EastEnders actress Rose Ayling-Ellis becomes the first deaf person to win the BBC show after she and her professional partner Giovanni Pernice beat the show's first male same-sex couple containing TV chef John Whaite and his professional partner Johannes Radebe in the final.
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December 18, 2021 (Saturday)
1.5 minutes to read
Arts and culture
Disasters and accidents
Fourteen people are killed and several others are injured by a gas explosion in a sewage system in Karachi, Pakistan.
Health and environment
Ukraine reports its first case of the Omicron variant in a person who travelled from the United Arab Emirates.
France imposes a ban on British citizens from entering the country without compelling reasons due to the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant in the United Kingdom. French and EU citizens returning from the UK must self-isolate for seven days unless they show a negative COVID-19 test result on arrival, which will reduce the self-isolation to 48 hours.
Portugal begins administering COVID-19 vaccines for children between the ages of 5 and 11 years.
At midnight, Argentina and Brazil reopen their borders for tourists with a mandatory proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test.
New York state reports a record for the second consecutive day of 21,908 new cases of COVID-19.
The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan declares a "major incident" in effort to ease pressure of hospitals amid a record-breaking COVID-19 cases in the UK caused by the Omicron variant.
International relations
Ukrainian ambassador to Israel Yevhen Korniychuk says that Ukraine might recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Law and crime
Former Ukrainian President and oligarch Petro Poroshenko leaves Ukraine on a "pre-planned diplomatic tour" of Turkey and Poland after the National Bureau of Investigation attempts to issue a summons regarding charges of abetting terrorism. The National Bureau of Investigation claims that Poroshenko was involved in looting national resources from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
An armed land dispute between the residents of the Nahualá and Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán municipalities, in Guatemala, results in the death of 12 people.
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