Coronavirus:

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Cases per 100,000 people in the most recent seven-day period

Starmer accuses PM of 'gross negligence'

Sir Keir Starmer has said Labour supports the latest coronavirus restrictions but accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of "gross negligence" in failing to act earlier.

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  • Farmer's son who murdered a schoolboy after paying him to hide their sexual relationship jailed for life

    A farmer's son who murdered a schoolboy after paying more than £2,000 to stop him revealing their sexual relationship has been sentenced to a minimum of 28 years in custody. Matthew Mason, 20, admitted bludgeoning 15-year-old Alex Rodda to death with a wrench in woods in Ashley, Cheshire, on December 12 2019 but denied murder, arguing he experienced a loss of control after being blackmailed by the teenager. Earlier this month a jury at Chester Crown Court rejected his claims and found him guilty of murder by a majority verdict. Sentencing Mason on Monday to a life term, the Honorary Recorder of Chester Judge Steven Everett told him: "This was a pre-meditated murder, carefully planned and, in my judgment, ruthlessly carried out showing no empathy for your victim and a callous disregard for his family and friends."

  • Revealed: The Jobs With The Highest Covid Death Rates

    The figures cover the period from March 9 to December 28, 2020.

  • 'I had to leave': Therese Coffey explains why she 'walked off' Good Morning Britain interview

    The work and pensions secretary called a halt to an interview with the ITV show on Monday.

  • EU threatens to block Covid vaccine exports amid AstraZeneca shortfall

    EU threatens to block Covid vaccine exports amid AstraZeneca shortfallBloc may receive only half of purchased 100m doses in first quarter of the year * Coronavirus – latest updates * See all our coronavirus coverage

  • Pupil motivation on remote education ‘significant concern’ for parents – Ofsted

    Two in five parents see child’s focus on studying when learning remotely as the top challenge, a survey suggests.

  • 'Traitors get shot': Texas man arrested over Capitol riots after his son tipped off FBI

    A Texan teenager who tipped off the FBI about his father's alleged involvement in the Capitol riots said he would "do it again", despite claiming his father threatened to shoot him for being a "traitor". Jackson Reffitt, 18, said he felt a moral obligation to report his father to the authorities after watching him participate in the violent riots on live TV. His father, Guy, 48, was arrested at his home in Wylie, Texas on January 16 and faces charges of obstruction of justice and knowingly entering a restricted building. According to court documents, Mr Reffitt had allegedly threatened his wife and children, saying: “If you turn me in, you’re a traitor and you know what happens to traitors … traitors get shot”. The younger Mr Reffitt said he was "afraid" of what his father might think of him, but told local station Fox 4 that he had acted according to his "moral compass".

  • Britain faces three-month 'halfway house' lockdown after Easter

    Britain faces a three-month lockdown "halfway house" after Easter, with a full reopening delayed until all over-50s have had their second dose of the vaccine, The Telegraph understands. Ministers are considering proposals to begin reopening swathes of the economy in April under similar restrictions to those in place over the summer, with "rule of six" and social distancing measures in force in pubs and restaurants. A return to full normality will be delayed for at least 12 to 14 weeks to allow all over-50s to have their second dose of the vaccine, according to a source familiar with the discussions. Ministers are keen to reopen hospitality venues in some capacity before the G7 summit in the second week of June, when the UK will host world leaders at Carbis Bay, Cornwall. National measures will be eased in advance of the summit, allowing pubs, restaurants and tourism to begin to trade again. Boris Johnson has previously suggested England will return to the geographical tiers system after the lockdown ends, but sources suggested the tiers may apply to the whole country rather than to specific areas. "The appetite for regional tiers will only come if you have large swathes of the country that are significantly lower in case numbers and new variant case numbers and hospitalisations," a source said.

  • Watchdog to investigate claims Justice Department officials plotted to help Trump overturn election result

    Former president was accused of conspiring with DOJ lawyer Jeffrey Clark

  • Five key failings that cost Lampard his Chelsea job

    Frank Lampard has been dismissed as Chelsea manager after 18 months at the Stamford Bridge helm. Here, we examine five key failings that proved costly for the former Chelsea and England midfielder.

  • Sturgeon refuses to say if she would quit if it is found she lied over Salmond

    Nicola Sturgeon has refused to confirm that she would quit as First Minister if it is found that she deliberately lied to Holyrood over the Alex Salmond affair, as she accused her predecessor of spreading “false conspiracy theories” about her. The First Minister insisted she had not misled the Scottish Parliament about her handling of sexual harassment complaints against Mr Salmond, as two inquiries examining her conduct, which her opponents believe could see her forced from office, gather pace. In a submission to an investigation into whether Ms Sturgeon broke the ministerial code, Mr Salmond said statements which Ms Sturgeon made to Holyrood about when she first became aware of complaints against him were “simply untrue”.

  • Indian and Chinese troops involved in new border clash in eastern Himalayas

    Indian and Chinese soldiers armed with sticks and stones have brawled again along their disputed frontier, Delhi said, as the neighbours' months-long border stand-off continued. Indian security officials said there were clashes after at least 18 Chinese soldiers tried to cross into Indian-claimed territory at Naku La in Sikkim on January 20. Soldiers on both sides were carrying firearms, but did not use them. A senior Indian Army official told the Telegraph that four Indian soldiers were wounded after they challenged the Chinese PLA soldiers. All four Indian wounded had been hospitalised, and their condition was described as stable. The officer said the number of injured Chinese was “in double figures”. An official army statement gave few details, describing the clash as a minor stand-off and saying it had been "resolved by local commanders as per established protocols". The military asked journalists "to refrain from overplaying or exaggerating" the incident. Zhao Lijian, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, urged India "not to take any unilateral action that may further complicate or exacerbate the border tension." Yet an opinion piece in China's Global Times, a hawkish state-owned tabloid, said the reports were false and blamed Indian rumour-mongering. Tensions have been high since May when deadly clashes erupted high in the Karakoram mountains along the poorly defined frontier between the rivals. Both sides have mobilized tens of thousands of soldiers, artillery and fighter aircraft along the fiercely contested border known as the Line of Actual Control, or LAC, that separates Chinese and Indian-held territories from Ladakh in the west to India's eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims in its entirety. May's brawl exploded into hand-to-hand combat with clubs, stones and fists on June 15 that left 20 Indian soldiers dead. China is believed to also have had casualties, but has not given any details. Indian and Chinese army commanders met for the ninth round of talks after a gap of two-and-a-half months in Ladakh on Sunday but neither side released any details of the outcome.

  • Latest weekly Covid-19 rates for local authority areas in England

    Around one in 10 local areas are continuing to see a rise in rates.

  • Johnson faces Tory anger over continued school closures

    Conservative MPs warned the Prime Minister that children are becoming the ‘forgotten victims’ of the pandemic.

  • Neighbours spoiler pictures show Melanie Pearson return to Erinsborough

    A blast from the past.From Digital Spy

  • Biden news – live: US travel restrictions tightened, as Russia told to free Navalny and protesters

    Follow for all the latest from the White House and beyond in US politics

  • China’s Communist Party pushes dangerous fringe Covid theories as it feels pressure of WHO probe

    A government spokesperson suggested that the coronavirus could have emerged from a US military lab

  • Scottish Tory leader says he would boycott independence referendum without UK government approval

    SNP set out 11-point ‘roadmap’ to second independence referendum at the weekend

  • Sarah Huckabee Sanders: Trump press secretary comments on Capitol riots as she announces run for Arkansas governor

    Her father, Mike Huckabee, was the governor of the state from 1996 to 2007

  • 'Highly likely' New Zealand woman was infected with Covid variant in hotel quarantine

    New Zealand's first case of coronavirus in the community for more than two months has been identified as the South African variant and was likely contracted in hotel quarantine, health minister Chris Hipkins said on Monday. The 56-year-old woman, who recently returned from Europe, tested positive on Saturday, 10 days after she completed her compulsory two weeks in isolation. Boris Johnson is under increasing pressure from ministers to toughen border controls to prevent new variants of coronavirus from reaching the UK. And Health Minister Matt Hancock and Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, are currently pushing for all arrivals to the UK to be quarantined in hotels. New Zealand has been widely praised for its handling of the pandemic, with just 25 deaths from 1,927 confirmed virus cases in a population of five million. The latest case is New Zealand's first in the community since mid-November and has been classified as a strain said to be more transmissible. "The strain of infection is the South African variant and the source of infection is highly likely to be a fellow returnee," said Mr Hipkins. The woman is thought to have been infected during quarantine by a person on the same floor of the hotel who tested positive two days before the woman left. The 56-year-old travelled around the Northland region near Auckland after her release from quarantine and showed symptoms for several days before being tested. Two people close to her, including her husband, have since returned negative tests and New Zealand's director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield said they likely avoided contracting the illness due to the type of infection. "She didn't talk about respiratory symptoms, it was more muscle aches, so she may not have been sharing or spreading the virus much," he said. "I don't think that's peculiar to this variant, it's just how it was expressed in this woman." The World Health Organisation has said there is no clear evidence the South African variant leads to more severe disease or a higher death rate.

  • Giuliani slams ‘hate-filled left-wing’ as he responds to £1.3bn defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems

    Donald Trump’s personal lawyer claims legal action is intended to ‘frighten people of faint heart’