UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has chaired his first cabinet meeting since returning to work after recovering from coronavirus.

His spokesman said the meeting included updates from chief medical officer Chris Whitty and chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance on the response to coronavirus so far, and the progress made in slowing its spread.

During a lobby briefing with journalists, the PM's spokesman was also asked if lockdown measures in the UK could last until the end of June.

He would not "pre-empt" any decisions, but quoted Prof Whitty, saying: "We have to be realistic, we're going to have to do a lot of things for a long period of time."

And on reaching the government target of carrying out 100,000 tests a day by the end of the month - the deadline being today - the spokesman said they were still "working hard" to reach the goal.

This is despite Justice Secretary Robert Buckland saying earlier that it was "probable" the target would be missed.

Image source, Getty Images

When UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab warned on Wednesday of the need to move carefully in lifting restrictions, he cited a "rise in the transmission rate of coronavirus" in Germany.

Germany began easing restrictions at the beginning of last week. It has seen 6,288 deaths, according to its RKI public health agency. That is relatively low for Western Europe, and the RKI says the true number will be higher.

But has Germany seen a rise in the reproduction rate of the virus, known as R0?

Germany's RKI, in common with other countries, is seeking a rate below one - so that one infected person goes on to infect less than one other person, on average, and the virus eventually peters out. In early March the German R0 rate was three but by mid-April it was below one. On Monday evening, that rate did rise briefly to one before falling back again, and the current figure is 0.76, external.

Throughout the week the daily number of new infections has been between 1,000 and 1,500, which is down on last week.

Our health correspondent explains all you need to know about R0 - and why governments all around the world are watching the figure, here.

We've just brought you the news that more than 30 million people have filed for unemployment in the US in six weeks.

Susan Kent, a breast cancer survivor, became unemployed when the theatre she worked at closed because of coronavirus.

That also meant she lost health benefits in a pandemic.

"Everything changed," she told the BBC. "I lost my job, I lost my health insurance."

Half of America relies on health insurance sponsored by their employer.

But how did we get here? Our reporter Angélica Casas explains.

Image source, Getty Images

The US labour department has released its latest unemployment numbers - and last week continued the bleak trend.

In the past week, 3.8 million more people filed for unemployment, bringing the total number of Americans made jobless up to some 30m over the past six weeks.

• Stories of unemployment, fear and hope in the US

Unemployment has surged as states enacted social and economic restrictions to curb the spread of Covid-19.

There have been protests across the country urging governors to reopen state economies as a result, and several states have begun to ease restrictions in an effort to get businesses back open.

Some economists anticipate US unemployment could reach 20% by the end of April - about 5% shy of the rate during the Great Depression nearly a century ago.

Sarah Rainsford
BBC Moscow correspondent

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Russian officials are warning of extra police patrols in Moscow and the surrounding region, with concern that an extended 12-day May holiday could lead to a surge in coronavirus infections.

The latest figures show Russia has passed 100,000 recorded cases, and President Vladimir Putin says the infection rate has not yet peaked.

Millions of people in Moscow usually head out of town over the May holidays to their summer houses or the countryside. But the lockdown means there can be no mingling outside the family. Picnics, barbecues and other gatherings are banned.

The latest warnings come as Russia recorded 7,099 new cases - its largest one-day rise. However the rate of infection has remained in single digits, in percentage terms, for more than a week.

Officials point out that they are testing widely: 182,000 tests were conducted yesterday and many of the confirmed cases are people with no symptoms.

The government has been instructed to draw up a plan for easing the self-isolation regime after 12 May if the epidemic allows. But in Moscow, thousands more hospital beds are also being prepared.

The British World War Two veteran who captured the nation's hearts when he raised millions for the NHS has celebrated his 100th birthday in style, with tributes pouring in from around the country.

The total Captain Tom Moore has raised by completing laps of his garden for NHS Charities Together is above £30m.

His birthday was marked with an RAF flypast and birthday greetings from the Queen and prime minister. He was also made an honorary colonel, and became an honorary member of the England cricket team. What a set of presents!

Image source, PA Media

Millions of people in the UK will soon be asked to track their movements to limit the spread of coronavirus.

The government is deploying 18,000 people to trace the contacts of those infected, and the wider public will be asked to get involved too.

So how does contact tracing work, do you have to take part - and what happens to your data? Find out here.

Image source, Gallo Images/Getty

South Africa has reversed an earlier decision to allow cigarette sales when coronavirus restrictions are eased at the start of May. The government said health considerations had influenced their decision to maintain the ban. Elsewhere in Africa:

• The charity Save the Children warned that the Horn of Africa was facing an unprecedented triple threat as the region was hit by the coronavirus pandemic, locust swarms and flooding
• Kenyans online were left outraged after it emerged the ministry of health had spent $37,000 (£30,000) on tea and snacks while half that sum was spent on mobile phone credit for staff in the battle against the virus. The money was part of the $9.3m donated by the World Bank for the emergency response to the pandemic
• The Nigerian government has announced the reopening of government offices and banks starting on Monday. Public transport will only be operational between 06:00 and 18:00 local time

You can read more about these developments and other stories on our dedicated Africa live page.

Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst

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Global carbon emissions are set to drop a record 8% this year because of lockdowns to protect people against the coronavirus pandemic.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects the fall will be six times larger than the previous record in the 2008 recession.

It forecasts that emissions will fall to their lowest level in a decade.

Restrictions on travel and business have slashed pollution. But the agency says this is no cause for celebration.

Scientists want CO2 emissions to fall urgently, but not by shutting down the economy.

Global electricity demand is set to decline by 5% - that’s the largest drop since the 1930s Great Depression, with weekday electricity consumption equivalent to normal Sundays.

Among the carnage for energy firms, only renewables are holding up, the agency says. Low-carbon sources are on track to deliver a record-breaking 40% of the global electricity market in 2020, the IEA says.

The key for many world leaders now is to use the proposed economic stimulus to the global economy to promote green industries of the future.

Another 60 deaths have been recorded in Scotland in the last 24 hours, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon says.

It takes the total number of deaths in Scotland of people who have tested positive for coronavirus to 1,475.

"Radical measures" may be needed to allow jury trials to resume in England and Wales, the head of the judiciary has warned.

They were suspended in March as the pandemic worsened, adding to a pre-pandemic backlog of more than 35,000 cases., external

Now, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett, has told the BBC that trials may have to be moved to bigger buildings for extra space, and that he'd support having fewer jurors at trials - a move last seen during the second World War.

Justice Secretary Robert Buckland has said he is "considering" legislation which could allow for fewer jurors but that it is "going to take time".

And he added that he was "extremely interested" in practical moves, such as holding virtual trials, to "allow juries to come back ...as early as next month".

Our legal correspondent Clive Coleman has this report on the problems the crisis poses for the justice system.

Lots of us have been trying to take advantage of the UK lockdown to finish off personal projects, but one man from Eastbourne has really gone all out.

He's built a 30ft (9.1m) railway in his back garden, complete with a hand-cranked wagon.

The retired British Rail worker is now in negotiations with his wife Ruth, in a bid to extend the line by 45ft to the end of the garden.

Nick Triggle
Health Correspondent

The UK has come a long way on testing. At the start of the pandemic capacity was limited to around 1,000 tests a day.

That was increased to 10,000 by the start of April, but even then NHS staff were struggling to access them.

Since then a network of drive-thru centres has opened and a home-testing kit service launched, while more than 70 military-run mobile units are operating.

On Tuesday, more than 50,000 tests were carried out. Achieving 100,000 today may be difficult, but a lot has still been achieved.

Nonetheless, questions remain. Can people who need testing get it done quickly? When will the system be able to cope with population-wide testing?

Both are going to be crucial if we are to gradually ease our way out of lockdown.

Hugo Bachega
BBC News

The painful task of counting the dead continues in Spain, where the official toll has passed 24,000. Finally, though, the worst seems to be over, and difficult questions are being asked. Families who have lost their elderly relatives in the hard-hit care homes want to know: did it have to be this way?

Monte Hermoso, a privately run centre in Madrid, became a deadly hotspot right at the start of the country's outbreak. More than 48 residents are now thought to have died because of the virus, including Rosana Castillo's mother, Carmela, who was 86.

Castillo and other relatives are still trying to understand how it all happened. From alleged insufficient measures to isolate those with symptoms to inadequate staffing and lack of protective material, they say many of the deaths could have been avoided.

"I think there was a lot of wrongdoing," Castillo told me. "These people couldn't shout or say they were unwell. They died in silence and alone."

Read my full report here.

Sebastian Usher
BBC Arab Affairs Editor

Image source, Getty Images

The first two deaths from coronavirus have been registered in Yemen, heightening concerns over how devastating an outbreak could be in the war-ravaged country.

Yemen has faced major outbreaks of disease - cholera in particular - as a result of a war that's lasted more than five years in what was already the poorest country in the Arab world.

A health official in the city of Aden acknowledged it was hard to even detect the virus given that other prevalent diseases, such as dengue fever, exhibit similar symptoms and testing for Covid-19 remains extremely limited.

The entry points into Yemen have been sealed further to try to prevent coronavirus from getting into the country - but now it's there, fears are rising over how quickly it might spread.

For many in Yemen, the new threat is just one more challenge in a broken country.

Let's take a deeper look at the economic impact of this pandemic.

According to an official preliminary estimate, the economies of the European Union contracted by 3.5% in the first three months of this year.

For context, that's the steepest decline in decades and is even worse than in the aftermath of the global financial crash in 2008.

The situation is even starker in the 19 countries that use the euro as their common currency - they've seen their economies shrink by 3.8%.

Looking at specific countries, France has registered its worst economic contraction since World War Two, with output falling by 5.8% in the first quarter. Spain has also seen its economy shrink by more than 5%.

This is all major indication of the huge economic toll this virus is taking on most European nations.

There's been a lot of discussion about whether people from black, Asian or other minority ethnic backgrounds are more likely to die with coronavirus.

The research is still ongoing but National Health Service data for deaths in London, obtained by the BBC, looked at 3,929 people who died with Covid-19 and it suggests a disproportionate number were black.

Black people account for 13% of the city's population but 16% of deaths.

Epidemiologist Dr Shikta Das says one explanation could be that more people from ethnic minorities are key workers so they're more exposed to the virus.

Read more here

People living in the Spanish capital, Madrid, are now able to watch films from their balconies after the local government introduced a new moving cinema.

It consists of huge screens that will move to a different neighbourhood every evening, allowing people to watch a film from their balconies despite the ongoing lockdown.

Watch this video to see how it works:

Image source, Getty Images

The lockdown has cut traffic pollution everywhere and there are now moves to make greener cities the new normal:

• The French government has announced €20m (£17m; $22m) for pro-cycling measures, including more cycle lanes and a €50 voucher for repairing a bike. Businesses reopen on 11 May and there is concern that many people, fearing catching coronavirus on public transport, may use their cars, creating more traffic jams
• In Belgium there is a new scheme to create 40km (25 miles) of cycle lanes in central Brussels, which suffers from traffic jams

• Russia reports another record rise in coronavirus cases: its total is now above 106,000, after a 7% increase in cases in one day. Officially the number of Covid-19 deaths is 1,073
• Germany’s respected Robert Koch Institute (RKI) says the German infection rate – also called the reproduction or R rate - has dropped to 0.75, from 1. The figure 1 is important: anything above that means the virus could spread again exponentially. At 0.75 it means 10 infected people will on average infect 7.5 others
• Portugal is to announce a detailed plan for easing its lockdown in phases. It is expected to allow small local shops and hairdressers to reopen from Monday. The pandemic has hit Portugal far less hard than its neighbour Spain

Alice Cuddy
BBC News

Hundreds of coronavirus deaths are reported in the UK every day. Each one marks a devastating loss for a family or community somewhere in the country.

We went back to Easter Sunday - the day the UK announced there had been more than 10,000 coronavirus-related hospital deaths - to find out more about the lives of some of those who died.

One of them was 69-year-old Rahima Sidhanee. Hailing from the Caribbean island of Trinidad, she arrived in the UK in the 1960s as part of a drive for recruitment into the National Health Service.

She worked as a nurse and midwife before moving into the care sector, and ignored pleas from family members to give up her job as the outbreak worsened.

Caring was in her nature. She would buy orchids when they were almost dead and nurse them back to life. She expressed her love for people through food, and if you invited her round for dinner she would almost certainly bring some of her own cooking.

Another person who died that day was Keith Parker. He had several underlying health conditions but his family called him “the cat with nine lives” because he had overcome so much.

He was known among friends and family for his sense of humour. He once started a cream and flour fight at a cousin’s wedding.

He was known to his infant granddaughter as Grandad Munchkin. Every night since his death, she has waved at a picture of him and blown a kiss.

Read more about Rahima, Keith and five others who died on Easter Sunday