Jessica Salfia’s widely shared poem First Lines of Emails I’ve Received While Quarantining has the refrain ‘As you know, many people are struggling’Everyone has received at least one and now they’ve been elevated to poetry: a US teacher has highlighted corporate opportunism during the coronavirus outbreak, in a viral poem titled First Lines of Emails I’ve Received While Quarantining.Jessica Salfia, an English teacher and writer in West Virginia, posted the poem on Twitter on Saturday. “In these uncertain times / as we navigate the new normal, / Are you willing to share your ideas and solutions? / As you know, many people are struggling,” the poem begins. Continue reading...

This is the most remarkable account so far of Putin’s rise from a KGB operative to deadly agent provocateur in the hated westIn 1985, a young KGB officer arrived in provincial East Germany. His name was Vladimir Putin. What exactly Putin got up to in Dresden is a mystery. The official version says not much: he drank beer, put on weight, lived in an ordinary apartment with his wife, Lyudmila, and their two daughters. While other Soviet spies were having adventures, Putin – so the story goes – sat out the late cold war in a paper-shuffling backwater.The investigative journalist and former Financial Times reporter Catherine Belton has dug deeper. Her groundbreaking book, Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and then Took on the West, offers a far more terrifying version. Putin was a senior liaison officer with the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police, she suggests. And Dresden was a key base for KGB operations, including murderous ones, in which Putin allegedly played a direct part. Continue reading...

The Queen has given an Easter message to reassure the people of the UK that this pandemic can be beaten. The monarch’s speech is said to be her contribution to those marking the occasion at home.

Following a year of triumphs, including an Oscar nod, the actor talks about suddenly finding himself ‘the guy of this moment’“I knew it would be a flame that would die down very quickly, and that’s exactly what happened,” Richard E Grant tells me, talking about the comedown that’s following a frenetic, flashy 12-month period.He’s sitting across from me at a hotel in Manhattan, pre-quarantine, and reflecting on a year that started with a role in true-crime black comedy Can You Ever Forgive Me?, for which he received an Oscar nomination, and ended with a part in the 2019 film Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Continue reading...

Talks to join forces and end the deadlock have broken down at the last minute, with each side blaming the otherA proposed unity government deal involving Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and opposition leader, Benny Gantz, appears to be in jeopardy as initial progress stalls and a deadline this week looks set to be missed.The pair – who have battled for more than a year in three inconclusive elections – had both expressed a desire to come to an understanding as the country faces the coronavirus pandemic. Talks to join forces and end the crippling political deadlock appeared to be in the final stages. One power-sharing deal would see them rotate the role of leader over a four-year term. Continue reading...

Videos on social media show buildings alight in prison near Angarsk near Lake BaikalFire has engulfed a penal colony in Siberia after a riot broke out – reportedly sparked by accusations of brutality.Videos posted to social media on Friday showed buildings ablaze at the IK-15 prison in the Siberian city of Angarsk, 2,500 miles southeast of Moscow and near Lake Baikal’s southern shore Continue reading...

President condemns mob justice and says fears of a cult are baseless rumours designed to sow fear and panicVigilante groups have killed at least eight people in northern Malawi claiming to be protecting communities from “bloodsuckers”, a local official has said.The latest victims were from Mozambique and were attacked on Monday while travelling to Tanzania through Malawi’s northern region. Continue reading...

Rami Aman and others held for ‘establishing normalisation activities ... via the internet’Hamas security forces in the Gaza Strip have arrested local peace campaigners for treason after they held a Zoom virtual conference with Israeli activists.Eyad al-Bozom, a spokesperson from the Hamas-run interior ministry, said the prominent Palestinian figure Rami Aman and others had been detained on charges of “establishing normalisation activities with the Israeli occupation via the internet”. Continue reading...

Stelios Haji-Ioannou, easyJet’s biggest shareholder, has repeatedly tried to get order cancelled

Dropping strict control measures could lead to 300,000 deaths, projections show after country’s deadliest day yet

Majority of forces in England and Wales adopt online form allowing people to report others

Culture secretary Oliver Dowden says measures will be reviewed but unlikely to be eased

Putin is working remotely and mainly focusing on cushioning blow to Russian economy

Tropical Cyclone Harold lashed the South Pacific island of Vanuatu , ripping off roofs and downing telecommunications, before moving towards Fiji and Tonga. The powerful cyclone made landfall on Monday in Sana province, an island north of Vanuatu's capital Port Vila, with winds as high as 235 kilometres an hour. Aerial videos showed buildings with missing roofs, with some flattened to the ground from the impact of the cyclone. The weather system weaken slightly as it moved towards Fiji but still brought high winds and flooding before moving towards Tonga

Fifteen-year-old boy is one of seven indigenous Brazilians to test positive for coronavirus in three Amazon states

Guinness World Records changes rules to use road’s centre rather than sides for measurementsLast summer the townsfolk of Harlech, in north-west Wales, were celebrating the accolade of having the steepest street in the world.A mere eight months on, they are in the doldrums after being informed by Guinness World Records that a New Zealand rival for the title has usurped them. Continue reading...

In the space of one month, the UK has gone from business as usual to deserted cities as it is forced to deal with the menace of Covid-19. It poses a clear and present threat to our health, but what are the other concerns? Using search and traffic data from the Citizens Advice's website for March 2020, a picture emerges of the worries of a nation as it battles the disease

Vatican praises Australian cardinal for having ‘waited for the truth to be ascertained’Pope Francis has recalled the “persecution that Jesus suffered” and has prayed for those who suffer “unjust sentences” hours after Australia’s highest court acquitted cardinal George Pell of child sexual abuse.The court in Canberra quashed convictions that Pell sexually assaulted two choirboys in the 1990s, allowing the 78-year-old former Vatican economy minister to walk free from jail, ending the most high-profile case of alleged historical sex abuse to rock the Roman Catholic church. Continue reading...

Federal and state education ministers rule out a mass repeating, with every student to receive an AtarSign up for Guardian Australia’s daily coronavirus email

Shortages creating ‘catastrophic’ situation among vulnerable Indigenous groups with some services on brink of closing doors

Scottish care worker pleads for them to be treated as key workers as she shopped for elderly womanAldi has apologised after a care worker in Scotland was turned away from priority access at the supermarket when trying to buy food for an elderly client.Marion Kilmurray posted a plea on Facebook for care workers to be treated as frontline workers after the incident on Sunday in Wishaw, North Lanarkshire, which quickly went viral and has been shared over 100,000 times. Continue reading...

Rules enforcement highlights problem of getting message across to minority community

I cheered the role of BAME medics in the battle against Covid-19 – but I didn’t expect the torrent of abuse that followed

The new leader’s aura of competence and message of unity won him the support of all sections of the partyA few days before Keir Starmer was crowned leader of the Labour party, one of his shadow cabinet colleagues, Jon Trickett, made this observation about the way he operates. “He just has this inner drive. I get this impression that he thinks he has been driven by fate.”This quiet sense of destiny and “innate hunger”, Trickett said, seemed to affect much that Starmer did, and how he behaved. “One of the things I have noticed about Keir is that you can be walking through the Commons, or wherever it is, with him in a reasonably comradely way and then, suddenly, he would end up two strides ahead. It is just how he is.” Continue reading...

Suspects questioned on Saturday in connection with murder of man outside houseThree men have been arrested in Belfast in connection with the murder of a man in the north of the city earlier on Saturday.The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said the three suspects were taken to Musgrave Street police station in central Belfast for questioning on Saturday evening. Continue reading...

Overwhelming vote grants new leader strong mandate to take party in his own directionSir Keir Starmer has promised to rebuild the nation’s trust in the Labour party after winning a stunning victory to succeed Jeremy Corbyn as leader.Related: A conference call with his defeated rivals – then Keir Starmer was straight down to business Continue reading...

Simon Armitage pogos to neo-punk, Anne Enright craves for Cary Grant, The Seventh Seal cheers up Julian Barnes, Diana Evans works out to hip-hop and Jeanette Winterson talks to herself … writers reveal how they’re surviving the corona crisis Continue reading...

Beijing ‘aims to turn national disaster into global triumph’ with help of TV news channel and Twitter

Reporters say measures are being used to deny them access to information on pandemic

Von der Leyen apologises to Italy for lack of solidarity and proposes Covid-19 ‘Marshall plan’

The federal government has announced far-reaching changes to childcare funding arrangements. Here are the details

Positive test for 20-year-old woman from Kokama tribe comes amid fears virus could devastate remote communities

Based on current polling, current president Andrzej Duda would gain more than 50% of the vote

Leaders are warned that if division prevails, pandemic will be more destructive than Brexit, migration and bailout crises

The prime minister offers a prayer for the national cabinet and says his faith gives him ‘enormous encouragement’Follow the Australia coronavirus blog for live news and updatesSign up for Coronavirus: Australia at a glance, our daily email newsletterCoronavirus Australia maps and cases: live numbers and statisticsScott Morrison has offered a prayer for the national cabinet to stay “strong and united” and committed the Australian nation to God during times of “great need and suffering” as it responds to Covid-19.The prayer is contained in a video, first published by Eternity News but later removed and republished by Queensland Parents for Secular State Schools, in which Morrison explains his faith gives him “enormous encouragement” in how to respond to the crisis. Continue reading...

The 1.1 million people on temporary work visas have been conspicuously absent from the government’s assistance packages

Bernard Wilson suggests a way to get round the problems caused by the coronavirus-related shutdown of English football

Virgin Australia raises the prospect it might end up in government hands, confirming it is seeking $1.4bn

Here’s how the banks are doing their bit to help while businesses are closed and people are out of work due to coronavirus• Follow the Australia coronavirus blog for live news and updates

Kim Jong-un’s regime says ‘we will walk our own way’ but US secretary of state still hopes for dialogueNorth Korea has warned it could cut off dialogue with the United States but Mike Pompeo has said the US still looked forward to talks, even after the North called his insistence on sanctions “ludicrous”.The US secretary of state has asked nations to “stay committed to applying diplomatic and economic pressure” over the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes while calling on it to return to talks. Continue reading...

Dan Butler, 29, a radio journalist, and his husband, Hugh O’Connor, 31, a theatre production designer, are also in a relationship with Charles Davis, 28, another theatre production designerDan remembers one evening, sitting on the sofa and talking to his husband, Hugh, about Charles. “It was the most amazing experience because we were really falling in love with this person,” he says. “And we could talk about it with each other, like: ‘Isn’t it amazing about him that he does this thing?’ I remember taking a deep breath and saying: ‘This is becoming something; this is something real.’”Dan and Hugh, who live in Sydney, have been together for eight years, but this was about five years into their relationship. They had met as students at a party. “At some point, the cops came and shut it down,” says Hugh. “I said to a whole load of people in the street: ‘Do you want to come back to my house?’ I wasn’t ready to stop having a good time. Dan and I started talking, and on the way home we talked about Carl Sagan and Beyoncé. We covered a pretty wide range of topics.” Continue reading...

The RBA begged the government for stimulus to kickstart the economy – to no avail. But coronavirus has seen a radical change in thinkingOn 12 March Scott Morrison came to his courtyard with $17.6bn. A week later the Reserve Bank of Australia cut the cash rate to 0.25% and pumped more than $100bn into the financial system in an effort to keep struggling businesses afloat and stave off substantial job losses.On 22 March Morrison returned to his courtyard with another $66bn. Then on 30 March, Monday, the prime minister came back with $130bn for wage subsidies. Monday’s $130bn will be spent not over the four-year forward estimates, which is the budgetary convention. It will be spent over the next six months. Continue reading...

After the coronavirus outbreak, life is returning to normal here. Other countries face a much longer wait

Donald Trump backs away from quarantine of states as US death toll tops 2,000 and global infections pass 660,000

National lockdown tightened as single-day death toll reaches new high of 832

Swipe at lawmakers as judge says only ‘undemocratic and authoritarian regimes’ seek to ban peaceful protestsGovernment opponents and human rights activists have welcomed a decision by Uganda’s constitutional court to overturn legislation that gave police “supernatural powers” to stop public gatherings and protests.“It is only in undemocratic and authoritarian regimes that peaceful protests and public gatherings of a political nature are not tolerated,” said Justice Cheborion Barishaki in a ruling on Thursday. Continue reading...

No one takes bugs into space, and therapists have ditched the couch: 16 people reflect on how their worlds have changed Continue reading...

With scarce resources instilling a spirit of togetherness, Italians have quickly learned to cherish what we once took for granted

Irish taoiseach says new measures aimed at ‘saving as many people’s lives as possible’The Irish government has announced sweeping restrictions that will put Ireland in a de facto lockdown to try to slow the spread of coronavirus.The taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said on Friday evening that from midnight people should stay at home for two weeks, until 12 April, in a significant tightening of curbs on social and commercial life. Continue reading...

British summer time officially starts at 1am on Sunday, when the clocks go forward an hourIt is that time of year again, the ritual of trying to work out which of your electronic gadgets automatically adjusts for clock changes, and which do not. British summer time (BST) officially starts at 1am on Sunday 29 March, when the clocks go forward an hour to 2am.With the country in lockdown due to the coronavirus outbreak, it will be one of the strangest clock changes in living memory. With time spent outside being limited, very few people will be able to take advantage of the extended sunlight hours, and any plans for long summer evenings lounging around outside socialising look like they will have to be postponed to next year. Continue reading...