Category Archives: UK news

Richard Branson offers Caribbean island as collateral for bailout

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Tycoon’s blog appeal comes after reports UK government has rejected £500m bailout

Sir Richard Branson has said he will put his private Caribbean island up as collateral in his attempt to persuade the UK government to save his Virgin Atlantic airline from going bust.

Branson, who is the UK’s seventh richest person with an estimated £4.7bn fortune and lives on Necker Island in the tax-free British Virgin Islands, on Monday promised in a public blogpost that he would “raise as much money against the island as possible to save as many jobs as possible”.

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PM Boris Johnson was ‘missing in action’ during early phase of pandemic, claims Labour

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Shortages of PPE set to continue and testing behind schedule after Gove admits Johnson missed key Cobra meetings

Boris Johnson’s government has come under pressure to defend its handling of the coronavirus pandemic after Michael Gove was forced to admit that the prime minister had missed five key emergency meetings when the crisis first hit.

With ministers warning that shortages of protective medical gear could continue, test rates remaining stubbornly low and the hospital death toll rising on Sunday to 16,060, some Conservative MPs have expressed private concern that Downing Street does not have a strong grip on the crisis.

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Hospital leaders hit out at government as PPE shortage row escalates

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Health managers in England voice ‘intense frustration’ in unprecedented intervention

Hospital leaders have directly attacked the government for the first time during the coronavirus crisis over the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) after a desperately needed consignment of surgical gowns that had been announced by ministers failed to arrive.

In an unprecedented intervention, which hospital leaders privately say is the result of “intense frustration and exasperation”, the organisations representing NHS trusts in England urged ministers to “just focus on what we can be certain of” after weeks of “bitter experience” with failed deliveries.

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Ex-paratrooper walking UK coastline isolates on empty Shetland island

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Chris Lewis is staying on usually uninhabited Hildasay until charity challenge can resume

A former paratrooper is isolating on a usually uninhabited Shetland island after lockdown measures were introduced when he was on a fundraising challenge to walk the UK coastline.

Chris Lewis, 39, has walked 12,000 miles since setting off from Llangennith beach on the Gower peninsula near his home city of Swansea, south Wales, in August 2017.

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Hackers exploit coronavirus lockdown with fake Netflix and Disney+ pages

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Criminals seek rich pickings as viewers stuck at home flock to TV streaming sites

More than 700 fake websites mimicking Netflix and Disney+ signup pages have been created seeking to harvest personal information from consumers during the coronavirus lockdown streaming boom.

Netflix, which is expected to smash its forecast of 7 million new global subscribers when it reports first-quarter results on Tuesday, is the main target as millions of new potential customers seek entertainment while confined to their homes.

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More than 15,000 people have died from Covid-19 in UK

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Death toll rose by 888 to 15,464, according to health department figures on Saturday

More than 15,000 people have died from coronavirus in UK hospitals, figures from the Department of Health and Social Care show.

The death toll rose by 888 from 14,576 on Friday, taking the total to 15,464 as of 9am on Saturday.

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Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe waiting to hear if she must return to prison

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Spokesperson said on TV her release would be extended but British-Iranian yet to be told

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is waiting to be told whether her temporary release from an Iranian prison is to be extended beyond this weekend, or if she will have to return to complete her five-year sentence on Sunday.

The Prosecutors Office in Tehran told the British-Iranian woman’s lawyer on Saturday to come back on Sunday for an update on the situation, according to the Free Nazanin Twitter account.

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Virtual bingo and Notre Dame tolls again: the week’s most uplifting clips – video

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As the world battles the coronavirus pandemic, communities are coming together to support each other through difficult times. Capt Tom Moore, a 99-year-old war veteran, has raised more than £23m for the NHS by walking 100 laps of his garden. Notre Dame Cathedral's bell tolled again in tribute to health workers, and Matthew McConaughey hosted virtual bingo for older self-isolators

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Failure to record ethnicity of Covid-19 victims a ‘scandal’, says BMA chief

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Dr Chaand Nagpaul says data must be gathered now to save lives of UK BAME citizens

The government’s failure to record and publish real-time data on the ethnicity of Covid-19 patients is a scandal that is endangering lives, according to the chair of the British Medical Association.

Speaking to the Observer, Dr Chaand Nagpaul said: “This is not an issue that should require further campaigning. It would be a scandal if it requires further lobbying as data recording needs to start now, not tomorrow. When you have stark statistics like this, it is an instruction for government to act.”

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Coronavirus live news: Trump backs anti-lockdown protests as global deaths pass 150,000

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China pushes ‘comprehensive’ economic reopening; first virus case in Syria’s northeast; Germany says pandemic ‘under control’. Follow latest updates

For the latest global coronavirus developments, here is our at-a-glance guide:

Related: Coronavirus latest: at a glance

Thailand has reported 33 new coronavirus infections, bringing the country’s total to 2,733 cases.

Eleven of the new cases were in Bangkok and had a history of going to public areas, said Taweesin Wisanuyothin, a spokesman for the government’s Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration.

Some have questioned if the low number of detected cases is down to a lack of testing in the country.

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Coronavirus live news: nearly 100,000 EU citizens remain stranded overseas due to pandemic

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China denies cover-up as Wuhan death toll revised up by 50%; Brazil’s president fires health minister

WHO’s daily briefing on the coronavirus outbreak has just begun. WHO director Tarik Jasarevic said the coronavirus solidarity fund has generated $150 million from more than 245,000 individuals, corporations, and foundations.

Deaths from the coronavirus epidemic in Italy rose by 575 on Friday, up from 525 the day before, while the number of new cases declined slightly to 3,493 from a previous 3,786.

The daily death toll is down considerably from peaks reached around the end of March, Reuters reports.

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Nearly 100,000 EU citizens remain stranded overseas due to pandemic – as it happened

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China denies cover-up as Wuhan death toll revised up by 50%; Brazil’s president fires health minister

We are closing this live global blog now, but you can pick up all of our continuing coverage on our new global blog here.

You can also see our latest summary of events at Coronavirus latest developments: at a glance.

Oliver Milman, an environment reporter for Guardian in New York, has some analysis on the progression of the coronavirus pandemic in the US.

A model relied upon by the White House, from the University of Washington, estimates that the virus will “peter out” in May and then essentially grind to a halt by the summer. This is based on the experiences of China and Italy, previous coronavirus hotspots.

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EY ordered to pay whistleblower $11m in Dubai gold audit case

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Court rules accountancy firm breached code of ethics in its dealings with a refiner

A former partner at the accounting firm EY has been awarded $10.8m (£8.6m) in damages after being forced out of his job when he exposed professional misconduct during an audit of a Dubai gold refiner.

The high court in London ruled on Friday that EY had repeatedly breached the code of ethics for professional accountants in its dealings with one of its clients, Kaloti Jewellery International.

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Suppliers ration stocks of tinned tomatoes after surge in demand

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Supermarkets told to ‘calm the fever’ as UK sales rise more than 30% during coronavirus crisis

Tinned tomato suppliers are rationing stocks to supermarkets after demand in the UK surged more than 30% and threatened to use up supplies ahead of this year’s harvest.

Supermarkets and convenience store groups are understood to be jockeying for supplies as families continue to buy more tinned foods than usual after the closure of schools and restaurants forced them to cook more meals at home.

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Liverpool region mayor backs Sadiq Khan over face mask use

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Steve Rotheram says covering face would make people more aware of coronavirus situation

Steve Rotheram is the latest mayor to urge people to wear masks in public after Sadiq Khan called on the government to make them compulsory on transport in London during the coronavirus outbreak.

The metro mayor of Liverpool city region said wearing any type of face covering meant Britons were likely to “go further in protecting [themselves] and other people”.

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British workers reject fruit-picking jobs as Romanians flown in

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Contract length, farm location and caring duties cited as reasons for turning down work

Thousands of British workers who responded to a nationwide appeal to help pick fruit and vegetables on farms have rejected job offers, it has emerged.

As hundreds of workers are being flown in from Romania to pick lettuce and asparagus, specialist recruitment firms revealed that fewer than 20% of the applicants were either willing or able to take up roles on the farms.

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Lyra McKee murder: Derry residents asked to provide information a year on

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Detectives investigating killing of 29-year-old reporter have written letter to residents of street in the Creggan

Residents who live in the Derry street where the Irish journalist Lyra McKee was shot dead a year ago this weekend have been asked to provide any fresh information they can recall about the murder.

Detectives investigating the killing of the 29-year-old reporter have written a letter to residents of the street in the Creggan area of the city asking them to think back to the night she died.

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‘I accepted the very first patient’: one nurse’s first week at NHS Nightingale – video

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Jo, a nurse practitioner, documents her first week at one of the largest field hospitals in the world: the Nightingale at the London ExCeL centre. The hospital was built in nine days with a capacity for up to 4,000 patients in reaction to the global coronavirus outbreak

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Duke and Duchess of Cambridge praise ‘incredible’ Capt Tom Moore – video

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The Duke of Cambridge has hailed second world war veteran, Capt Tom Moore, as 'incredible' and a 'one-man fundraising machine'.

Moore, 99, has raised more than £18m for the NHS after walking 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday 

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