Samoa has lifted a six-week state of emergency, which was put in place amid a measles epidemic that killed 81 people and infected more than 5,600. Just 200,000 people live on the South Pacific island nation, and vaccination rates are far lower than in neighbouring countries.

Most of those killed in the outbreak were babies and young children. Infection rates slowed earlier this month after a vaccination drive pushed immunisation rates towards 95%. According to aid agencies, this is the level required in order to have “herd immunity” against the disease. Under the emergency orders put in place last month, schools were closed, travel and public gatherings were restricted, and red flags were placed outside the homes of people who hadn’t been vaccinated.(BBC)…[+]

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has thanked US counterpart Donald Trump for intelligence that helped foil “acts of terrorism” on Russian soil, according to a Kremlin statement. Mr Putin and Mr Trump spoke on the phone on Sunday, it said.

The Kremlin said the information came via intelligence services, but it provided no further details. Russian media is reporting the discovery of a plot to attack St Petersburg over the new year period. Tass news agency says two Russian nationals have been arrested and plans to attack a mass gathering were seized, according to a spokesperson from the FSB, the Russian intelligence agency. Mr Putin and Mr Trump have spoken on the phone and in person various times since the latter took office.(BBC)…[+]

Pope Francis has called for people to put away their mobile phones at the dinner table and get talking, citing Jesus, Mary and Joseph as examples. They “prayed, worked and communicated with each other”, the pope told a packed St Peter’s Square on Sunday.

“We have to get back to communicating in our families,” Pope Francis said in his unscripted remarks. The Pope is an avid user of social media and often allows himself to be snapped with pilgrims for selfies.  “I ask myself if you, in your family, know how to communicate or are you like those kids at meal tables where everyone is chatting on their mobile phone … where there is silence like at a Mass but they don’t communicate,” the Pope said.

“Fathers, parents, children, grandparents, brothers and sisters, this is a task to undertake today, on the day of the Holy Family,” he added. This is not the first time the Pope – who boasts more than 18 million Twitter followers – has chided his followers for spending too much time glued to their devices, especially during Mass.

“At a certain point the priest leading the ceremony says ‘lift up our hearts’. He doesn’t say ‘lift up our mobile phones to take photographs’ – it’s a very ugly thing,” he said in 2017.(BBC)…[+]

Austrian mountain rescuers have dubbed the survival of a man in his twenties a “Christmas miracle” after an avalanche buried him in snow for five hours. Police were contacted shortly before 17:00 local time (16:00 GMT) on Christmas Day by a man who said the 26-year-old had not returned from skiing. The man had managed to get through to the skier’s mobile phone but heard only “crackling noises” on the line.

The missing skier was located some two hours later. Rescuers traced him beneath a metre of snow on his electronic avalanche victim transceiver, which pinpointed the man on a slope on Mt Pleschnitzzinken in the north-western area of Upper Styria.

Transceivers are worn on the body and emit an electromagnetic signal. They can also be used in search mode to pick up signals from other devices.(BBC)…[+]

More than 235,000 people have fled from their homes in Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province, the UN says, as government forces step up their offensive on the area. The exodus happened between 12 and 25 December as fighting intensified.

Idlib in north-western Syria is the last major region held by rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad. The Russian-backed Syrian government has been bombarding Idlib since late November. An increase in air strikes and ground fighting since mid-December has accelerated civilian displacement from the area, UN humanitarian agency Ocha said in a report. Tens of thousands of families – including some already displaced numerous times during the civil war – have been heading north in trucks and private cars.

The government offensive had left the city of Maarat al-Numan and the nearby region in southern Idlib “almost empty”, Ocha said. Most of the displaced civilians are moving to cities and refugee camps in northern areas of Idlib and neighbouring Aleppo province.(BBC)…[+]

Astronomers are warning that their view of the Universe could be under threat. From next week, a campaign to launch thousands of new satellites will begin in earnest, offering high-speed internet access from space. But the first fleets of these spacecraft, which have already been sent into orbit by US company SpaceX, are affecting images of the night sky.

They are appearing as bright white streaks, so dazzling that they are competing with the stars. Scientists are worried that future “mega-constellations” of satellites could obscure images from optical telescopes and interfere with radio astronomy observations. Dr Dave Clements, an astrophysicist from Imperial College London, told BBC News: “The night sky is a commons – and what we have here is a tragedy of the commons.” The companies involved said they were working with astronomers to minimise the impact of the satellites.(BBC)…[+]

Police in Kentucky are hunting whoever is responsible for killing 20 horses in an “inhumane and cruel” act that created a “battlefield for horses”. The Dumas Rescue group said some of the horses were pregnant mares, others foals including a one-year-old. It is offering a $20,000 (£15,460) reward.

The herd of about 35 horses roams over a wide area of eastern Kentucky, making the search for survivors difficult. The horses had been shot with a low-calibre weapon, police said. The bodies have been found spread out across the site, an open-cast mining area, and Dumas Rescue is covering about 4,000 acres (1,620 hectares) a day.

Killings were first reported on 16 December, with the latest six dead animals found on Sunday. The culprit could face animal cruelty charges at a minimum, according to Floyd County Sheriff John Hunt. He told WYMT: “This is very inhumane and it’s a very cruel act of somebody who just apparently had nothing else to do.”

According to the sheriff, one of the horses still had grass in its mouth when it was shot dead. Mr Hunt said that this was one of the worst cases of animal cruelty he had ever seen.(BBC)…[+]

New Zealand police are calling off the search for two bodies still missing after the White Island eruption. The volcanic eruption earlier this month killed 19 people, including two people who were never found.

It’s thought the bodies of Winona Jane Langford, 17, and Hayden Bryan Marshall-Inman, 40, are in the water off the island. Police said their decision “follows extensive shoreline and substantial aerial searches”. But despite those searches, “no further items of significance have been located”. “The families of the two missing people have been informed of this decision,” said Superintendent Andy McGregor. “Police remain ready to respond if new information comes to light.”

The eruption on White Island – a popular tourist destination – happened on 9 December. There were 47 people on the island, with 24 from Australia, nine from the US, five from New Zealand, four from Germany, two from China, two from the UK, and one from Malaysia.

Last week, police released the names of 17 victims – all of them from Australia, New Zealand, or the US. They said Mr Marshall-Inman, a local tour guide, and Ms Langford, who was visiting the island with her family from Sydney, were missing but presumed dead. The eruption killed Ms Langford’s parents, Anthony and Kristine, but her brother, Jesse, survived.(BBC)…[+]

The Duke of Edinburgh has returned to Sandringham in time for Christmas after four nights in hospital. Prince Philip, 98, was taken to the King Edward VII’s Hospital in London on Friday on the advice of his doctor. Buckingham Palace said the duke had returned to the Queen’s Sandringham Estate in Norfolk on Tuesday and thanked people for “their good wishes”.

It comes after the revelation the Queen will use her Christmas Day message to acknowledge 2019 has been “bumpy”. The monarch herself travelled to Sandringham on Friday. The palace, meanwhile, said the duke’s hospital admission had been a “precautionary measure”. Prince Philip retired from public life in August 2017 after decades supporting the Queen and attending events for his own charities and organisations. His last public appearance was Lady Gabriella Windsor’s wedding in May.(BBC)…[+]

President Vladimir Putin has heralded the opening of a railway bridge to the Russian-annexed Crimea peninsula by posing in the driver’s cab and praising construction workers. But opening of the railway was immediately condemned by the European Union as “another violation” by Russia of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territory.

Russia’s 19km (12-mile) bridge to Crimea first opened in May last year. President Putin marked that occasion by driving a lorry over it. On Monday he asserted that millions of cars had already crossed the bridge and said the rail link “was a big deal as well”, with plans to carry 14 million passengers and 13 million tonnes of freight in 2020.

Until the bridge was built, Russia had to rely on sea and air to supply the peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in February 2014 before annexing it through a referendum rejected by the United Nations as invalid. The $3.6bn (£2.8bn; €3.2bn) bridge was built by a close friend of the president, Arkady Rotenberg. Mr Rotenberg and several of his companies had EU and US sanctions imposed on them. (bbc)…[+]