Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
There was a clear and lasting “Cummings effect” on public confidence in the government’s handling of coronavirus after the prime minister’s senior aide appeared to break lockdown rules, new analysis has found.
The research found a significant decrease in public confidence in the government after the Guardian and Daily Mirror revealed that Dominic Cummings had travelled 264 miles to Durham with his sick wife and child despite official advice that people “should not be visiting family members who do not live in your home”.
Nine Conservative MPs in Greater Manchester have written a letter to the health secretary demanding “a more sophisticated approach” to local lockdowns, criticising the government’s “crude and ineffective strategy”.
The whole region of 2.8 million people was put back into partial lockdown last Thursday after infections started to rise. The decision prompted unhappiness in some areas of Greater Manchester where rates remained low, for example in Wigan and Bury.
The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has rejected the idea of releasing some of the 10 boroughs before others. But the Tory MPs reject this “one size fits all” approach, which they say “risks spreading resources too thinly across the whole conurbation, including in areas with few or no cases”.
They say Burnham fails to understand local infection patterns in seeking to “impose a crude and ineffective strategy across the whole area”.
They say:
Measures must be taken on a borough by borough basis and on a town by town basis in boroughs where there are only one or two coronavirus ‘hotspots’, but the rates in other parts of the borough are low ...
Failing to properly target resources, meaning inadequate measures in some places where the problems are greatest, and wasting resources where none are currently needed risks a wider outbreak across Greater Manchester, will only lead to more stringent ‘full lockdown’ measures being imposed as in Leicester. We must strive to avoid this at all costs.
Five clusters have been identified in Northern Ireland over the past seven days with 35 associated cases and 239 close contacts, according to the Public Health Agency (PHA).
Dr Gerry Waldron, head of health protection at the PHA, said:
This should act as a timely reminder that we must not become complacent - coronavirus remains in circulation and we have seen an increase in cases in recent weeks. It is therefore essential that we remember the key advice to help keep ourselves and those around us safe.
Maintain social distancing, wash your hands regularly, and get tested if you display any symptoms of coronavirus.
Preston is facing a fresh lockdown within days after local coronavirus infections surged, a public health official has said.
Cases of the disease in the Lancashire city have doubled in a week, and Preston could follow in the footsteps of nearby east Lancashire, Greater Manchester and parts of West Yorkshire by reintroducing stringent lockdown rules.
Preliminary opinion a setback for Christian Brückner’s attempt to appeal conviction using European arrest warrant rules
The prime suspect in the disappearance of the British toddler Madeleine McCann was told that he was lawfully put on trial for rape last year, as his lawyers attempt to overturn that conviction at the European court of justice.
Christian Brückner, a 43-year-old German, is trying to overturn his conviction for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2005. He has argued at the ECJ that he had been extradited to Germany from Portugal, and later Italy, on a different charge.
Video by Es Devlin and Machiko Weston tells story of nuclear bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
A powerful 10-minute video artwork marking the 75th anniversary of the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been released by the Imperial War Museum in London.
The museum commissioned stage designers Es Devlin, who is British, and Machiko Weston, who is Japanese, to make the piece, which tells the stories and explores the impact of the bombings from different perspectives.
Belgium is set to be added to England’s quarantine list after a rise in Covid-19 cases, meaning arrivals from the country will have to isolate for 14 days.
The Guardian understands that officials at the Department for Transport (DfT) are finalising the announcement of the move and the current plan is that the measures are not due to come into effect until the weekend.
The UK government said 46,413 people had died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK as of 5pm on Wednesday, up by 49 from the day before.
Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies show there have now been 56,600 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.
Austria’s foreign ministry on Thursday warned against trips to Spain with the exception of the Balearic and Canary Islands, as concerns grow that holidaymakers could catch the coronavirus and spread it once they return.
The measure will take effect from Monday, and people returning to Austria will be required to present a negative test for Covid-19, the ministry said.
Language decline among newly qualified teachers could undermine goal of reaching 1 million Welsh speakers
A “striking” decline in the number of newly qualified teachers able to teach in Welsh could undermine the country’s ambition to have a million speakers of the language in 30 years’ time, a report warns.
The Welsh language commissioner, Aled Roberts, expressed concern about the trend and called for the devolved government to take urgent action to reverse the fall.
Nicola Sturgeon has warned that an emergency lockdown in Aberdeen could extend to other towns in the region after health officials linked 32 pubs and golf courses to the outbreak in the city.
The first minister said all pubs and restaurants in the city had to close from 5pm on Wednesday, as she barred people from visiting other households indoors and urged residents to avoid non-essential journeys greater than five miles.
For years, sexual predators have infested the live comedy scene. But female comedians are demanding action. Is this British standup’s #MeToo moment?
‘If this was a normal office where, on your first day, someone higher up than you goes: ‘Here’s a list of guys in the office who might rape you,’ you would go straight to HR. But there’s no HR – there’s nowhere we can go to say this is happening,” says Laura Duddy, who started out in standup comedy last year.
“For new comics, it’s normal that a more established comic will give them a list of open-mic gigs to try,” says Ellie Calnan, who began standup 18 months ago. “Whereas for women, it’s: ‘Here’s the people and gigs to avoid.’”
Court rules in favour of Duchess of Sussex in latest stage of legal action against Associated Newspapers
The Duchess of Sussex has won a high court bid to keep secret the identities of five friends who gave anonymous interviews to a US celebrity magazine, in the latest stage of her legal action against the owner of the Mail on Sunday.
Meghan is suing Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Mail on Sunday and Mail Online, over an article that reproduced parts of a “private and confidential” handwritten letter she sent to her estranged father, Thomas Markle, in August 2018.
The coronavirus lockdown has provoked a mental health crisis among the LGBTQ community, with younger people confined with bigoted relatives the most depressed, researchers found.
A study of LGBTQ people’s experience during the pandemic, by University College London (UCL) and Sussex University, found 69% of respondents suffered depressive symptoms, rising to about 90% of those who had experienced homophobia or transphobia.
Adam Reed also facing disciplinary charges for allegedly secretly taking photos of a colleague’s feet
A police disciplinary tribunal is to hear claims a sergeant had sex with junior colleagues in police stations while on duty.
Adam Reed, a former police sergeant with South Wales police, is also facing disciplinary charges over allegedly secretly taking photos of a female colleague’s feet.
Woman has come forward claiming she recalls seeing duke at Mayfair nightclub with Giuffre
The FBI has been passed information from a witness claiming to have seen the Duke of York at a nightclub with a woman who alleges the pair had sex when she was a teenager.
The US lawyer Lisa Bloom, who is representing the victims of the royal’s former friend and convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, said Shukri Walker recalled seeing Prince Andrew at Tramp nightclub in Mayfair and had come forward to support Virginia Giuffre’s version of events.
Exclusive: gallery removes reference to venue as ‘most amusing room in Europe’ as calls grow for artwork’s removal
Tate Britain has removed a reference to its restaurant as “the most amusing room in Europe” after complaints about racist depictions in a 1920s mural.
The Rex Whistler restaurant is covered floor to ceiling in a specially commissioned mural by the eponymous British artist titled The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats, which depicts the enslavement of a black child and the distress of his mother. It also shows the boy running behind a horse and cart which he is attached to by a chain around his neck.
Former prime minister Tony Blair said a mass testing regime, which includes people who are not displaying coronavirus symptoms, is essential to avoid the need for another lockdown.
He told Times Radio:
On some estimates 70% of people with the disease are asymptomatic, so if you are only testing people with symptoms you are losing the majority of people from your testing strategy
From the very beginning, mass testing has been the only thing that gets you through this, avoids the severity of the very blunt instrument of lockdown and gets you to a place where you can more or less get your economy moving whilst containing the disease.
Latest updates: how has Covid-19 progressed where you live? Check the week-on-week changes across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
The map shows local authorities where the number of cases has increased week-on-week and where it has fallen. Some of this is due to natural fluctuations, especially in areas where there are very few cases, and so a rise from 1 to 2 is a doubling. Increased testing also means that more cases may be being detected than previously, although the impact of this between one week and the next is likely to be slight.
Popular destinations include Nice and Faro despite coronavirus travel concerns
EasyJet has expanded its summer schedule after better-than-expected demand and says it expects to operate about 1,000 flights a day in August.
The budget carrier said popular destinations included Faro and Nice, along with city breaks such as Amsterdam and Paris. EasyJet will have 210 planes flying this month and expects to operate 40% of its capacity between July and September, higher than the 30% predicted at its first-half results.
Exclusive: crisis has led to 500% increase in Britons taking up citizenship in an EU state
The number of British nationals emigrating to other EU countries has risen by 30% since the Brexit referendum, with half making their decision to leave in the first three months after the vote, research has found.
Analysis of data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Eurostat shows that migration from Britain to EU states averaged 56,832 people a year in 2008-15, growing to 73,642 a year in 2016-18.
There was a spike in the theft of sheep during the lockdown as gangs took advantage of deserted communities, empty roads and concerns about food shortages during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.