Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Dr Michael Ryan, the director of the WHO health emergencies programme, has said there is a way out of the Covid-19 pandemic for communities, adding that 'a careful and measured return' to workplaces and schools with the right precautions could work, but that concerts and other mass gatherings were much more difficult.
He predicted a significant change to lifestyles until a vaccine or effective treatments were found.
As the lockdown days wear on, it can be hard to find hope amid the gloom. But people across the world are finding reasons to keep their spirits up – from lockdown charity walks and miraculous recoveries, to virtual graduation wishes from celebrities and socially distanced block parties
Seventy-five years ago crowds massed in the streets of Europe, singing and dancing as their leaders announced the end of six years of bloody war. Today, the streets were empty, and leaders stood alone in silence at places of commemoration, as a continent marked the heroics of the war generation in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump’s mention of tapes in his extraordinary references, in a live phone call into Fox News, to how he learned from Richard Nixon is interesting, to say the least.
“When I fired Comey, you know what hit the fan,” Trump on Fox News. "I study history," including on Nixon. "Of course, there was one difference. ... #1 he may have been guilty. And #2 he had tapes all over the place. I wasn’t guilty. I did nothing wrong. And there were no tapes.” https://t.co/xJIkEuPY7O
Trump tweeted: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”
The tweet, which if taken at face value would suggest Trump has been secretly taping White House meetings, came after the New York Times reported that he demanded “loyalty” from Comey in a private dinner held shortly after Trump took office.
Here’s transcript of Trump’s full comments about Richard Nixon during his call in to Fox News this morning.
Here's the transcript of Trump's comments this morning about what he learned from Richard Nixon. (Of course, Trump did fire a bunch of people.) pic.twitter.com/Ltl8WKvTPe
Government scientific advisers are furious at what they see as an attempt to censor their advice on government proposals during the Covid-19 lockdown by heavily redacting an official report before it was released to the public, the Guardian can reveal.
The report was one of a series of documents published by the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (Sage) this week to mollify growing criticism about the lack of transparency over the advice given to ministers responding to the coronavirus.
More than 20 million people in the US lost their jobs in April and the unemployment rate more than trebled as the coronavirus pandemic shuttered the world’s largest economy, triggering a financial crisis unseen since the Great Depression.
The Department of Labor announced Friday that the US unemployment rate rose to 14.7% from just 4.4% in March and a near 50-year low of 3.5% in February before the US was hit by the virus.
The US may be moving to loosen social distancing restrictions around the same time as several European countries but it remains in a far different, and worse, stage of the coronavirus pandemic.
While infections and deaths from Covid-19 quickly raced to terrifying peaks in Italy and Spain, both countries have managed to arrest the increase and are now forcing the key trends downwards.
One virus; 18 ways of seeing the world. Covid Latam is a collective project documenting the coronavirus pandemic as it unfolds across Latin America. Photographers – 9 men and 9 women – are working in 13 countries: Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Cuba and Mexico to document the unfolding story of the pandemic through the Covid Latam instagram account
Donald Trump has told reporters that 'something happened' when asked about the theory that the virus was released from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. 'Probably it was incompetence. Somebody was stupid,' he said during a meeting with the Texas governor, Greg Abbott. It comes after the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, claimed he had seen 'enormous evidence' that the virus had originated at the lab. No evidence has been produced. China has denied the claims.
If the UK government wants to start easing the country's lockdown restrictions, it needs to get contact tracing right. But what does that mean? What would successful contact tracing even look like? Josh Toussaint-Strauss tries to find out with a little help from Christophe Fraser, an Oxford professor and infectious disease epidemiologist, and Alex Hern, the Guardian's UK technology editor
Queen guitarist says ‘I won’t be able to walk for a while’ after injury during lockdown and lambasts Boris Johnson over coronavirus
Brian May has complained of “relentless pain” after he was taken to hospital following a gardening injury that tore muscles in his buttocks – and, while in recovery, made a sustained attack on Boris Johnson’s preparedness for coronavirus.
Writing on Instagram, the Queen guitarist said: “I managed to rip my gluteus maximus to shreds in a moment of overenthusiastic gardening. So suddenly I find myself in a hospital getting scanned to find out exactly how much I’ve actually damaged myself. Turns out I did a thorough job – this is a couple of days ago – and I won’t be able to walk for a while … or sleep, without a lot of assistance, because the pain is relentless.”
A policy of making men and women leave their homes on alternate days during lockdown in Bogotá is fuelling violence towards the transgender community by the police and the public, activists say.
The mayor of the Colombian capital, Claudia López, announced last month that women were permitted to go outdoors for essential tasks on even-numbered days and men on odd-numbered days, in an effort to limit numbers on the streets.
The Covid-19 pandemic could “smoulder” in Africa for several years after killing as many as 190,000 people in the coming 12 months, the World Health Organization has said.
The WHO warned last month that there could be 10m infections on the continent within six months, though experts said the pandemic’s impact would depend on governments’ actions.
Trouble is brewing for the world’s tea producers as the coronavirus lockdown shut down the harvest in several important regions, including the picking of India’s “champagne of teas”.
Despite forecasts of increased demand from drinkers stuck at home across the world, producers have become frustrated by the enforced quarantining of their workforce, with India’s output expected to drop by 9% in 2020.
New Zealand’s cabinet will meet on Monday to decide the future of the country’s tough but effective lockdown – though Kiwis have been told not to visit their mums this Mother’s Day.
Next week, Ardern’s government will plot a path back to something close to normality, meeting to decide a timetable for the removal of social and business restrictions. The prime minister has already released what level two restrictions will look like, including the re-opening of restaurants, hairdressers, gyms, cinemas and public facilities like museums and libraries.
Social restrictions could end immediately, with provisions for schools, business and personal movement more likely to be phased in.
Any decision will come too late for Kiwi mums to enjoy visits from sons and daughters not already in their household bubbles. Ardern has banned socialising outside of existing households, with few exceptions, and told Kiwis this week to “stick to the plan” ahead of Monday’s review.
Labor MP Josh Burns writes to the chef to warn him about Icke’s ‘long history of anti-Semitism’
The celebrity chef Pete Evans has come under fresh criticism for promoting the coronavirus views of David Icke, the British conspiracy theorist previously accused of Holocaust denial and barred from entering Australia.
On Tuesday, 11 days after the Therapeutic Goods Administration fined him $25,200 for spruiking a $15,000 light machine to fight coronavirus, Evans urged his Instagram followers to watch a three-hour-long interview in which Icke simultaneously claims Covid-19 is “a fake pandemic with no virus” and links infections to 5G antenna installations.
Boris Johnson urges nation to unite in tribute as celebrations are adapted owing to Covid-19
RAF jets will roar over Britain to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day, as Boris Johnson urged the nation to unite in tribute to the achievement and sacrifice of the wartime generation.
The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall will lead a two-minute silence from Scotland on a day of celebration and commemoration which also includes a “national toast”, an address by the Queen, and a nationwide sing-a-long of Vera Lynn’s We’ll Meet Again.
Two piglets for a pre-loved kayak, a taxi fare in exchange for fresh produce, hot cross buns for online tutoring, an old carpet for a professional photography session, vegetable seedlings for homemade pies, and offers to have backyards cleaned for prayers.
These are just a few examples of the hundreds of barter trades that are taking place across Fiji since a Facebook page “Barter for Better Fiji” was created a few weeks ago in response to sharp falls in employment due to coronavirus. The page now has more than 100,000 members, in a country of just under 900,000 people.
The government was on Thursday evening urgently trying to regain control of the next phase of the pandemic crisis as it faced fierce criticism and warnings that mixed messaging was priming the public to give up on the lockdown.
First people were meant to stay at home to save lives, and then government sources raised the prospect of picnics with pals and sunbathing in the park just before a sunny bank holiday weekend.
Boris Johnson told the nation that scientists thought face masks might help stop the spread of the disease, but no change was made to the government advice that they were not needed outside medical and care settings.