Europe

General practitioners can no longer prescribe medicines recommended by a specialist; the Association of Outpatient Providers warned this would require more visits to doctors for chronic and elderly patients and called for the amendment to be re-evaluated

The average cost of a basic funeral has fallen for the first time in 18 years, dropping 3,1% to an average of £4.056 last year, according to insurer SunLife's Cost of Dying report; last year funeral directors were ordered to display clearer price lists

The country will spend 300 million euros more on research, a 17% increase over three years, bringing the budget to 1,7 billion, in response to criticism of its lagging research spending

Tennis player Djokovic was welcomed home with cheers by its fans notwithstanding the fact he had to leave Australia and risks missing all the Slams if he decides not to vaccinate

The new coalition was formally approved after the parliament vote, with the new cabinet to be led by a social-democratic coalition headed by Dimitar Kovačevski as prime minister

The National Olympic and Sports Committee announced the first qualified performer for the Olympics in China, Doina Descalui, who will compete in the sled race, the first female representative of the country to reach the Olympic Games in the sled

Sven Lehmann has been appointed as the country's first LGBTQ+ commissioner, a role created as part of the new coalition government's cultural modernisation plans

Czech scientists are planning to create a map of raw materials that can be found in space; on the recommendation of the European Space Agency (ESA), the project is expected to lead to the launch of two satellites in four years' time

Family capital is increased by 9.5% from 1 January 2022 for the newborns of the year; the sum is allocated on the date of birth or adoption of the third child or further

Actors, TV channels and 30.000 social media users have joined the search for a man's lost scarf in Albacete, after the widowed man put up posters around the city looking for the orange scarf given to him by his wife

Today is Pizza Day, with celebrations dedicated to one of the world's most famous leavened products and a national pride; in 2020, 3 billion pizzas have been taken out of the oven, some 8 million pieces a day, for an economic impact of around €30 billion

With Finland and Norway, the country will cull part of the wolf population to control their diffusion; as the hunters have already killed most of their annual target of 27 wolves, several conservation groups have appealed to the EU to take action