The Fourcast

The day the statue of Edward Colston fell in June 2020 was a defining moment for Bristol.

It was also a defining moment for Britain’s relationship with its past as well as its approach to protest.

Recently, the four people accused of causing criminal damage to the statue were acquitted. To some it was justice, to others it represented a system that’s flawed.

In today’s podcast, our Home Affairs Correspondent Andy Davies details the legacy of Colston and the government’s response to the statue’s toppling.

And we hear from one of the Colston Four themselves as well as the former Lord Mayor of Bristol about the pivotal moment in the city’s history.

Sources: BBC Breakfast, ITV News

Police repeatedly missed opportunities that might have stopped Port.

The families of his victims said they were “incensed” that the jury had not been allowed to consider whether homophobia might have played a role in police failings.

In today’s episode, correspondent Minnie Stephenson details what went wrong and how innocent men died.

Sources: BBC News

Tomorrow, plan B measures end in England, with face masks no longer needed in public places and Covid passports dropped after only a few weeks in use. Boris Johnson said the Omicron wave had peaked nationally. 

But before Christmas, newspaper headlines were full of fears about millions of cases a day and the NHS being overwhelmed like never before.

That did not happen - so what’s going on and were the Covid models wrong?

FactCheck’s Georgina Lee explains it all.

Sources: DW News, BBC News, The Telegraph

Why was Prince Andrew friends with a convicted paedophile and a now convicted sex trafficker? Did he go to Pizza Express in Woking and will Virginia Giuffre get her day in Court? 

Our Investigations Editor Job Rabkin walks us through the civil trial, the history of the Prince and the paedophile and what’s next for the man ninth in line to the British throne.

Sources: BBC Newsnight, BBC Panorama, ITV News, ITV: Ghislaine, Prince Andrew and the Paedophile,  Sky News

From Make America Great Again to Make America Normal Again.

It’s one year since Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46th President promising to end the late-night tweets, the endless firings, the fake news, the fake science, and the threats to American democracy.

But how has he fared 12 months on?

In today’s episode, our Washington Correspondent Siobhan Kennedy details the highs and lows, and with Biden’s poll numbers struggling, will his party hold onto the House and Senate in the November elections?

Sources: Biden Inaugural Committee, The Independent, TODAY, CBS News, BBC News, News Nation Now, CNN, Washington Post, Fox News

Talks between Russia and Western powers over the situation in Ukraine finished in a “dead end” last week, with Vladimir Putin’s forces still amassed on the border, threatening war.

With the US Secretary of State in Kiev right now trying to de-escalate tensions, can conflict be avoided?

Europe editor Matt Frei asks whether the West can stop Russia, and he talks about what he’s seen on the ground in Ukraine.

She was once feted as the world’s youngest female self-made billionaire who promised that her blood testing start-up would transform the future of healthcare but now Elizabeth Holmes has been found guilty of four counts of fraud.

Holmes, who managed to dupe some of the world’s richest and most powerful businessmen, now faces decades in jail.

Today, Kiran speaks to our economics correspondent Helia Ebrahimi about the unravelling of a once Silicon superstar - and what this tale tells us about the world of start-ups and high-level investors.

Sources: Sky News, HBO, Bill Clinton Initiative, CNBC, CNN, CBS, entrepreneurship.org

Sources: Sky News, CBS News, Daily Mail, BBC News

Boris Johnson admitted he did attend a gathering during the first lockdown.

He apologised for spending 25 minutes at the Downing Street garden drinks in May 2020, but said he thought it was a “work event” rather than a party.

He has rejected some MPs' calls for his resignation, saying we should wait for the inquiry from senior civil servant Sue Gray.

But what’s next for Boris Johnson - and who is Sue Gray? 

Our Political Correspondent Gary Gibbon guides us through the last week in Westminster.

The Australian Open hasn’t started yet, but there has already been drama and back and forth. 

Not on the court, but in the court.

Novak Djokovic, the reigning champion, thought he could enter Australia despite not being vaccinated.

But his visa was cancelled and he was detained, possibly read to be deported. But a judge decided that his treatment was unreasonable and he was allowed to stay.

Australian journalist Georgie Tunny takes us through the past crazy week down under, and Heidi Larson, the director of the Vaccine Confidence Project, discusses what this all means for how we treat the unvaccinated.

Sources: Sky News, CBS News, Daily Mail, BBC News

It’s been nearly two years of lockdowns, restrictions, variants and vaccines; a global pandemic that nobody saw coming, and that continues to dominate our lives. So what can we expect from the year ahead? 

Today, we talk to our Health and Social Care Editor Victoria Macdonald about what we might see in the next few weeks and months, as we tackle the Omicron wave and its effect on staff shortages, and ask where next for this country when it comes to learning to live with Covid.