THE WEEKLY NEWS IN 5

Your weekly round-up to some of this weeks news stories

Half of us don’t know what day it is, never mind what’s happened in the news with the Christmas limbo and all, so we’re here to give you our weekly round-up.

• The Queen acknowledges a ‘bumpy year’ in her annual message. We weren’t sure if the Royals would make any reference to the tumultuous year they’ve had under the public eye, what with Prince Philips driving incident, Meghan’s not so favourable depiction in the media and, of course, Prince Andrew’s car crash interview. But, in true British manner, brave faces where on and families were united.
• Gavin & Stacey, brought us a crackin’ Christmas Special. Ten years on, the fab four were back on our TV screens with their festive special full of chuckles and unexpected plot twists… let’s see how long (or even if) season 5 will take to grace our screens.
• Cha-cha-chimp! Four chimps, Akira, Pal, Ai and Gon are recorded getting their groove on, swaying, clapping, tapping and slapping in a music booth attached to their enclosure in Kyoto. None of the chimpanzees were taught to rock out, and they didn’t receive rewards for doing so, they just felt the music and broke into spontaneous bodily movements. Scientists believe that the moves of this group of chimpanzees shed light on prehistoric origins of human dancing…
• You season 2 was released to mixed anticipation. Some happy, excited and even intrigued to see what happens following the first season of You. Others, not so much. Watch the Netflix Original to decide for yourself (or not, whatever).
• Dozens survive Kazakhstan plane crash. A Bek Air passenger jet crashed in Kazakhstan just after takeoff from Almaty killing at least 12 people, but leaving dozens of survivors. The cause of the crash is unclear with one survivor, businessman Aslan Nazaraliyev, telling the BBC that the plane began vibrating violently after take-off. People screamed and the aircraft smashed into the ground. A special commission will be set up to determine the cause of the crash.

Image of the week

Smoke from a bushfire approaches the Old Hume Highway near the town of Tahmoor in New South Wales. Two volunteer firefighters have been killed as the bushfire emergency raging across the east coast of Australia reaches a new crisis point.