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London's delay-hit Crossrail scheme has been held up again and will not open until the "first half of 2022", the developer of the troubled multi-billion pound project has said. Even before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the budget-busting east-west line through the capital, stretching from Berkshire to Essex, had repeatedly missed deadlines since failing to meet the original target of December 2018. In March, Transport for London (TfL) said it was suspending building work at sites, including Crossrail , to limit the spread of COVID-19 . While construction has restarted, social distancing means a maximum of 2,000 people are now allowed on Crossrail sites, which is less than 50% of the staffing levels prior to the public health crisis. In a statement, Crossrail Limited, the company responsible for the project, said: "Delivery of the Elizabeth line is now in its complex final stages and is being completed at a time of great uncertainty due to the … [Read more...] about London’s Crossrail shunted by further delay as cost threatens to rise by £1.1bn

FACEBOOK Messenger and Instagram appear to have stopped working for thousands of users. Complaints about the popular social media apps are flooding in by the second. Online outage tracker Down Detector has logged huge numbers of reports saying the apps aren't working. Not everyone is affected however, with some users able to use the apps with no issue whatsoever. On Facebook Messenger, users are reporting issues with receiving messages. And they're also complaining about being unable to log in. On Instagram , the bulk of complaints are linked to the News Feed, with a smattering of reports about Stories and Posting. Users flocked to Twitter to moan about the outage. "Is Messenger down for anyone else or is it my WiFi? Can't see who's active or send messages," wrote one disgruntled user. Another said: "First it's Messenger down now it's Instagram down with their DMs." And one shared an exasperated GIF with the message: "Me realising both social … [Read more...] about Facebook and Instagram ‘down for THOUSANDS of users’ in mystery outage

Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca will deliver to the EU less than half the amount of COVID-19 vaccine doses that it pledged for the first quarter of 2021, company boss Pascal Soriot admitted to European lawmakers on Thursday. The drugmaker has long said it will not be able to fulfill its target, but the confirmation remains a blow to the EU's vaccine rollout. The bloc has fallen far behind the United States, Britain and Israel in vaccinating its public, blaming supply chain issues. About 8% of the adult population of the EU have been vaccinated, according to European Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen. AstraZeneca will now try and deliver 40 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine by the end of March, down from an initial 90 million. The pledge is in line with previous statements from the company. On Wednesday, AstraZeneca said it would only be able to deliver half the COVID-19 vaccines it was contracted to supply the EU in the second quarter of 2021. The EU has … [Read more...] about Coronavirus: AstraZeneca admits huge vaccine shortfall for EU