The president remained behind closed doors after advisers reportedly warned him that the briefings were hurting his campaignAfter more than a month of near-daily White House coronavirus press briefings, Donald Trump stayed behind closed doors on Saturday after advisers reportedly warned the president that his appearances were hurting his campaign.Trump himself referenced his absence when he wrote on Twitter that the briefings are “not worth the time & effort”. The president wrote the tweet on Saturday evening, when he would usually be taking the podium to address journalists. Continue reading...

Singers and impresarios have died, and with them has gone a cultural moment. How will the city respond when the pandemic has waned?

‘Maximum emergency’ to allow police investigate highest single-day homicide tallyThe Salvadoran president, Nayib Bukele, late on Friday ordered a 24-hour lockdown of prisons containing gang members, and said their leaders would be sent into solitary confinement after a sudden spike in homicides during the day.“No contact with the outside world. Shops will remain closed and all activities are suspended until further notice,” Bukele tweeted shortly before midnight. “Gang leaders will go into solitary confinement.” Continue reading...

There is a perception stillbirth ‘just happens’ but experts say 20% of the 2,170 babies born still a year could be savedAnne-Marie Imrie’s first pregnancy was cruising along well. She’d fallen pregnant quickly and she was healthy. As the months progressed, she started preparing – bought a pram and other baby items. And then, six and a half months in, baby Xavier’s movements started to change. She didn’t want to be a burden, so she didn’t call her doctor when she became worried in the night. When she did see her GP, she was sent to hospital, and they did a scan. That’s when she discovered Xavier had died.“I was expecting … well, not that,” she says. Continue reading...

New York governor recalls wars and the Great Depression to give perspective on self-isolating

Dale Zorn initially defended his actions, saying it was part of ‘our history’, but eventually apologized after widespread outrageA Republican politician in Michigan has apologized after wearing a face mask that appeared to depict the Confederate flag, an image offensive to many Americans as a symbol of racism and slavery.Michigan state Senator Dale Zorn wore the mask during a Senate vote at the Michigan state capitol in Lansing on Friday. He initially defended his actions, saying his wife had made the mask and that it depicted the flag of Tennessee or Kentucky. Continue reading...

Home secretary says charge for doctors and nurses to access healthcare would be ‘looked at’

As WHO warns no evidence exists to suggest people can’t catch Covid-19 twice, India, Belgium and Greece among latest countries to ease lockdowns

A large pachyderm interrupts Boris Johnson’s lockdown exit planning•You can buy your own print of this cartoon Continue reading...

Grim milestone comes almost six weeks after chief scientific adviser said keeping toll under that number would be ‘a good outcome in terms of where we would hope to get’

Covid-19 has forced millions into the unfamiliar world of the home office, where new security threats loom. Here’s how to protect yourself and colleaguesBusinesses are used to being prepared for a disaster and most will have had a well-rehearsed continuity plan in place in case one struck. But even the best plan couldn’t have effectively anticipated the wholesale overnight shift to home working that Covid-19 has caused.“As a result,” Morgan Wright, chief security adviser at cybersecurity firm SentinelOne says, “issues of privacy, collaboration, access and compliance have highlighted weakness in policies and gaps in security.” One of the problems is that even at many larger companies, being caught on the hop by the lockdown has meant that individual departments have been left to find their own ways to work collaboratively. Continue reading...

Global leaders have pledged to accelerate cooperation on a Covid-19 vaccine and to share research, treatment and medicines around the globe as part of a World Health Organization initiative.The US did not take part in the pledge, made at a virtual meeting, designed to show that wealthy countries will not keep the results of research from developing countries.Britain will co-chair a joint coronavirus global response summit on 4 May aimed at raising funds for vaccine research, treatments and tests.

Campaigners condemn government and defence exporters accused of selling weapons to states with poor human rights recordsUK arms sales to repressive regimes increased by £1bn last year compared with 2018.The increase, of more than 300%, has been condemned by arms control campaigners, who accuse the government of putting profits before human rights. Continue reading...

Trump Organisation’s far-flung real estate business has involved dealings with Chinese state-owned firms on several occasionsDonald Trump has a share in a New York property development that borrowed tens of millions of dollars from China, it was reported on Friday.The debt derived from a 30% share the US president owns in a billion-dollar building on the Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan, which was refinanced in 2012 with $211m of the funding coming from the state-owned Bank of China, Politico reported on Friday. Continue reading...

Organised crime is already giving food parcels to the poor in Italy and Mexico. For the cartels and syndicates, this crisis is an opportunity

Police let hundreds gather at ceremony for convicted criminal Clive Pinnock in ‘interests of public safety’A man has been arrested after a gun was fired as hundreds of mourners gathered for the Manchester funeral of a criminal known as “Mr Ibiza”, despite social distancing rules.Armed police scrambled to Gorton Cemetery in Manchester on Thursday after chaos broke out during the funeral of Clive Pinnock, 38, from Longsight, south Manchester, who died in a road crash earlier this month. Continue reading...

Part-owner of shop that used to sell texts critical of China opens new business in TaipeiThe part-owner of a Hong Kong bookstore specialising in texts critical of China’s leaders has reopened his shop in Taiwan after fleeing Hong Kong because of legal troubles.The opening and accompanying news conference came days after a masked man threw red paint at Lam Wing-kee while he sat alone at a coffee shop in Taiwan. Lam suffered no physical injuries and showed little sign of the attack other than a red tint to his hair. Continue reading...

People protest against the Brazilian president after the resignation of popular minister Sérgio Moro. There were calls for Bolsonaro’s impeachment and an investigation into claims he had improperly interfered in the country’s federal police.

The coronavirus was probably brought to Brazil by rich returning holidaymakers but it is threatening to explode in marginal communitiesIn many ways, Washington Castro was a typical resident of Rocinha, the immense redbrick favela that towers over Rio de Janeiro’s Atlantic coast.Industrious, God-fearing and the offspring of migrants from Brazil’s parched and impoverished north-east, he supported two young children by working two separate jobs and wore a suit and tie when attending his local church. Continue reading...

National Crime Agency and Border Force officers recover at least 36kg of class A drugTwo men have been charged with conspiracy to import class-A drugs after cocaine worth £3m was discovered in a purpose-built hide in a lorry that had travelled by ferry from France to Dover.The National Crime Agency said Gary Sloan, 50, from Magheralin in Co Armagh, and Jason Bunce, 57, from Kingswood in Kent, would appear at Canterbury magistrates court on Saturday. Continue reading...

Parents of constable Josh Prestney, 28, say they ‘cannot fathom the circumstances’ that led to their son’s deathThe family of a police officer killed alongside three colleagues when they were struck by a truck on a Melbourne freeway on Wednesday say they have lost their “bright light”.Constable Josh Prestney, 28, was the youngest of the four officers killed in the incident, which is the single largest loss of police lives in Victoria since 1878, when three officers were killed in a shootout with the Kelly gang. Continue reading...

Form of corporal punishment will be replaced by jail terms, fines or a mixture of both

Today Africans in Guangzhou are being demonised over Covid-19, but the roots of this prejudice go back centuries

A summary of the major developments in the coronavirus outbreak across AustraliaGood evening and here is our daily roundup of the latest developments on the coronavirus pandemic in Australia. This is Naaman Zhou bringing you the main stories on Saturday 25 April. Continue reading...

In 1988 Abramović and Ulay trekked from opposite ends of the wall to meet in the middle, but this act of love and performance art was doomed from the startFrom the moment in 1976 that Serbian and German performance artists Marina Abramović and Ulay (Frank Uwe Laysiepen, who died last month aged 76) clapped eyes on each other they were inseparable. Ulay found Abramović witchy and otherworldly; she found him wild and exciting. Even their initial encounter was propitious: they met in Amsterdam on their shared birthday of 30 November.The pair began to perform together, describing themselves as a “two-headed body”. For years they lived a nomadic lifestyle, travelling across Europe in a corrugated iron van and performing in villages and towns. Their artistic collaborations matched their personalities: they focused on performances that put them in precarious and physically demanding situations, to see how they and their audience would respond. In one, called Relation in Time, they remained tied together by their hair for 17 hours. They explored conflict, taking their ideas to extremes: running full pelt into each other, naked, and slapping each other’s faces until they could take no more. Continue reading...

Not a day has been spent in jail nor a penny paid in compensation for the brutal murder of a 14-year-old boy in Mississippi that helped spark the civil rights movementThelma Wright Edwards knows this is the last chance for justice for Emmett Till. The next few weeks and months will determine whether there will ever be closure for her beloved cousin “Bobo”, as the family affectionately call the child.The Guardian has learned that a reinvestigation of the boy’s murder that has been carried out by the FBI over the past three years could be wrapped up in weeks. For Thelma and the rest of the Till family, a decades-long struggle for justice is fast approaching its conclusion. Continue reading...

Neighbourhood of Les Parcs de Saint Tropez reportedly screened as local hospital staff do without

Pentagon suggests no decision imminent on the navy’s preliminary inquiry into the USS Theodore RooseveltThe US navy has recommended reinstating the fired captain of the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, whose crew hailed him as their hero for risking his job to safeguard their lives from coronavirus, officials have said.Related: US Navy captain fired for raising coronavirus concerns tests positive himself Continue reading...

Plenty of countries with male leaders have also done well. But few with female leaders have done badly

Police allege the 44-year-old travelled to Syria in 2012 and 2013 to fight ‘for months at a time’A Sydney man has been charged after allegedly fighting for an al-Qaida-linked Syrian terrorist group “for months at a time” in 2012 and 2013.The 44-year-old was due to face Parramatta bail court on Saturday after tactical police arrested him in a car park in Mount Lewis on Friday. Continue reading...

Speculation continues about dictator’s condition after reports of heart surgery and absence from important eventsChina has sent a team to North Korea including medical experts to check on Kim Jong-un, according to three people familiar with the situation.The trip by the Chinese doctors and officials comes amid conflicting reports about the health of the North Korean ruler. It was not immediately clear what the trip by the Chinese team signalled in terms of Kim’s health. Continue reading...

Lockdown is tough on the best relationships so we want to hear readers’ advice on how to stay strongLife in lockdown can be testing. The coronavirus crisis has meant that most of us are shut in together and mostly just trying to get along – but even the best relationships can be strained.We know what that could mean: China’s divorce rate spiked after its quarantine period ended with countless couples heading for splitsville. So we all need tips and advice on how to avoid that fate from those who’ve figured out how to stay together, no matter what. Those couples who’ve made it through in good times and bad – sometimes with help and sometimes with bare grit and determination. Continue reading...

President Jair Bolsonaro denies he sought to influence federal police inquiriesBrazil’s government has been plunged into turmoil after the resignation of one of Jair Bolsonaro’s most powerful ministers sparked protests, calls for the president’s impeachment and an investigation into claims he had improperly interfered in the country’s federal police.In a rambling televised address late on Friday, Brazil’s embattled president denied claims from his outgoing justice minister Sérgio Moro that he had sought to appoint a new federal police chief in order to gain access to secret intelligence reports – for reasons that remain murky. Continue reading...

Sweden reports highest number of new cases; WHO launches €7.5bn fundraising bid; Russian cases jump by more than 5,000 in a day

Aboriginal artists are streaming free music and dance performances during the coronavirus crisis

Not having a public commemoration organised by the state might enable a more just remembering of warPublic memory is a funny business.Related: Beating the khaki drum: how Australian identity was militarised | Paul Daley Continue reading...

With Labor ready for a ‘big conversation’, get ready for a wild ride along the path to coronavirus recovery

New law will also offer wider protection against race, sex, age and religious discriminationThe Scottish government has published a bill that would decriminalise blasphemy, more than 175 years after the last case was prosecuted.The devolved administration in Edinburgh said the continued criminalisation of blasphemy, which falls under hate crime laws, “no longer reflects the kind of society in which we live”. Continue reading...

Security services said last week that videoconferencing tool was vulnerable to surveillance

Mark Grenon wrote to Trump saying chlorine dioxide ‘can rid the body of Covid-19’ days before the president promoted disinfectant as treatment

Police in Russia's southern city of Krasnodar stopped traffic on a busy road to allow a family of ducks to cross safely. In a video that has gone viral on Russian social media, police are seen moving a traffic sign to stop the flow of cars and guide the ducks to the side of the road. The incident reportedly happened near a police checkpoint that was set up to enforce restrictions on movement in the city due to the coronavirus pandemic. The ducks reportedly made it safely to their destination — a pond a few hundred metres away. Continue reading...

Gabriel Wortman also beat and handcuffed his girlfriend before the shooting, police said, which might have been ‘the catalyst’The Nova Scotia gunman used his replica police cruiser to flag down motorists before murdering them, and also targeted passersby who offered to help and a lone walker out for a Sunday morning stroll.Gabriel Wortman – who killed 22 people on Saturday and Sunday – also stole weapons from a police officer he murdered, switched vehicles and changed clothes to elude capture during his 12-hour killing spree. Continue reading...

Duchess sues publisher of British newspapers over use of letter to father Thomas MarkleA newspaper was accused of “stirring up” issues between the Duchess of Sussex and her estranged father, Thomas Markle, then using it to justify publishing a “private and confidential” letter, a court heard.Lawyers representing Meghan said she was distressed at the realisation that Associated Newspapers had an agenda of “intrusive and offensive” stories about her, a judge was told. Continue reading...

Man accused of being Islamic State member and taking part in crimes against the YazidisAn Iraqi man has gone on trial in Frankfurt for genocide, murder, war crimes and crimes against humanity, on allegations that as an Islamic State (Isis) member he was part of an effort to exterminate the Yazidi religious minority, and that he killed a five-year-old girl he purchased as a slave by chaining her in the hot sun to die of thirst.Taha Al-J, 27, whose full last name wasn’t given in line with German privacy laws, faces life in prison if convicted. Continue reading...

Sixty Hutu rebel fighters suspected of attack on civilians in Virunga national parkSuspected Hutu militiamen have killed 16 people, including 12 rangers, in the Virunga national park, a Democratic Republic of the Congo government official has said, in the deadliest attack in the park’s recent history.The park in eastern DRC, home to critically endangered mountain gorillas as well as hundreds of other rare species, has faced repeated incursions and attacks by local armed groups. Continue reading...

Green activists claim victory as government will spend €3bn on new climate initiativesThe Dutch government has announced measures including huge cuts to coal use, garden greening and limits on livestock herds as part of its plan to lower emissions to comply with a supreme court ruling.Climate litigation activists described the move as “an enormous win”. The small non-profit Urgenda Foundation, which filed the initial legal challenge in 2013, said this and earlier compliance measures totalled about €3bn euros, which confirms the impact of the world’s most successful climate lawsuit to date. Continue reading...

António Guterres joined leaders from the European Union and beyond on Friday to ensure all countries receive the tools to fight the coronavirus outbreak. Speaking during a virtual WHO launch event, Guterres said treatments and vaccines should belong to the whole world, not to individual countries or regions. 'Not a vaccine or treatments for one country or one region or one-half of the world,' Guterres said, 'but a vaccine and treatment that is affordable, safe, effective, easily administered and universally available for everyone, everywhere.'

NHS chiefs and No 10 endorse the health secretary as flaws emerge in the structure he leads

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, as the Covid-19 lockdown hits spending in UK shops and confidence among German firms