A black physician in Indianapolis has died with Covid-19 weeks after she accused a doctor of denying her proper medical care because of her race.

In a video from her bed at Indiana University Hospital North, Susan Moore said she had to “beg” for treatment.

Offering its condolences, the hospital said it took accusations of discrimination very seriously but could not comment on specific patients.

Black people are at greater risk from Covid than white people, studies show.

Dr Moore, 52, passed away at another local hospital on Sunday.

In her 4 December post on Facebook, she described how her pain had been downplayed by the doctor, whom she said was white, though she had been crying and having difficulty breathing.

“He did not even listen to my lungs, he didn’t touch me in any way. He performed no physical exam. I told him you cannot tell me how I feel,” she wrote.

A statement from the hospital said “as an organisation committed to equity and reducing racial disparities in healthcare, we take accusations of discrimination very seriously and investigate every allegation”.

“We stand by the commitment and expertise of our caregivers and the quality of care delivered to our patients every day,” it added.

Dr Moore is survived by her 19-year-old son, Henry, and her parents, who suffer from dementia, according to a GoFundMe page set up to help cover the family’s expenses. The page has already raised more than $102,000 (£75,000).

Dr Moore tested positive for Covid-19 on 29 November and was admitted with a high fever while she coughed up blood and struggled to breathe. But even as a physician herself, she said she had struggled with getting care.

Dr Moore said she had had to plead for antiviral Remdesivir doses and request a scan of her chest. The doctor at one point reportedly told her she did not qualify for the drug and that she should go home.

“He made me feel like I was a drug addict,” Dr Moore said in a Facebook video. “And he knew I was a physician. I don’t take narcotics. I was hurting.”

Dr Moore wrote she had requested a medical advocate and had asked to be transferred elsewhere. She was eventually discharged but had to return hours later after experiencing a drop in blood pressure and fever.

“This is how black people get killed,” Dr Moore said. “When you send them home and they don’t know how to fight for themselves.”

Her post later included an update saying the hospital’s chief medical officer had said staff would receive diversity training. But a promise for an apology from the doctor she accused of discrimination fell through.

“I put forward and I maintain, if I was white, I wouldn’t have to go through that,” she said.

Dr Moore’s experience and death has sparked an outcry over US healthcare disparities faced by black Americans.

The virus has disproportionately affected black and other minority communities in the US. Black Americans are three times more likely to die from the virus than white Americans.

An analysis by the Brookings Institution reported “in every age category, black people are dying from Covid at roughly the same rate as white people more than a decade older

The Queen will reflect on the hardships of the pandemic as she spends the Christmas at Windsor Castle.

They will celebrate Christmas at Windsor Castle and not Sandringham, as is their usual tradition.

The Royal Family usually spends the day together, but will not visit each other this year because of restrictions.

The Queen will also forgo her usual church service and worship privately to avoid crowds, it is understood.

Her Christmas Day speech will be broadcast at 15:00 GMT.

The Queen, 94, and Prince Philip, 99, have been living at Windsor Castle during the pandemic with a small household staff.

It is thought to be the first time the couple have not spent Christmas at their Sandringham home since the mid-1980s

At least 20 migrants have died after their boat capsized in the Mediterranean off the coast of Tunisia, officials say.

Tunisian coastguard boats retrieved the bodies off the coastal city of Sfax in central Tunisia on Thursday.

A search is continuing for at least 20 more people who are still missing.

Five survivors were rescued. The boat, with an estimated 45 people on board said to be from sub-Saharan Africa, was attempting to reach Italy.

Overloaded and in poor condition, the vessel faced strong winds that may have contributed to the sinking, National Guard spokesman Ali Ayari told the Associated Press.

Thousands of migrants attempt to cross the Mediterranean to Europe every year, with parts of Tunisia and Libya key departure points.

Many of the migrants are from sub-Saharan African countries fleeing economic hardship and crisis at home.

The number of migrant journeys from Tunisia has declined since 2011, when a revolution overthrew the country’s former leader Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

But illegal crossings from Tunisia to Europe increased by more than 150% in the first four months of the year, compared with the same period in 2019, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

Tunisia’s interior ministry said 8,581 migrants were intercepted attempting to cross the Mediterranean between January and mid-September this year.

Italy has been struggling to deal with daily arrivals of hundreds of migrants to its southern shores, a task complicated by the ongoing coronavirus crisis.

The Neverland ranch of the late pop star Michael Jackson has reportedly been sold to a billionaire investor for a quarter of its initial asking price.

Ron Burkle, a former friend of Jackson, recently bought the estate in Los Olivos, California, his spokesman said.

He paid $22m (£16.2m) for Neverland, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing public records and three people familiar with the deal.

The 2,700-acre (1,100 hectare) compound was first listed for $100m in 2015.

Since then Neverland, north of Santa Barbara city, has been on and off the market, listed most recently last year for the lower price of $31m.

Jackson originally paid about $19.5m for Neverland, which he named after a fictional island where children never grow up in ‎JM Barrie’s Peter Pan story.

The Thriller singer bought Neverland in 1987, making it his home during the height of his fame.

He turned the ranch into an entertainment complex, building a zoo and fairground on site, where he regularly entertained children and their families.

In the 1990s and 2000s, Neverland became the centre of various investigations into child sexual assault allegations against Jackson.

Jackson denied allegations by Santa Barbara prosecutors that he had used Neverland as a fantasy world to groom young boys.

In 2005, Jackson was tried and acquitted of allegations he abused a 13-year-old boy at the ranch.

Jackson never returned to Neverland. Four years later, in June 2009, Jackson died at another home in Los Angeles after suffering a cardiac arrest induced by a drug overdose.

Since his death Jackson has been the subject of further abuse allegations, including those made in a documentary called Leaving Neverland in 2019.

Neverland has been rebranded as Sycamore Valley Ranch and has undergone extensive redevelopment since Jackson’s death.

Mr Burkle’s spokesman said the businessman saw the investment as a land banking opportunity.

He spotted the estate from the air while looking at another location and contacted Tom Barrack, the founder of real-estate investment company Colony Capital LLC, to seal the sale.

Mr Burkle, 68, is co-founder and managing partner of Yucaipa Companies, LLC, a private investment firm. His net worth as of 24 December 2020 was estimated to be $1.4bn

More than 100 people have been killed by unknown attackers in a village in western Ethiopia, the country’s human rights commission has said.

A nurse at a local clinic told the BBC that more than 30 people had been admitted to the facility, including some in a critical condition.

Some of the victims were shot, while others were stabbed, the nurse added.

Wednesday’s attack in the Benishangul-Gumuz region came a day after a visit by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

In a statement, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said the attack took place in the village of Bekoji, which lies in an area home to multiple ethnic groups.

“More than 100 people have been killed in fires and shooting perpetrated by armed men” during the pre-dawn attack, the commission said.

Beyene Melese, a spokesperson for the state government, blamed what he called “anti-peace elements” for the attack.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Abiy travelled to the region to discuss the recurrence of ethnic-based violence in recent months.

“The desire by enemies to divide Ethiopia along ethnic & religious lines still exists,” the prime minister wrote on Twitter after his visit. “This desire will remain unfulfilled.”

Benishangul-Gumuz has witnessed at least four deadly attacks since September, including a gun attack on a passenger bus in November that killed 34 people.

The violence in the area is not thought to be related to a ground and air offensive launched by the government in the northern Tigray region last month.

Hundreds, or even thousands, of people are thought to have been killed in that conflict, while about 50,000 have fled to neighbouring Sudan.

Over half of Chinese adults overweight

Over half of adults in China, or more than half a billion people, are now overweight, an official report has found.

The figures have risen significantly since 2002, when 29% of adults were overweight.

The country’s rapid economic growth in recent decades has led to major changes to lifestyle, diet and exercise habits.

In October, the Chinese government unveiled plans to tackle rising levels of obesity.

A higher body mass increases the risk for a number of diseases including heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

The issue of obesity has come under renewed focus during the pandemic as studies showed that overweight or obese individuals are more likely to suffer severe complications or death from Covid-19.

The National Health Commission report, released on Wednesday, found that more than 50% of adults are classified as overweight, of whom 16.4% are obese.

The report blamed decreasing levels of physical activity for the country’s expanding waistlines, with less than a quarter of the adult population exercising at least once a week.

A growing appetite for meat and a low consumption of fruit were also identified as factors behind the rise.

Wang Dan, a nutritionist in the city of Harbin, told the AFP news agency that many adults in the country now “exercise too little, are under too much pressure, and have an unhealthy work schedule”.

China is not the only country to have seen an increase in the number of overweight or obese people in recent years.

Earlier this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that levels of obesity across the world had tripled since 1975, including in low and middle-income countries.

Almost 40% of adults were overweight in 2016 and around 13% were obese, according to the WHO’s own estimates.

The tiny Gulf state of Qatar is one of the worst-affected countries, with more than 70% of people overweight or obese.

Coronavirus has reached the Antarctic continent, which had so far been free of Covid-19.

The Chilean army has reported 36 cases at its Bernardo O’Higgins research station on the Antarctic Peninsula.

The 36, 26 of whom are military personnel and 10 maintenance workers, have been evacuated to Chile.

The news comes just days after Chile’s navy confirmed three cases on a ship which had taken supplies and personnel to the research station.

The news means that Covid cases have now been recorded on all seven continents.

The Sargento Aldea arrived at the research station on 27 November and sailed back to Chile on 10 December.

Three of its crew tested positive upon their return to the Chilean naval base in Talcahuano.

Chile’s navy said all of those who had embarked on the trip to the Antarctic had been given PCR tests and all the results had been negative.

The Bernardo O’Higgins research station is one of four permanent bases which Chile has in the Antarctic and is operated by the army.

Chile is the sixth worst-affected country in Latin America with more than 585,000 confirmed coronavirus cases.

The British Antarctic Survey announced in August that it was scaling back its research in the polar south because of coronavirus.

France’s top administrative court has backed privacy campaigners by imposing a ban on police use of drones for covering public protests in Paris.

The Council of State said Paris police prefect Didier Lallement should halt “without delay” drone surveillance of gatherings on public roads.

The ruling comes weeks after MPs backed a controversial security bill that includes police use of drones.

Its main aim is to regulate how people share film or photos of police.

Privacy rights group La Quadrature du Net (LQDN) has argued that the bill’s main measures violate freedom of expression and that drones equipped with cameras cannot keep the peace but track individuals instead.

The Council of State ruled there was “serious doubt over the legality” of drones without a prior text authorising and setting out their use. LQDN said the only way the government could legalise drone surveillance now was in providing “impossible proof” that it was absolutely necessary to maintain law and order.

The decision is the second setback in months for Parisian authorities’ drone plans. In May, the same court ruled that drones could not be used in the capital to track people in breach of France’s strict lockdown rules.

Under article 22 of the security bill currently going through parliament, security forces would be allowed to send images filmed by drone or helicopter to command teams and retain those images for 30 days or more as part of a possible police inquiry.

Protests broke out after the bill passed its first reading in the National Assembly, with most of the anger directed at article 24, which makes it a criminal offence to publish images of on-duty police officers with the intent to harm their “physical or psychological integrity