife into her victim 17 times in what has been described as a “brutal” attack following an attempted robbery.

Townsend has now been convicted following a mammoth seven-year legal battle, with the mum having initially claimed she was innocent and being unfairly targeted by law enforcement.

READ MORE: Moment knifeman pretends to be victim after stabbing woman eight times in her homeREAD MORE: Putin sends man who ‘skinned wife over soup’ to frontline as killer dodges trialJurors found that Townsend had personally wielded a knife in Leeds’ killing(Image: MediaNews Group via Getty Images)

The mum was arrested for the first time following the killing in May 2018 after her phone was found at the scene, but was released six days later after prosecutors requested additional evidence from investigators. As the investigation unfolded, Townsend suded the Los Angeles county Sheriff’s Department, claiming in October 2018 that she had been subject to racial discrimination and intentional infliction of emotional distress while being falsely imprisoned and detained.

“I live my life in hiding, afraid that the police are going to come or that I’m gonna be unjustly targeted like I was before,” she said in an interview conducted at the time. She was rearrested five years later in August 2023 and charged with murder, resulting in her conviction on Thursday, December 4 for murder in the first degree.

Townsend had claimed she was at the shopping mall at the time of Ms Leeds’ death in aid of her son’s prom, but was unable to explain why her phone was found underneath the car where the dead former nurse was found stabbed to death. In a criminal complaint, it was stated that Townsend had at the time been looking for ways to put $2,000 (£1,501) together, and had said in a note on her phone that she was “completely broken” because she had been unable to come up with the cash.

At one point during the long legal process, Leeds sued California sheriffs(Image: AFP via Getty Images)

Townsend has long maintained her innocence, claiming she had dropped her phone while at the mall, and her public defender noted during the trial that no direct evidence had linked her client to the killing, including fingerprints, DNA, witnesses or video footage. While Ms Leeds’ purse was missing, she was still wearing her jewelry, and there was no evidence someone had tried to use her cards, cash or cheques following her death.

However Jurors ultimately decided she had personally used a knife to end Ms Leeds’ life. Fred Leeds, Ms Leeds’ stepson, told local outlet KTLA that “so many lives were impacted by this murder”, adding his stepmother “lived a great life”.

Mr Leeds said: “She lived a great life… a kind human being that would have done anything for anyone, and to be so brutally murdered, there’s just no explanation for it. ” I want to first start out by thanking the police and sheriff’s department in the pursuit of this murder. She didn’t have to be murdered for her purse.”

Townsend, who faces more than 20 years behind bars, will be sentenced on January 23, 2026.

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The Israeli government has been accused of intimidation, harassment and a “blatant disregard” of its obligations by the United Nations after Israeli officials raided a UN building in Jerusalem.

Police officers, along with officials from the town council, entered the East Jerusalem compound of UNRWA, the UN agency that provides services to Palestinian refugees.

The compound has been empty since January, when the Israeli government ordered UNRWA to close the building, accusing the agency of being “infested” with members of Hamas.

The United Nations denied that accusation vehemently.

Read more: What were UNRWA workers in Gaza accused of?

Having gained entry to the compound, the officials filled vehicles with possessions, including office furniture, and raised an Israeli flag in place of the United Nations flag.

They claimed that the building had been raided because UNRWA owed around hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of local taxes.

However, under the UN charter, UN buildings are exempt from such taxes and are also considered “inviolable”, meaning that, rather than raiding the building, Israel has an obligation to protect it.

Since its staff were told to leave, there have been attempts to break into the compound, which has been secured by a team of guards employed by the UN.

Sky News has been told that, when the Israeli officials arrived on Monday morning, the security guards were detained in a room within the compound.

“We didn’t let them in when they first came to the compound, but they cut the chains and the locks and took control,” said George, the head of security, who was standing outside the front gate when we arrived.

“They told my guards to stay in one room, took their phones from them, and told them they couldn’t leave.”

‘The false accusations led to this’

UNRWA’s commissioner-general, Philippe Lazzarini, said the raid was “a blatant disregard of Israel’s obligation as a United Nations Member State to protect and respect the inviolability of UN premises”.

He said that failing to cooperate with UN agencies “represent a new challenge to international law, one that creates a dangerous precedent anywhere else the UN is present across the world”.

His anger was not isolated. Outside the gates of the UNRWA compound, we met Hakam Shahwam, who used to work here as UNRWA’s chief of staff. It was, he said, “a very sad day”.

Shahwam says the claims that UNRWA was a breeding ground for Hamas had led to the raid.

He told me: “The false accusations led to this. This is a shameful day, not only for the United Nations but also for the government of Israel.

“There must be a strong protest, and a response from the international community. This is unacceptable.”

Read more from Adam Parsons:
Gaza longs for normality, but quasi-anarchy reigns
Israeli forces kill two Palestinians after apparent surrender

‘It is time for UNRWA to be dismantled’

The Israeli government remains adamant that its criticism of UNRWA is justified.

When I asked Shosh Bedrosian, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, about the raid, she said: “UNRWA is a stain on the United Nations.”

She added: “It is time for UNRWA to be dismantled. It is not part of the solution for Gaza, it is part of the problem.”

She did not comment on the legality of the raid, or on Israel’s ongoing commitment to the UN Charter.

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Footage shows Thai civilians huddling in bunkers and Cambodian children fleeing classrooms after Thailand launched dawn airstrikes on Cambodian border forces on Monday. Both nations accuse the other of breaching a ceasefire brokered by Donald Trump. At least four Cambodian civilians were killed.

Published On 8 Dec 20258 Dec 2025

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David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance is not giving up in its aggressive campaign to acquire Warner Bros Discovery (WBD), launching a hostile bid for the entertainment company despite the announcement on Friday that Netflix had agreed to buy its studio and streaming operation.

Netflix’s bid for WBD’s storied Hollywood movie studio, as well as its premier HBO cable network, valued the company at $82.7bn. But it did not agree to acquire WBD’s traditional television assets, including the news network CNN and the Discovery channel.

Paramount’s all-cash tender offer sent directly to shareholders on Monday morning would be for the entire company, and puts a total enterprise value of $108.4bn on WBD, a major premium to its stock price.

In making its case to shareholders, Paramount claimed its acquisition of the company provides significantly better value for shareholders, and would be much likelier to survive regulatory scrutiny. WBD said it would “carefully review and consider” the bid, and advise its shareholders on how to respond within two weeks.

David Ellison and his father, the billionaire tech mogul Larry Ellison, whose family is financially backing the offer, are both friendly with the Trump administration, which had previously indicated that it supported a Paramount purchase of WBD. Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, had even had early conversations with a senior Trump aide about what changes he might want to see at CNN.

Donald Trump has praised recent changes at Paramount since its acquisition by the Ellisons, including the selection of the heterodox writer Bari Weiss as editor in chief of CBS News. Paramount is also bringing back the Rush Hour franchise for a fourth film, reportedly at the request of Trump.

Shortly before the Ellisons won regulatory approval for their takeover of Paramount, the firm agreed to pay $16m to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump, who had claimed a pre-election interview with the 2024 Democratic candidate for president, Kamala Harris, was falsely edited. Many legal experts had dismissed the lawsuit as “meritless” and unlikely to hold up under the first amendment.

A regulatory filing on Monday revealed that the Ellisons’ bid for WBD was backed by outside funders including Affinity Partners, an investment fund founded by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner; Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund; and the Qatar Investment Authority.

In a statement, David Ellison called the Netflix deal “an inferior proposal which exposes shareholders to a mix of cash and stock, an uncertain future trading value of the Global Networks linear cable business and a challenging regulatory approval process”.

“WBD shareholders deserve an opportunity to consider our superior all-cash offer for their shares in the entire company,” he said. “Our public offer, which is on the same terms we provided to the Warner Bros Discovery board of directors in private, provides superior value, and a more certain and quicker path to completion.”

Ellison’s Paramount Skydance had already made several offers that were rejected during the bidding process for WBD. The company said on Monday it was concerned that shareholders “were not presented [the] most compelling and superior transaction”.

Last week, attorneys for Paramount sent a letter to WBD suggesting the company was not fairly considering its offer. “It has become increasingly clear, through media reporting and otherwise, that WBD appears to have abandoned the semblance and reality of a fair transaction process, thereby abdicating its duties to stockholders, and embarked on a myopic process with a predetermined outcome that favors a single bidder,” they wrote.

Netflix’s proposed acquisition of the studio and streaming assets of WBD fleetingly provided some relief for some employees at CNN, who had been concerned about the prospects of a merger between the network and CBS News, now led by Weiss.

“I think this is the best outcome for CNN for sure,” a senior network producer told the Guardian after the Netflix acquisition was announced, describing a “palpable sense of relief” at the network. But, the person added, “there is still a hell of a lot of anxiety around the Discovery Global spin-off and what comes next”.

In a memo to CNN employees on Friday, the network’s CEO, Mark Thompson, framed the deal as a positive. “I’ve been asked by many of you what today’s news means for us,” he wrote. “And the answer is that it will enable us to continue to roll out our strategy to secure a great future for CNN by successfully navigating our digital transition.”

Some employees at CBS News had also feared a merger with CNN’s parent company, and that a tie-up could lead to significant job losses. “A merger with CNN is the one thing that would make me genuinely worried about losing my job,” one CBS News staffer said. (Paramount’s offer on Monday noted that the combination of television networks would “dramatically improve cash flow and increase efficiencies, leading to a division more capable of managing structural declines”.)

Paramount’s offer on Monday for WBD could re-ignite those concerns for employees at both networks. If the Netflix deal moves forward, however, CNN will be spun off – as planned – into a standalone company, encompassing WBD’s traditional television networks, from Cartoon Network to TLC.

On a conference call with analysts, David Ellison did not answer a question about whether he would be interested in acquiring the television group by itself if the greater Netflix deal goes through.

On Sunday evening, before Paramount tabled its hostile bid, Trump had said he would be personally involved in the review for the Netflix-WBD transaction, which he said would have implications for competition considering Netflix’s “big market share”. But he had kind words for Netflix’s co-chief executive Ted Sarandos, who visited the White House recently.

Several US politicians, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, and entertainment unions, however, had expressed strong reservations about the deal.

Because no television licenses would be transferred in a potential acquisition, the acquisition of WBD is very unlikely to be subject to the review of the Federal Communications Commission and its Trump-picked chair, Brendan Carr. But anti-trust concerns around any such deal would be reviewed by the Department of Justice.

“Paramount is highly confident in achieving expeditious regulatory clearance for its proposed offer,” the company said on Monday, “as it enhances competition and is pro-consumer, while creating a strong champion for creative talent and consumer choice.”

The Ellisons’ offer is set to expire at 5pm on 8 January, unless it is extended.

On the Monday call, David Ellison said the company’s offers for WBD had not received a response. “We’re here to fight for value – for our shareholders and for WBD shareholders,” he said. “This transaction is about building more, not cutting back … Our proposal is superior to Netflix’s in every dimension.”

While Trump has been very supportive of the Ellisons’ takeover of CBS News, he lashed out at the network and its new management on Monday morning for a 60 Minutes broadcast the night before, featuring the outgoing GOP House member Marjorie Taylor Greene, who told correspondent Lesley Stahl that many Republican legislators privately mocked Trump.

“My real problem with the show, however, wasn’t the low IQ traitor, it was that the new ownership of 60 Minutes, Paramount, would allow a show like this to air,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERSHIP, who just paid me millions of Dollars for FAKE REPORTING about your favorite President, ME! Since they bought it, 60 Minutes has actually gotten WORSE!”

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Watch: CCTV shows moment earthquake hits Japan

A major earthquake of magnitude 7.6 has hit Japan’s north-eastern region.

The quake occurred at 23:15 (14:15 GMT) at a depth of 50km (31 miles), about 80km off the coast of the Aomori region, the Japan Meteorological Agency said,

It prompted tsunami warnings which have now been downgraded to advisories, while waves of 40cm (16in) were seen in some places.

Local media reports that some people in the region have been injured, while trains have been suspended as a precaution.

Japan is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, with a tremor occurring at least every five minutes.

Orders were issued for about 90,000 residents to evacuate, according to Reuters news agency.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK quoted a hotel employee in Hachinohe as saying a number of people had been injured.

The government has set up a response office within the prime minister’s crisis management centre and convened an emergency team, chief cabinet secretary Minoru Kihara has said.

“We are making every effort to assess the damage and implement emergency disaster response measures, including rescue and relief operations,” he added.

AFP via Getty Images

Japanese TV broadcast mesages which said “Tsunami! Run!” and “Tsunami warning issued for central Hokkaido’s Pacific Coast”

No irregularities were reported at the Higashidori and Onagawa nuclear power plants as a result of the quake, Tohoku Electric Power said.

None were detected either at the disabled Fukushima nuclear power station site, the Japanese authorities told the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Fukushima was damaged when a magnitude 9.0 quake struck off the country’s eastern coast on 11 March 2011.

That quake, the most powerful ever recorded in Japan, triggered a tsunami which swept over the main island of Honshu, killing more than 18,000 people and wiping entire towns off the map.

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NEED TO KNOW

• Leona Lewis is in the midst of her Las Vegas residency, A Starry Night
• In this week’s issue of PEOPLE, Lewis opens up about her marriage to husband Dennis Jauch and their 3-year-old daughter Carmel
• Lewis recalls meeting Jauch when he was a dancer on her 2010 Labrynth Tour

Leona Lewis’ life is full of love.

The British singer-songwriter is currently in the midst of her 33-date A Starry Night residency at the Venetian Resort Las Vegas, for which she’s relocated to the Nevada city with husband Dennis Jauch and their 3-year-old daughter Carmel.

Taking the stage feels different for Lewis as a wife and mother, especially when she sings her chart-topping hit “Bleeding Love,” as its meaning has changed for her since its release in 2007. “To me it was about a romantic love,” she reflects to PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “When I sing it now, I think about [Carmel] and what she’s opened me up to and how deep that love goes.”

It’s a full-circle moment for performing to now make Lewis think about her family, as she met Jauch — who won the German TV series You Can Dance in 2007 — when he was a dancer on her 2010 Labyrinth Tour.

“I think we connected because we’d been through two very similar shows,” says Lewis, who won the U.K. version of The X Factor in 2006. “Plus, he saved me on stage.”

During a show on the Labrynth Tour, Jauch caught Lewis after she nearly fell into a hole on stage. “So I had to marry him,” she quips.

The pair tied the knot in July 2019, and their bond remains strong to this day. “You can have these little disagreements and arguments and things, but at the end of the day, we always say this to each other: ‘Remember we’re on the same team,’” says Lewis.

They welcomed Carmel three years after marrying, which dramatically changed her perspective on everything — not just her breakout hit. “I am a different woman to who I was before I had Coco,” she says. “Now I have to make sure this human is okay in the world and also hopefully making a positive impact.”

Dennis Jauch, Leona Lewis and Carmel Jauch.

Leona Lewis/Instagram

Carmel saw her first concert last year when Lewis took her to Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter tour, and she’s already looking to follow in her mom’s footsteps. “Last night she was like, ‘Mama, I’m going to come onstage with you,’” Lewis says. “I’m like, ‘Okay, what are you going to do—dance, sing?’ She’s like, ‘I want to do both.’”

Connecting with fans in Las Vegas has inspired Lewis to start working on a new album, her first since 2015’s I Am. But the pressure will be easier to navigate living under the same roof as her two biggest fans.

“No matter what’s going on, when you’re at your peak and everyone’s playing your song, and then when you’re just quiet and things are more still,” she says, “they are always the constant to me.”

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By PHILLIP NIETO, US POLITICAL REPORTER

Published: 12:43 EST, 8 December 2025 | Updated: 13:25 EST, 8 December 2025

A woman with family ties to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has been released on bond by a U.S. immigration from ICE detention center in Louisiana. 

The judge released Brazilian woman Bruna Ferreira, 33, on a $1,500 bond as she continues to argue her case against a potential deportation. 

Ferreira shares custody of an 11-year-old son with her former fiancé Michael Leavitt, the brother of Trump’s press secretary.

ICE agents arrested Ferreira on November 12 while she was on her way to pick up her son from school. She has been detained at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center for the last month.

The Daily Mail has reached out to Leavitt’s White House for comment. 

Immigration Judge Cynthia Goodman released Ferreira on the lowest possible bail amount on Monday. 

Ferreira’s attorney Jason Thomas told the judge that the government’s claims that his client is a ‘criminal illegal alien’ with a prior arrest for battery is ‘both unfair and untrue.’

Ferreira claimed in a recent interview with Washington Post that Karoline Leavitt was chosen to be the child’s godmother.  

Bruna Ferreira, seen here with her son Michael, has been left to languish inside an ICE Processing Center in Louisiana since her arrest

Ferreira said that she once saw White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt as a younger sister 

Bruna Ferreira was nabbed by officers on November 12 while attempting to leave her condo in Revere, Massachusetts

The attorney representing the Department of Homeland Security, Lucas Vega, did not argue against the judge releasing Ferreira from ICE detention on bond. 

The Trump administration typically has sought to limit bond for illegal immigrants in past cases. 

Vega agreed with her defense council that Ferreira is not a danger to society or a flight risk.

Ferreira’s attorneys argued she still shares custody of her son with Karoline’s brother, and often is in frequent contact with the Leavitt family.  

Ferreira has no prior criminal convictions and has been a longtime resident in Massachusetts.

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Karoline Leavitt’s family member is freed after ICE arrest

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DISTRESSING CONTENT Rafis Khuzin has been accused of killing and then attempting to dismember his own wife during a brutal attack in Berezovsky, near Yekaterinburg in Russia

Rafis Khuzin allegedly killed and tried to dismember his wife(Image: Social media/east2west news)

Vladimir Putin has sent a man alleged to have killed and skinned his own wife after she refused to cook him chicken soup to the Ukraine frontline instead of a murder trial in a desperate bid to beef up Russian ranks in Ukraine.

Rafis Khuzin, 56, will not face justice for his twisted alleged crimes due to Russian battlefield losses, with the accused murderer set to join troops on the frontlines. The pardon will mean he is exempt from facing a murder trial, with Russian laws rewarding prisoners and would-be convicts conscripted during the war effort.

Khuzin, however, was accused of the particularly gruesome murder of his own wife, Olga Blinova, 49, who he reportedly stabbed to death with a large kitchen knife, before attempting to skin her.

READ MORE: NATO deploys fighter jets as ‘unidentified aircraft’ enters alliance’s airspaceREAD MORE: ‘Unpredictable’ Donald Trump could walk away from Ukraine peace deal, warns sonKhuzin allegedly killed his wife when she refused to help him chop chicken(Image: Social media/east2west news)

According to local reports, after killing Blinova, Khuzin is alleged to have skinned the upper part of her corpse before stashing it in his garden shed. He is said to have waited five days before eventually reporting the killing to law enforcement in Berezovsky, near Yekaterinburg.

The news outlet Baza reported that he had descended on his wife after she refused to cut up pieces of chicken while making a soup. After stabbing her, the outlet added that he had then attempted to dismember her lifeless body, but was unable to do so.

Instead, he was only able to “remove the skin from the upper part of her body”, it was alleged. Police attending the scene were “shocked by what they found” despite having “seen plenty of horrifying scenes over the course of their careers”, a police spokesperson said.

Blinova was allegedly killed by Khuzin as he made chicken soup(Image: Social media/east2west news)

Police spokesman Valery Gorelykh said: “Even the detectives, who have seen plenty of horrifying scenes over the course of their careers, were shocked by what they found when they arrived first at the scene.”

Additional reports claimed Khuzin’s wife had expected him to make the chicken soup while she was out. Alexander Shulga, of the Russian Investigative Committee, said the conflict arose after the woman came home from work and “criticised him for not preparing dinner”.

He demanded that she cut the chicken and make the soup but she refused. A source close to the investigation said the alleged killer had quickly conscripted before the murder trial could begin.

Khuzin took up a conscription deal before his trial began(Image: Social media/east2west news)

They claimed: “He didn’t wait for the trial and signed a contract with the military.” He had already pleaded guilty to a crime which could have seen him jailed for 15 years, but due to Russian laws passed following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, he will not face trial or any prison time.

After serving in the war, he will be a free man. The Russian Investigative Committee in Sverdlovsk declined to comment.

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More than 100 people including 63 children were killed in attacks on a kindergarten and hospital in Sudan, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The attacks on 4 December began with repeated strikes on the kindergarten in South Kordofan state.

It continued even as parents and caretakers rushed to the wounded in a nearby hospital, WHO added.

It comes as Sudan‘s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said today it had taken control of the strategic Heglig oilfield in the South Kordofan province, two and a half years into the country’s civil war.

WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X: “Repeated strikes in Sudan’s South Kordofan state hit a kindergarten and, at least three times, the nearby Kalogi Rural Hospital, killing 114 people, including 63 children, and injuring 35 people, according to WHO’s Attacks on Health Care monitoring system.

“Survivors from the 4 December attacks have been moved to Abu Jebaiha, in South Kordofan, for treatment, and urgent calls are being made for blood donations and other medical support.

“Disturbingly, paramedics and responders came under attack as they tried to move the injured from the kindergarten to the hospital.”

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‘Horrifying’ war in Sudan continues

Heglig, lying along Sudan’s south border, houses the main processing facility for South Sudanese oil, which makes up much of the revenue for South Sudan’s government.

Government forces and workers at the oil field withdrew from the area on Sunday to avoid clashes that could have damaged oil facilities, government sources told the news agency Reuters.

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As oil is transported through the Greater Nile pipeline system to Port Sudan on the Red Sea for export, it makes the Heglig site essential for Sudan’s hard-currency earnings – and for South Sudan.

The WHO added that a massacre also occurred in October in the city of al-Fashir.

Sudan’s Foreign Ministry condemned the attacks, which it says were carried out by the Rapid Support Forces using drones.

The WHO said a total of 114 people, including 63 children, were killed in the attacks, with heavy weapons used. 35 were also wounded.

The toll combines casualties from the kindergarten strikes, the transfer of patients to the adjacent rural hospital and attacks at the facility itself.

The RSF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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