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From health workers on the frontline to those behind treatments and vaccines, female figures have played a key role in the fight against the virus – but it doesn’t stop there.

On the Sky News Daily podcast with Dermot Murnaghan, we are joined by the former chief medical officer for England Dame Sally Davies and infectious disease expert, Professor Wendy Barclay from Imperial College London.

Daily podcast team:
Podcast producer - Annie Joyce
Podcast producer - Nicola Eyers
Podcast producer - Rosetta Fourlagawo
Interviews producer - Tatiana Alderson
Archive - Simon Windsor
Archive - Rob Fellowes
Archive - Nelly Stefanova
Music - Steven Wheeler

On 4 August last year, more than 200 people were killed and several thousand others suffered injuries following the port explosion in a country already facing economic and political crises.

On the Sky News Daily podcast with Dermot Murnaghan, Tracy Awad-Naggear and her husband Paul share their memories of their young daughter who was among those who died, while Dr George Juvelekian talks about the impact it had on nearby hospitals. Plus, our foreign affairs editor Deborah Haynes explains what is a failed state as our Middle East news editor Zein Ja'Far, who was in Beirut at the time of the blast, looks at the current situation in Lebanon.

Daily podcast team:
Podcast producer - Annie Joyce
Podcast producer - Nicola Eyers
Podcast producer - Rosetta Fourlagawo
Interviews producer - Tatiana Alderson
Archive - Simon Windsor
Archive - Rob Fellowes
Archive - Nelly Stefanova
Music - Steven Wheeler

August 4, 2021 marks the one year anniversary of the Beirut explosion which killed 211 people, injured 6000 and plunged the Lebanese city into a crisis.
Ghassan Hasrouty wasn’t supposed to be working at Beirut’s port on the day of the blast.
He’d swapped shifts to allow him to attend an upcoming weekend trip with his wife and children.
Ghassan had worked at the port for 38-years. He knew its rhythms well and anticipating that he may have to work through the night, he called home and asked for someone bring him a pillow and blanket.
Around the same time, Beirut based Sky News correspondent Zein Ja’Far, was working from his apartment, less than half a mile away when he noticed smoke coming from the port.
A fire was about ignite thousands of tonnes of ammonium nitrate, stored near Ghassan's workplace. The lives of the Hasrouty family, and Beirut’s two million residents were about to be changed forever.

In 2021, Sky News is marking some of the century’s biggest news events through the personal stories of lives defined by unforgettable moments from the last 21-years.
The Beirut Blast: Ghassan’s story is episode 12 of the 21-part series StoryCast ‘21

CREDITS

The Beirut Blast: Ghassan’s story was written and produced by Rob Mulhern with Zein Ja’Far.
Special thanks to Eli and Tatiana Hasrouty
Research and Digital by Tom Gillespie
Presented by Jayne Secker
Sound Design, Rob Mulhern
TV treatment, Victoria Hudson-Grant
Head of Radio, Sky News, Dave Terris
Design and graphics, Brian Gillingham
Social media, Chris Scott
Press and Marketing, Alexandra Horton
Email: storycast@sky.uk
For more on this story log on to www.skynews/storycast21
#StoryCast21

August 4 marks ten years since Mark Duggan was fatally shot by the police and what followed were some of the most violent riots the Britain has seen for decades.

It wasn’t just his killing that was the cause of these riots. It was a range of social issues and disputes that were ignited by his death.

In this episode, we return to a feature brought to you last year - 'The racial killings that shamed two nations' - where Noel Phillips asked what stills needs to be done to resolve tensions between police and black communities as he looked at the deaths of two men, George Floyd and Stephen Lawrence, nearly 30 years apart and on different continents.

There is not much known about the voting habits of ethnically diverse communities – there's very little polling data, and therefore a gaping hole in the understanding of people’s views and voting habits.

But the gloves are off as politicians fight for these precious votes.

In this episode, host Ashna Hurynag is joined by Isla Glaister from the Sky News data and forensics team and Professor Maria Sobolewska, a professor of political science at the University of Manchester.

Protecting the planet from climate change is a responsibility of generations from the past and the future. It's down to individuals, corporations and governments alike to take action. So how do we increase public engagement and encourage environmental activism?

On this week's episode of Sky News ClimateCast we take a trip to the Natural History Museum, home to 80 million specimens, spanning over 4.5 billion years. We explore why the museum has declared a planetary emergency and hear about what they're doing to raise awareness.

Hosts Anna Jones and Katerina Vittozzi speak to the director of the Natural History Museum, Doug Gurr, about how he swapped a corporate career with Amazon UK to one in the museum world. He shares why we should all be passionate about solving climate change to fix our broken planet.

Hosts: Anna Jones and Katerina Vittozzi
Producer: Emma Rae Woodhouse
Reporter: Victoria Seabrook
Guests: Doug Gurr and Louis Buckley