Image source, Getty Images

The US Supreme Court has temporarily blocked New York from enforcing attendance limits at places of worship in areas hit hard by coronavirus.

In a 5-4 vote, the court ruled that the state's congregational cap had violated rights to religious freedom.

In an unsigned order, it said the rules "single[d] out houses of worship for especially harsh treatment".

The Supreme Court's decision is a major victory for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel, an Orthodox Jewish congregation, which had challenged the restrictions imposed by New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo.

On 6 October, Governor Cuomo shut down non-essential businesses in targeted areas where coronavirus infections had spiked, as part of efforts to control infection rates. Places of worship were also limited to gatherings of 10 in "red" zones, and 25 in "orange" ones.

The US is continuing to battle the world's largest outbreak of coronavirus. Over 12.7 million cases have been recorded nationally, and more than 262,000 deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

• Read more: Is America experiencing its worst Covid wave yet?

Reality Check

Announcing which areas are going into the new tiers, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he knew “how tough this is…for areas which have been in restrictions for a long time like Leicester and Greater Manchester.” Both are going into tier 3.

On 2 December, it will have been illegal for someone in Leicester to go into another person’s house for dinner – for example - for 255 days or more than eight months.

They were briefly allowed to go into each other’s gardens in June, before local restrictions kicked in.

Leicester was the first place to face a local lockdown, when pubs and non-essential shops were shut in July. Case rates dipped over this period but had been increasing in the run up to the national lockdown.

The government says that the decision to place Leicester in tier three is because case rates and pressures on the NHS are “very high”.

Meanwhile, people in Bolton, Bradford, Bury, Calderdale, Kirklees, Manchester, Oldham, Pendle, Rochdale, Salford, Tameside and Trafford, will have spent 228 days with the ban on going to people’s homes in place.

Many of these places also had additional guidance or laws against meeting people in bars and pubs as well over the period.

In contrast, much of the south of England has had to observe the rule on household gatherings for 137 days.

A doctor in the US state of Missouri has made a video simulating what a patient dying from Covid-19 might see - in a bid to urge people to wear face masks.

Dr Kenneth Remy told the BBC that "wearing a mask is not as uncomfortable as having a piece of plastic put into your airway".

He said he felt compelled to create the video, which you can watch below, after noticing the impact of a patient's death on his team.

Image source, EPA

Labour MPs in Leicester have called for "proper support" for local businesses when the city is placed under tier three restrictions.

In a joint statement, Liz Kendall, Jonathan Ashworth and Claudia Webbe said businesses, especially pubs, cafes and restaurants, would be "devastated" by the news the city would be in tier three "in this crucial period in the run-up to Christmas".

“This has already been an unbelievably tough year, and the news that Leicester will go into tier three – on top of the 150 days of our extra lockdown – is extremely difficult to hear," they said.

Like other local leaders, they called for the government to "spell out how we can get out of tier three".

Image source, Getty Images

Disney says it will cut 32,000 jobs in 2021, mostly affecting staff at its US theme parks.

The announced cuts - an increase from the 28,000 it announced in September - will be introduced in the first half of 2021, the company said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

"Due to the current climate, including Covid-19 impacts, and changing environment in which we are operating, the company has generated efficiencies in its staffing, including limiting hiring to critical business roles, furloughs and reductions-in-force," Disney said in the filing.

Disney has previously cited the parks' limited visitor capacity and uncertainty about how long the coronavirus pandemic would last as reasons for layoffs.

The company's theme parks have taken a major hit from the pandemic.

The mayor of the Sheffield City Region has said "lockdown must not become limbo" and called for a "roadmap" to get the area out of tier three "as a matter of urgency".

Dan Jarvis, who is also Labour MP for Barnsley Central, said: “I welcome government plans to review our tier arrangements every two weeks, because every extra day we are under restrictions could be the difference between a business surviving the pandemic or going under."

“We’ve been under tighter restrictions in South Yorkshire since October 24, and they are slowly suffocating businesses, particularly in the hospitality and events sectors. They are now being hit again just as they enter their busiest time of year," he said.

“It’s deeply concerning that the government yet again excluded mayors and local leaders from the decision-making process around the new tiering arrangements," he added.

Soutik Biswas
India Correspondent

When it comes to vaccine making, India is a powerhouse.

It runs a massive immunisation programme, makes 60% of the world's vaccines and is home to half a dozen major manufacturers, including the Serum Institute of India - the largest in the world.

Not surprisingly, there's no lack of ambition when it comes to vaccinating a billion people against Covid-19. India plans to receive and utilise some 500 million doses of vaccines against the disease and immunise up to 250 million people by July next year.

India's 42-year-old immunisation programme, one of the world's largest health programmes, targets 55 million people - mainly newborns and pregnant women who receive some 390 million free doses of vaccines against a dozen diseases every year.

The country also has a well-oiled electronic system to stock and track these vaccines.

Yet vaccinating a billion people, including hundreds of millions of adults for the first time, against Covid-19 is going to be a daunting and unprecedented challenge.

• Read the full report here

Image source, REUTERS/Toby Melville

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will lead a Downing Street press conference this evening.

The briefing is expected to take place at 17:00 GMT.

It's the prime minister's first day out of self-isolation since he came into contact with an MP who later tested positive for Covid-19 - so we're expecting him to appear in person rather than via video-link, like earlier this week.

The government has published the full list of tiers for England, external on its website, as well as a postcode look-up tool, external for people to find the tier for their area, and the reasons behind its decisions, external.

However, several pages of the government site keep crashing, so click here for our explainer giving full details of which area is in which tier - and what the various rules are.

And for extra measure, here's the list of tiers in full:

Tier 1: Medium alert

• Isle of Wight

• Cornwall
• Isles of Scilly

Tier 2: High alert

North West

• Cumbria
• Liverpool City Region
• Warrington and Cheshire

Yorkshire

• York
• North Yorkshire

West Midlands

• Worcestershire
• Herefordshire
• Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin

East Midlands

• Rutland
• Northamptonshire

East of England

• Suffolk
• Hertfordshire
• Cambridgeshire, including Peterborough
• Norfolk
• Essex, Thurrock and Southend on Sea
• Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes

London

• All 32 boroughs plus the City of London

South East

• East Sussex
• West Sussex
• Brighton and Hove
• Surrey
• Reading
• Wokingham
• Bracknell Forest
• Windsor and Maidenhead
• West Berkshire
• Hampshire (except the Isle of Wight), Portsmouth and Southampton
• Buckinghamshire
• Oxfordshire

South West

• South Somerset, Somerset West and Taunton, Mendip and Sedgemoor
• Bath and North East Somerset
• Dorset
• Bournemouth
• Christchurch
• Poole
• Gloucestershire
• Wiltshire and Swindon
• Devon

Tier 3: Very High alert

North East

Tees Valley Combined Authority:

• Hartlepool
• Middlesbrough
• Stockton-on-Tees
• Redcar and Cleveland
• Darlington

North East Combined Authority:

• Sunderland
• South Tyneside
• Gateshead
• Newcastle upon Tyne
• North Tyneside
• County Durham
• Northumberland

North West

• Greater Manchester
• Lancashire
• Blackpool
• Blackburn with Darwen

Yorkshire and The Humber

• The Humber
• West Yorkshire
• South Yorkshire

West Midlands

• Birmingham and Black Country
• Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent
• Warwickshire, Coventry and Solihull

East Midlands

• Derby and Derbyshire
• Nottingham and Nottinghamshire
• Leicester and Leicestershire
• Lincolnshire

South East

• Slough (remainder of Berkshire is tier 2: High alert)
• Kent and Medway

South West

• Bristol
• South Gloucestershire
• North Somerset

Matt Hancock says how successful mass testing has been in Liverpool - helping it be moved to tier two.

Sean Curran
Parliamentary correspondent

Image source, gov.uk

The Commons Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, has criticised the government after a website which allows people to search by postcode, external to find out about local coronavirus restrictions was launched before the health secretary made his statement to Parliament.

Sir Lindsay said the situation was "unacceptable" and told MPs, "this House should be informed first. We keep telling the government that is the way that good government should treat and respect this chamber. It is not acceptable to put it online."

Hoyle said "the only good thing" about the list being published, was that it's crashed.

Click here for our explainer giving full details of which area is in which tier - and what the various rules are.

Chris Mason
Political Correspondent

The government at Westminster has long been an advocate of a regional approach to restrictions in England -- an approach rudely interrupted by cases rising so fast pretty much everywhere that the national restrictions currently imposed became necessary.

The argument in favour of a regionalised approach is that geography matters and blanket measures fail to recognise this.

But the challenge with a regional approach -- however sophisticated the metrics for deciding which areas go in which tiers -- is, in the end, relatively arbitrary lines have to be drawn in relatively arbitrary places -- and with that will come a huge argument about perceived injustices; ones which could have big implications for lives, livelihoods and liberties.

The government's exit strategy from restrictions is to keep the virus suppressed with the minimum damage possible to the economy and education, while working as fast as possible towards a vaccine and community testing, Hancock said.

The health secretary again praised the progress in Liverpool and the work of local leaders to make mass community testing a success.

He added that when local leaders did not work with the government, there was an impact on infection levels, with cases going up.

This was in "sharp contrast" with Liverpool and other areas where local leadership were "constructive and positive", Hancock said.

Image source, PA Media

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said he would be "making the strongest possible arguments" for the region to be moved down to tier two in a fortnight if good progress continues.

He told BBC Radio Manchester he was not surprised it was being subject to the toughest restrictions.

"We've got the fastest fall going on in cases at the moment, but there is a big but I'm afraid - and the big but is our cases are still quite a lot higher than the rest of England," he said.

"So we're coming down quickly, we're going in the right direction, but if I just look at all the evidence and take the evidence alone, the evidence points into tier three."

But he criticised the lack of business support available for tier three areas.

"What we believe is completely wrong is the government's decision to provide no additional business support to areas in tier three than those in tiers one and two.

"The new tier three will hit the hospitality sector extremely hard. While there are grants for businesses forced to close, there is no extra support for businesses which supply them like security, catering and cleaning."

Image source, Getty Images

For months now, coronavirus restrictions have dictated where millions of Europeans can travel to and who they can see when they get there.

So with Christmas fast approaching, governments are having to make tough decisions on whether to ease restrictions in time for the holiday period.

As we reported earlier, popular ski resorts are likely to remain closed and could lose out on billions of euros in festive revenue.

Meanwhile, while some travel restrictions have been lifted, a cap on social gatherings remain in many European countries and in some, restaurants and bars will remain shut until next year.

For a breakdown of what's been announced so far, read our report here.

More from the shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, who welcomes the increase in mass testing and gives the example of Slovakia. There, he says, over three million people were tested one weekend, with the incentive of getting greater freedoms if they took part.

He asked if that was part of government thinking.

But Ashworth says that it was unlikely people would take a test if they felt they'd be financially penalised if they tested positive - and that low-paid people need better support to isolate.

Moving on to Christmas, he said the announcement on Christmas bubbles will have made families feel relief - but the NHS feel nervous.

A "clear public health message" is needed, and asking people "to be jolly careful" - as the prime minister has done - is "not good enough".

January is an "immensely busy and pressured time" for the NHS and it will need protection through the winter months, says Ashworth.

He ends asking if the measures being announced today will be enough to bring the R number down below 1 and keep it there until we have a vaccine.

Responding to Hancock's statement Labour's shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth says he understands why tough restrictions are needed but says these interventions succeed when done "in tandem" with local communities.

He asks what role regional leaders have in making these decisions and whether they are being "imposed" by Downing Street.

Ashworth points out that for pubs and restaurants, Christmas is a vital period and they will need "substantial financial support".

He also asks whether areas which were in tier three before the national lockdown will now get backdated economic support for their small businesses.

Finally he says some parts of the country have been under some form of lockdown for months now and families will want to know what the exit strategy is.

Hancock finishes his statement by saying there is "no quick fix" to the pandemic but "the end is in sight".

"Hope is on the horizon but we still have further to go so we must all dig deep," he says.

"The end is in sight – we mustn’t give up now. We must follow these new rules and make sure that our actions today will save lives in future and help to get our country through this”.

Hancock said the community testing programme was now being expanded even further - focusing on the areas with the greatest rate of infections.

The programme will be open to all local authorities under tier three restrictions.

It will offer help to get out of the toughest restrictions "as fast as possible".

The government will work with local authorities to get tests to where they are most needed and also to get people to come forward.

The more who get tested, the quicker an area can come out of those toughest restrictions, he says.

In an online version of the health secretary's statement, external to Parliament, the reasons for each area being place in each tier has been laid out.

For example, the document explains that Greater Manchester remains in tier three, despite improvements to its infection levels, because:

• Weekly case rates remain very high, especially amongst those aged over 60, at around 260 per 100,000 people
• Manchester University hospital and Pennine Acute Trust remain under significant pressure

And the document says Liverpool City Region has been moved down from tier three to tier two, because:

• Continued improvement across the Liverpool city region
• Case rates (including for the over 60s) are decreasing rapidly with some notable improvements in Liverpool, Knowsley and Sefton
• Cases have fallen by 69% over six weeks
• But case rates in over 60s remain high at 150+ per 100,000 people in all lower tier local authorities

As for the Isle of Wight, which is one of only three areas to be placed in the lowest tier, tier one, the document cites these reasons for the decision:

• The case rate is low and decreasing at 71 per 100,000 and lower in over 60s at 44 per 100,000
• Covid-19 pressure on the NHS in the area is low

Click here for our explainer giving full details of which area is in which tier - and what the various rules are.