However the 62-year-old was unable to unveil his take of the famed calendar in person in Milan after testing positive for COVID-19 upon arrival in Italy last week. He joined a press conference remotely via video.

Called "On The Road", the calendar seeks to depict a day in the life of a touring musician.
Its cover shows guitarist and singer St. Vincent posing with a Pirelli guitar pick on her tongue. It features pictures of Cher and Pop in dressing rooms, Ora in the bath, rapper Saweetie pushing a luggage trolley and Hudson surrounded by flowers.

Rapper Bohan Phoenix poses on a piano while musician Grimes' photo is set in a futuristic setting. Adams, who snapped the photos in Los Angeles, Capri and Canada last summer, also features.

"With all these pictures, fantasy plays a big part in trying to create something," he said in a statement. "Because you don't want it to be literal, you want it to be glamorous, yet it gives the impression of what it might be like."

Adams said last week that he had tested positive for COVID-19 after flying into Milan and was going to hospital. It was the second time in a month he had tested positive for the virus. He has since posted photos, thanking doctors and nurses looking after him.

Adams is best known for songs like "Summer of ‘69", "Heaven" and "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You".

As a photographer, he has snapped Mick Jagger and Naomi Campbell, as well as Britain's Queen Elizabeth. He has also published books of his photos, including one on injured British soldiers.

First published in the 1960s, the Pirelli calendar has a limited run and is usually gifted to the company's clients. In recent years, it has moved away from featuring images of scantily-dressed models to more artistic themes, featuring various celebrities.

The 2021 edition was suspended due to the pandemic.

SOURCE: REUTERS

Heavy rainfall and gusts brought flooding and power outages to parts of northwest Washington, forcing residents to evacuate while most roads in and out of the city were closed.  

The rainfall caused the Nooksack River to spill beyond its banks in Washington on November 29,

In an emergency alert Sunday afternoon, Skagit County officials said that the river levels weren’t expected to produce widespread flooding, but saturated soil increases the risk of landslides.

Following the alert, the Washington National Guard arrived in Everson late Saturday to fill and distribute sandbags to residents to prepare for flooding.

People in the small communities of Sumas and Everson in northwest Washington had been asked to evacuate voluntarily Saturday night. 

Both towns near the Canadian border previously saw hundreds evacuated and severe flooding from days of rain that caused an estimated $50 million in damage to Whatcom County.   

Over 1,600 homes were without power in the Puget Sound region Sunday, with the largest outage affecting Rockport in Skagit County. In the meantime, where 861 homes lost power because trees impacted power lines, according to Puget Sound Energy. 

On Monday afternoon, Sumas officials said there was a lot of water around town, but the water level had started to slowly drop.

Bellingham city officials said rainwater exceeded pumping capacity at times on Sunday resulting in an overflow that discharged about 9 million gallons of sewage water into Bellingham Bay.

Many local roads in the area and around Bellingham were closed Sunday and Monday because of water over the roadway.

Moreover, a landslide on Sunday blocked part of northbound Interstate 5 south of Bellingham and officials said an increased threat of landslides will remain for several days. 

Bourla told CNBC that his company on Friday began testing the current vaccine against the Omicron variant, which was first reported in South Africa and reignited fears of a global wave of Covid-19 infections.

"I don't think the result will be the vaccines don't protect," Bourla said.

But the testing could show that existing shots "protect less," which means "that we need to create a new vaccine," Bourla said.

"Friday we made our first DNA template, which is the first possible inflection of the development process of a new vaccine," he said.

Bourla likened the situation to the scenario earlier this year when Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech developed a vaccine in 95 days when there were concerns the previous formula would not work against Delta, though that version ultimately was not used.

The current vaccine is "very effective" against Delta, the executive said, adding that the companies expect to be able to produce four billion vaccine doses in 2022.

On Monday, the World Health Organization warned the new Covid-19 Omicron variant poses a "very high" risk globally.

Bourla said he was also "very confident" that Pfizer's recently unveiled antiviral pill would work as a treatment for infections caused by the mutations, including Omicron.

Among newly-infected, high risk patients treated within three days of the onset of symptoms, Pfizer's pill has been shown to cut hospitalization or death by nearly 90 percent.

SOURCE: AFP/CNBC