It is a year since the UK went into lockdown for the first time due to coronavirus.
Here is a series of composite photographs showing locations across the country the day after lockdown was announced in March 2020 and on the one-year anniversary of the announcement.
She is said to be the Queen’s favourite daughter-in-law, and now the monarch is set to turn to the Countess of Wessex to fill the gap left by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in carrying out royal duties. The 56-year-old Countess was one of the most prominent members of the Royal family in the days following the Duke of Edinburgh’s death. She made the first public comments about his passing, repeatedly visited Windsor Castle and provided a photograph of the Queen and the Duke at Balmoral that Her Majesty chose to share with the world as a tribute to her late husband. The departure of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex from the UK, and the effective retirement of the Duke of York, has left a major hole in the roster of Royal family members available to carry out public duties, and the Countess has been groomed to step out of the shadows in the year since “Megxit”. Her husband, the Earl of Wessex, 57, is also expected to increase his public profile as he prepares to take on the title Duke of Edinburgh when the Prince of Wales - who automatically inherited the title from his father - becomes king.
Dr Susan Hopkins has urged people to ‘take caution’ as India variant emerges in the UK
‘If we catch Covid, we die’: UK shielders reflect on still feeling unsafe. Many of those with medical conditions are concerned and nervous about the risk of leaving their homes
While the government works out how to categorise countries for a traffic light system, a new model predicts only eight countries will be on the ‘green’ list
The leader of Sinn Fein has said she is sorry for the murder of the Lord Mountbatten by the IRA following the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh. Mary Lou McDonald, the President of the republican party, said the death of the Duke’s uncle in 1979 was “heartbreaking” and that it was her responsibility to “lead from the front.” Her comments represent a significant shift from her predecessor Gerry Adams, who has refused to apologise for his previous claims that Lord Mountbatten “knew the danger” and could not “have objected to dying in what was clearly a war situation.” Lord Mountbatten was assassinated in August 1979 while holidaying at his summer home Classiebawn Castle. His boat was blown up by the IRA using a bomb that had been placed on the vessel. The explosion also killed his 14-year-old grandson Nicholas Knatchbull, Lady Brabourne, the boy's grandmother, and 14-year-old Paul Maxwell a local boat boy.
Rise in students asking to repeat year after campus shutdowns. Final exam worries grow with in-person teaching still banned at universities in England
N'DJAMENA (Reuters) -The United States said rebel fighters in Chad appeared to be moving towards the capital N'Djamena and ordered non-essential staff to leave, warning of possible violence. A spokesman for the rebel Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT) said its fighters had "liberated" the province of Kanem, some 220 km (136 miles) from the capital N'Djamena, but the government denied this. "The authors of these false statements are not even on the ground, but somewhere in Europe," the government said in a message posted to Facebook.
If Boris Johnson has his way, a woman’s work will truly never be doneOnce finally retired, female carers are the PM’s choice when it comes to looking after aged parents ‘Is Matt Hancock familiar with the works of Anita Brookner?’ Anna Massey in the 1986 BBC TV version of Hotel du Lac. Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive
Cutting the cost of Covid tests for travellersMike Whittaker has a suggestion to reduce test costs for those wishing to travel abroad, while Catherine Dunn says that if the government invested in public health infrastructure, we would have a more effective testing system ‘In principle, the samples from all persons in a travel group could be combined into one single sample tube, which is then tested with a single test.’ Photograph: Kirsty O’Connor/PA
The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge will hold a summit to decide the future of the monarchy over the next two generations following the death of the Duke of Edinburgh. In consultation with the Queen, Britain’s next two kings will decide how many full-time working members the Royal family should have, who they should be, and what they should do. The death of Prince Philip has left the Royal family with the immediate question of how and whether to redistribute the hundreds of patronages he retained. Meanwhile the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s decision to step back from royal duties, confirmed only last month after a one-year “review period”, has necessitated a rethink of who should support the sovereign in the most high-profile roles. Royal insiders say that the two matters cannot be decided in isolation, as the issues of patronage and personnel are inextricably linked. Because any decisions made now will have repercussions for decades to come, the Prince of Wales will take a leading role in the talks. He has made it clear that the Duke of Cambridge, his own heir, should be involved at every stage because any major decisions taken by 72-year-old Prince Charles will last into Prince William’s reign. The Earl and Countess of Wessex, who were more prominent than almost any other member of the Royal family in the days leading up to the Duke’s funeral, are expected to plug the gap left by the departure of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex by taking on more high-profile engagements. However, they already carry out a significant number of royal duties – 544 between them in the last full year before Covid struck – meaning they will not be able to absorb the full workload left by the absences of the Sussexes and the Duke of York, who remains in effective retirement as a result of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. In 2019 the Sussexes and the Duke completed 558 engagements between them. It leaves the Royal family needing to carry out a full-scale review of how their public duties are fulfilled. Not only do they have three fewer people to call on, they must also decide what to do with several hundred patronages and military titles held by the Duke of Edinburgh, the Sussexes and possibly the Duke of York, if his retirement is permanent. Royal sources said the Queen, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge would discuss over the coming weeks and months how the monarchy should evolve. The issue has been at the top of the Queen and the Prince of Wales’s respective in-trays since the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s one-year review period of their royal future came to an end last month, but the ill health and subsequent death of Prince Philip forced them to put the matter on hold.
Hollywood legend Robert De Niro is unable to turn down acting roles because he must pay for his estranged wife's expensive tastes, the actor's lawyer has claimed. Caroline Krauss told a Manhattan court that he is struggling financially because of the pandemic, a massive tax bill and the demands of Grace Hightower, who filed for divorce in 2018 after 21 years of marriage. The court has been asked to settle how much De Niro should pay Ms Hightower, 66, until the terms of the prenuptial agreement the couple negotiated in 2004 takes effect. “Mr De Niro is 77 years old, and while he loves his craft, he should not be forced to work at this prodigious pace because he has to,” Ms Krauss told the court. “When does that stop? When does he get the opportunity to not take every project that comes along and not work six-day weeks, 12-hour days so he can keep pace with Ms Hightower’s thirst for Stella McCartney?”
The Conservatives on Sunday night attempted to draw Labour into the lobbying row engulfing Westminster by claiming an senior opposition frontbencher has questions to answer over his role at a firm that provides advocacy services. Lord Falconer, shadow attorney general, is a partner at Gibson Dunn, an international law firm headquartered in the US, which has provided advice on “political lobbying” in the UK. It says of its “public policy” lobbying practice: “Unlike a pure lobbying firm, Gibson Dunn’s work is grounded in traditional analytic and advocacy skills, combined with broad experience in US and international government operations.” It says its methods “achieve the desired result without fanfare or unwanted publicity”. The Labour peer works for the firm’s litigation practice, rather than its lobbying arm. He is co-lead of the firm’s Covid Taskforce, which has published guidance to businesses on Covid support packages, including the Covid Corporate Financing Facility and Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme, via client updates on its website. In January he also appeared on a webcast hosted by the firm to discuss the Brexit deal secured at the end of last year and “whether it is good or bad for business”. The event focussed on the main structural changes of the deal and what it “means for trade (including supply chains and tariffs), financial services and competition law and what businesses need to do to respond and what to expect in the coming months”. In another webinar for the firm, Lord Falconer called the Covid pandemic “the gift that keeps on giving” for lawyers, a comment for which he later apologised. He first joined the leading US law firm in 2008, a year after leaving Tony Blair’s Cabinet, in which he had served as Lord Chancellor. Gibson Dunn marked his promotion to the shadow cabinet last April in a statement on its website. A QC, his role at the company is understood to focus on giving advice on what the law means. He has declared his work for the firm in the Lords’ register of interests. Labour leader Sir Keir has heaped criticism on an alleged “revolving door” between the Government and paid lobbyists in the wake of the row over the collapsed lender Greensill. Amanda Milling, chairman of the Conservative party, said of Lord Falconer’s links to a firm that provides lobbying services: “Is this a case of one rule for Labour and another for everyone else? It’s clear that Labour’s have questions to answer.” Tory MP Richard Holden said: “Labour London lawyers in their crystal palaces would be well advised against throwing stones.” A source close to Lord Falconer said that any suggestion that his work amounts to lobbying is “an absurd claim” that he “emphatically denies”. The source added: “Charlie Falconer is a lawyer, not a lobbyist. His work has all been properly declared. Since being employed by Gibson Dunn he has never lobbied any government minister from either Labour or Conservative governments. “The Conservatives should stop wasting time on bizarre and misleading claims and instead answer questions about how Greensill Capital was given the run of Whitehall, putting taxpayer money and thousands of jobs on the line.”
He comes under investigation at the hospital.
Government data up to April 17 shows that of the 42,780,069 jabs given in the UK so far, 32,849,223 were first doses – a rise of 139,445 on the previous day. Some 9,930,846 were second doses, an increase of 499,635.
Young people who have previously had COVID-19 are going to be deliberately exposed to the virus for a second time - in a new study that aims to see how their immune systems react. The University of Oxford's "human challenge" trial also hopes to discover what dose of coronavirus is needed to cause a reinfection, and what this may mean for developing protective immunity against the disease. People aged 18 to 30 who have previously been naturally infected with COVID will be recruited and re-exposed to the virus in a safe, controlled environment.
They gamely presented a united front in the aftermath of the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral, strolling side by side and chatting amiably as they emerged from St George’s Chapel into the sunshine. But the Duke of Sussex, 36, was afforded a rare opportunity to have a proper heart to heart with his brother, the Duke of Cambridge, his father and his grandmother on Saturday, as they returned to the confines of Windsor Castle. There, a couple of hours after the ceremony, when most other guests had melted away, senior members of the Royal family spent around an hour together, face to face for the first time in more than a year. There, reunited in grief and in their support for the Queen, Prince Harry is understood to have spent valuable time with Her Majesty, Prince Charles, the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. It was the first time they had been together under one roof since the Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey last March, when the frostiness and the tension was palpable.
The former Spice Girl’s 47th was a star-studded affair.
Supermarket and care staff in London could get key worker access to housing. Sadiq Khan will consult on move to ‘recognise sacrifice’ of workers in pandemic, if re-elected
The Guardian view on the house price boom: the asset-rich get richerTreasury measures to boost demand for property and a neglect of social housing are making a dysfunctional market worse ‘A decent home, along with food, is the most intimate and fundamental of our needs.’ Photograph: Simon Turner/Alamy Stock Photo
The royal family will continue to grieve this week following the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral, although the period of national mourning has ended. After almost 70 years as head of state, the Queen will reign without her husband by her side. She sat on her own during the funeral service that bore Philip’s touch and celebrated his life and legacy.
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