Novak Djokovic has been released from detention in Australia after winning a court battle against his last-minute visa cancellation. But Australia’s immigration minister could use separate powers to cancel Djokovic’s visa again “as early as tomorrow”, says The Sydney Morning Herald. The NHS’s “front line will hold” against Omicron, NHS executive Chris Hopson tells The Times. In London, where Britain’s Omicron wave started, hospital admissions are down 17% from the start of the year. Michael Gove was trapped in a BBC lift for more than half an hour this morning on his way to appear on Radio 4’s Today. “You successfully levelled me up,” the levelling up secretary told Nick Robinson when he eventually escaped.
Nokia has rebooted its 6310 “brick phone”, one of the most popular mobiles of the early 2000s. The updated version, which has an internet browser but no apps besides Facebook, has a larger screen (2.8 inches), a 20-day battery life and the classic game Snake pre-installed. Yours for £60.
Noted
Tex Sutton, an American company that transports horses by plane, has a Boeing 727 cargo aircraft dedicated to the task. It’s nicknamed Air Horse One.
On the money
The value of Apple increased by more than $700m a day from August 2011 to last week, when the company’s worth briefly hit $3 trillion. It’s such a crazy statistic, says the FT’s Patrick McGee on Twitter, that when I wrote about it the comments section was flooded with readers assuming it was a mistake. It wasn’t.
Quoted
quoted 10.1
“Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.”
Otto von Bismark
Life
At an estimated age of at least 90, Methuselah the lungfish is the oldest living aquarium fish in the world, says The San Francisco Chronicle. The nonagenarian arrived at the Steinhart Aquarium, San Francisco in 1938 – when Al Capone was still locked up in Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge had been open less than a year. According to her keeper, Allan Jan, Methuselah likes belly rubs and eats figs – but only when they’re in season. “She’s picky. And being that old, I allow her to be picky.”
Snapshot answer
They’re giant water lilies, which are some of “the most empire-building, aggressive plants” on earth, David Attenborough tells the Daily Mail. The Amazonian species, which stars in Attenborough’s new BBC series The Green Planet, has buds that come up to the water’s surface “loaded with prickles”, which skewer or drown any other plant in their path. “In the end, the lake ends up as solid giant water lilies butting up against one another, with no room for anything else at all.”
