Observers say the Sputnik V jab is aimed more at sowing political division than fighting coronavirus

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Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine has yet to win EU regulatory approval and is likely to play little part in the bloc’s rollout, but it has already achieved what some observers say is one of its objectives – sowing division among, and within, member states.

“Sputnik V has become a tool of soft power for Russia,” said Michal Baranowski, a fellow with a US thinktank, the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “It’s planted its flag on the vaccine and the political goal of its strategy is to divide the west.”

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A man stumbled on ancient jewellery while surveying a forest for his orienteering club.

The KGB’s successor agency has charge the opposition leader's lawyer with revealing details in a secret case to ban his organizations.

Activist, musician, visual artist – the performer is always breaking down boundaries. His collab-heavy new album is potent, tender and all about togetherness

Indian Yard may have been recorded in such far-flung locations as New York, Texas, Seattle and Lake Como in Italy – but right now the album’s creator, Nicholas Galanin, is home in Sitka, Alaska, with his feet up. Sort of. “We spend a great deal of time outdoors, hunting and fishing,” says the softly spoken Galanin, who is married to the artist Merritt Johnson, with whom he has six kids.

Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips

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As the sixth series of Jed Mercurio’s explosive thriller reaches its climax, have we have been looking for the mysterious fourth man in the wrong place?

The front page of the Sun on 27 April had the headline “Lying of Duty” stamped across a mocked-up case file from AC-12, the police anti-corruption unit featured in BBC One’s Line of Duty. The conceit is that Adrian Dunbar’s Ch Supt Ted Hastings, scourge of “bent coppers” in the show, should investigate multiple allegations of impropriety against Boris Johnson.

This joke escalates a metaphor introduced by Keir Starmer at prime minister’s questions on 14 April, when the Labour leader suggested Hastings could be hired to look at David Cameron’s lobbying of Johnson’s government on behalf of the finance company Greensill.

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Several internet personalities will be on the ballot on 6 May, though most know they have no chance of winning

Niko Omilana will not be elected mayor of London next week. But the 23-year-old YouTuber prankster and mayoral candidate, who is polling just behind the Lib Dems and the Greens, is still likely to emerge from the contest as a winner.

“Content is his priority,” said Omilana’s manager, Grace O’Reilly, who happily accepts her client has no chance of beating Labour’s Sadiq Khan. “In terms of the cost of his campaign, it’s an investment for him. There’s no profits to be made off the back of it but with the marketing there’ll be a lot more brands interested in Niko Omilana.”

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Thousands sign petition calling for rethink as work on €9.38m museum about comic strip is given go-ahead

A spat over the wisdom of spending millions of euros of public money on a museum about a popular newspaper comic strip featuring an obese anthropomorphic cat is dividing opinion within Belgium’s artistic community.

The decision by the Brussels-Capital Region to give building approval for the Musée du Chat on Rue Royale, the location of some of the country’s most respected cultural institutions, has prompted what artists Denis De Rudder and Sandrine Morgante have described as “feelings of incomprehension and concern, even consternation and revolt” in a letter and petition addressed to Rudi Vervoort, minister-president of the Brussels-Capital Region.

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Assistant chief constable pays tribute to Julia James who was killed while walking her dog

A senior police officer has said people in the area where a community support officer was found dead should be “cautious”, but stopped short of advising women not to go out at night, as police said she had died as a result of serious head injuries.

Julia James was last seen walking her dog in the quiet hamlet of Snowdown, near Dover in Kent, on Tuesday.

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Report was condemned for claiming ‘slave period’ was not just about ‘profit and suffering’

The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities has amended a controversial line on the slave trade in the race report this week after widespread criticism.

The report, published in March, was condemned after it claimed there was a new story to be told about the “slave period”, which was not just about “profit and suffering”.

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Activity in the bloc has been hit by a renewed surge in infections this year and Covid-related restrictions.

The looks have been chic and sleek this series, but has it compromised the show’s hard-earned realism?

Line of Duty has had many of us yearning to be back to work, if only to flaunt our work wardrobe again. This season of BBC One’s gripping crime thriller has, more than previous ones, felt sleek and chic. The outfits of Vicky McClure’s Kate Fleming and Kelly Macdonald’s Jo Davidson have, with their cream polo necks, cross-body bags and slim-fit suit jackets, seemed cool and visible, unlike in previous seasons. “Kate actually wore A.P.C this season; her trenchcoat and bomber jacket were from that label,” said Maggie Donnelly, who has worked on the costumes for the show since season 2. “This season, the 2019-20 winter range of ME+EM worked well for both characters,” she added, “as did Maje and Jigsaw.”

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As bodies pile up at the Ghazipur crematorium, staff and relatives turn their ire on the Modi government

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The bodies came, one after another, after another, after another. So many bodies that the ambulances and trucks carrying them into the crematorium blocked traffic.

In Delhi, a city where someone dies from Covid-19 every four minutes, every day is a battle not just for hospital beds but for a space to say goodbye to the dead with dignity.

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The number of new COVID-19 cases in India has hit another record. Now the State Department is urging Americans to leave.

Tony Archer practised male bonding over his train set, while Alice has walked out on husband and baby, hopefully to dry out

There have been times these past weeks when The Archers has been almost too traumatic to hear. I refer, of course, to the upsetting scenes in which Tony Archer, Ambridge’s dreariest man, practised male bonding over his model railway with Helen’s boyfriend, Lee, causing the latter to confess to a weakness for superhero figurines.

Why were these distressing dialogues included in a family soap? Did the BBC, mindful of its status as the provider of a universal broadcasting service, panic that the model-railway and superhero-figurine-owning minority was underserved? Surely not. The only possible explanation is metatheatrical: the scriptwriters were drawing our attention to their own roles as “Tony” and “Lee”, cruel deities who take delight in manipulating their perfect miniature world, one moment lovingly repositioning its signal boxes and teeny-tiny trees, the next, smiting its heroes and derailing its trains. As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.

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American adventurer Garrett Fisher flies in a ramshackle antique plane, dangling his camera out of the window to capture the beauty of glaciers before they disappear

Satellite images and the latest scientific studies may accurately inform us how quickly the world’s glaciers are melting. But Garrett Fisher’s mission is different: to reveal the “souls” of vanishing glaciers.

This, the American adventurer believes, is best achieved by flying solo over each glacier in a ramshackle antique plane and dangling his camera out of the window to capture their varied forms, textures and beauty – before they disappear forever.

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Adnan Abidi via Reuters

More than 350 scientists in India have signed a petition begging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to publicly release crucial COVID-19 data in a desperate attempt to mitigate the spread and predict the next surge.

Some fear that Modi’s desire to keep such vital information on variants, tests carried out, recovered patients and vaccine efficacy secret suggests that the 18.7 million cases reported and 208,330 deaths might be a radical understatement of the scale of the problem.

India logged an astonishing 386,452 new cases Friday as new appeals for more space and firewood for cremations compounded the lack of hospital beds and oxygen.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

The BBC outlines why it cannot join the social media boycott but pledges to continue to work hard to tackle abuse and expose and challenge racism.

Robb family had written to Robert Jenrick asking for help with repairs to flat in Manchester tower block

Ministers have urged a family facing a devastating bill as part of the building safety crisis to contact the Samaritans if they want help with “feelings of distress or despair”.

In a move that sparked “disbelief” in the leaseholder involved, Jamie Robb, the response from an aide to the housing secretary, Robert Jenrick, to a plea for help with fire remediation works included the phone number for the suicide prevention service. It recommended its “free, anonymous, confidential and non-judgemental support”.

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Analysis: Boris Johnson’s fiancee has no official role, but has helped shape the personnel and vision of the PM’s office

“She’s buying gold wallpaper,” Boris Johnson is said to have told panicked aides last February of his fiancee Carrie Symonds’ interior decorating plans for their No 11 flat. The costs far exceeded the £30,000 allowance for prime ministers, and apparent attempts last year to cover them by other means – Conservative party funds, a charitable trust and Tory donors – seem to have failed.

As well as Dominic Cummings’ diatribe over the “unethical, foolish and possibly illegal” refurbishment spending saga, Helen MacNamara, the Cabinet Office’s director general of propriety and ethics, was also reported to be strongly opposed.

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Norman Fowler, health secretary under Thatcher, says ‘let’s have an inquiry and let’s do it now’

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The Lord Speaker, Norman Fowler, has said a public inquiry into how the Covid pandemic was handled by the government should be set up “as soon as possible” and should not be delayed.

Lord Fowler, who was a cabinet minister under Margaret Thatcher for 11 years and is a former Conservative party chair, said: “I would support those saying we need an inquiry into … whether there was a delay in lockdown because if there was we need to know why.”

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