Australia's former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has told the BBC he does not believe the World Health Organization (WHO) should be investigating its own response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The UN agency has drawn criticism suggesting it did not take action early enough to contain the outbreak.

On Tuesday, WHO member states agreed at the body's annual meeting that there should be an "impartial, independent and comprehensive" probe, external into the WHO's actions during the outbreak.

“Overall, I don’t think it’s right to have Caesar judging Caesar,” said Mr Rudd. "The alternative approach, I think, is for someone like the United Nations Secretary General to empanel a high-level panel of scientists, some from China, drawn also from the rest of the world, to get to the absolute scientific answers.”

Image source, Pete Duncan

A couple whose dream wedding was put on hold due to the UK lockdown took matters into their own hands with a DIY ceremony at home.

Beth Davis and Pete Duncan transformed the lounge of their two-bed Manchester flat into a wedding venue.

The bride wore a homemade dress made from a queen-sized fitted bed sheet, and the couple exchanged vows before a somewhat unusual-looking "priest" made from empty beer boxes.

Beth and Pete hope to do it all again next year - this time with 175 guests.

"It was supposed to be one of the best days of our lives and it was going to be really sad," Pete, 31, told the BBC.

"We didn't want that so having a wedding at home turned it into one of the best days ever."

Nicholas Watt
Political editor, BBC Newsnight

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing a potential rebellion from some Conservative MPs after he rejected calls to scrap the fees overseas health workers have to pay to use the NHS.

The health immigration surcharge on non-EU migrants is £400 ($489) per year and set to rise to £624 ($763) in October.

BBC Newsnight understands that unease is brewing among Tory MPs over the prime minister's stance.

Labour, the SNP and the Royal College of Nursing say the charge is "unfair".

You can read more here.

Image source, Getty Images

A two-day-old baby has become the youngest person to die with coronavirus in South Africa after being born prematurely to a mother that tested positive.

It is the country's first neonatal death.

Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said the premature baby had lung problems and required ventilation immediately after birth.

“The mother had tested positive for Covid-19 and the child subsequently tested positive as well. It is important to appreciate the complexities of the underlying conditions [of] being born prematurely,” he said.

South Africa, which has the highest number of infections in Africa, reported 27 new deaths on Wednesday bringing total fatalities to 339.

There were 803 new cases, taking the total to 18,003.

Image source, Getty Images

The Dagestan region in south-west Russia has officially only recorded a few dozen deaths from the coronavirus. But doctors fear the death toll is in fact far higher and some officials are now warning of a hidden "catastrophe".

BBC Moscow correspondent Sarah Rainsford spoke to one medic, Dr Ibragim Yevtemirov, who still coughed as he spoke after falling ill with the virus.

"All three doctors on my team got sick. We were replaced by dentists until we recovered," Dr Yevtemirov said. "At the peak, there were 10, 11 patients dying a day here."

You can read more from her report here.

On Thursday, Russia’s official death toll passed 3,000 after 127 people were recorded to have died of the virus in the last 24 hours. New confirmed cases rose by 8,849 to a total of 317,554.

Critics fear the death toll may be far higher than reported by the government given the huge number of cases but relatively low number of deaths.

Danny Shaw
BBC Home Affairs Correspondent

Image source, PA Media

More than 300 emergency workers have been assaulted across England and Wales in cases linked to the coronavirus.

Max Hill QC, director of public prosecutions, said they were among 660 Covid-related offences dealt with by the Crown Prosecution Service in April, during the lockdown.

Mr Hill described the attacks on police, paramedics and nurses as "particularly appalling".

He said that of all the Covid-linked crimes, which related to 424 defendants, there was a "very high conviction rate" of 97%, with most pleading guilty early.

There were 313 alleged assaults on emergency workers, 142 cases of criminal damage, 99 public order offences, 62 common assaults and 44 shoplifting cases.

The National Police Chiefs' Council is expected to give further details of crimes recorded by police during the lockdown period later.

The pandemic is having an enormous impact on poorer countries and rich countries need to pay attention, the World Health Organization (WHO)'s special envoy on Covid-19, David Nabarro, has told the BBC.

"On the one hand, it's a disease that is associated with serious risks of death, and at the same time poorer countries just don't have the resources, both in terms of their health services, but also in terms of any kind of buffer," he said.

As a result, he added, people's livelihoods were disappearing overnight.

"What's remarkable is the speed with which people just experience extreme poverty when they're asked to reduce economic activity, so as to limit the spread of the virus.

"I've heard of communities all over Asia, as well as in Africa and Latin America where that level of extreme hunger has built up fast, and I suppose what we are going to see when the story of the pandemic is written [is] that this leads to increases in levels of poverty and malnutrition like we've not seen for many decades."

Legendary hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan have collaborated with skincare company JUSU and launched a new brand of hand sanitiser, dubbed "Protect Ya Hands".

We didn't want to explain the joke, but if you're not a fan of 90s rap, it's a reference to the group's 1993 debut single Protect Ya Neck.

Proceeds from sales go to three charities based in Ottawa, Canada. For every bottle purchased, an additional one will be also be donated to a homeless charity, The Ottawa Mission.

Wu-Tang are not alone in releasing branded merchandise in support of coronavirus relief efforts.

Rock band KISS have their own line of face masks, as do Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande.

Bethany Bell
BBC News, Vienna

The city of Salzburg is normally packed with tourists, drawn by the mountains, Mozart and the Sound of Music.

But now there are only locals here, bad news for a place heavily dependent on tourism.

Austria, which has fewer than one thousand active cases of COVID-19, is working hard to save the summer season.

It’s hoping that visitors will come from Germany and other neighbouring countries.

Stefan Herzl, who runs the Original Sound of Music bus tour, says he isn't sure how many guests will come. “We will miss them all. Not so many airlines are arriving in Austria, so we think we will have half the people we had last year.”

Hotels will re-open at the end of May.

Some people, like Adrian-Léon Steffny, are worried about opening up too quickly. “If tourists come now, that might create a second wave which we really don’t want."

Others are enjoying having Salzburg to themselves.

Residential property sales in the UK in April hit their lowest monthly level since comparable records began in 2005, new figures show.

There were 38,060 transactions in April, according to provisional numbers from HM Revenue and Customs.

This was less than half the level seen in the same month last year.

Spring is usually a busy period for the property market, but the coronavirus lockdown halted activity.

Sicilian authorities have arrested 10 men on corruption charges – including the head of the Italian island’s coronavirus response, Antonio Candela.

The arrests relate to public contract tenders dating back to 2016, put out by Sicilian authorities for medical equipment and cleaning services worth close to €600 million (£540m; $660m). Two more men have also been named as suspects, though they have not been detained.

The men allegedly took bribes to rig the contracts. Authorities also ordered the seizure of seven companies in Sicily and Lombardy related to the charges.

Colonel Gianluca Angelini of the police said they had discovered “a true centre of power… in which dishonest public officials, unscrupulous businessmen and entrepreneurs are willing to do anything to obtain contracts worth millions".

You can read more here.

Image source, Getty Images

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is preparing to unveil details of a four-phase "route map" to ease coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

She is expected to confirm later that the first phase of the process could begin within the next fortnight.

Progress will be assessed every three weeks, with further phases introduced if it is thought to be safe to do so in a "very gradual process".

The devolved nations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have the power to make their own lockdown decisions.

Some of the easing measures likely to be announced by Sturgeon were introduced in England last week, but she said at the time it would not be safe for Scotland to follow the same timetable.

Image source, EPA

There have been more than 248,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK and government figures show more than 35,000 people who tested positive have lost their lives.

However, the real number of deaths related to coronavirus will be significantly higher. Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggested there had already been more than 41,000 deaths by the week beginning 8 May.

When all deaths over and above the expected number for the period to 8 May are taken into account, the ONS data suggested the total might be more than 54,000.

Although the infection rate or "R" number could be increasing, the number of daily confirmed cases has been falling since a peak in April. That's despite a rise in the number of people being tested.

And the number of people in hospital with Covid-19 has been gradually declining since a peak over Easter.

You can find out the number of confirmed cases and deaths in your area by entering your UK postcode here.

Image source, Getty Images

Britain's Captain Tom Moore touched the hearts of many around the world after he raised nearly £33m ($40.3m) for health service charities by walking 100 lengths of his garden before his 100th birthday in April.

Now, more than £20m raised by the war veteran has been handed out to NHS charities across the UK.

Each charity has been given £35,000 from the £32.8m fund and a second grant based on the size of the trust they serve, said NHS Charities Together.

The charity at the hospital where Capt Tom was treated for a broken hip and skin cancer received £122,500.

On Tuesday it was announced he had been awarded a knighthood.

In recognition of his incredible fundraising efforts, Capt Tom's 100th birthday was marked with an RAF flypast, some 140,000 birthday cards, and he was made an honorary colonel.

The rapid spread of the virus in the southern hemisphere suggests fresh outbreaks could occur in the US this autumn and winter, a top US health official has told the Financial Times, external.

Robert Redfield said the US would have to increase its disease-tracking capabilities rapidly in the next few months to avoid another public health crisis where Covid-19 coincides with seasonal flu.

“We’ve seen evidence that the concerns it would go south in the southern hemisphere like flu [are coming true], and you’re seeing what’s happening in Brazil now,” the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.

“And then when the southern hemisphere is over I suspect it will reground itself in the north.”

The US now has more cases and deaths as a result of Covid-19 than any other nation in the world.

“This simple respiratory viral pathogen has really brought my nation to its knees, and the reality is, it’s no one particular person’s fault,” Dr Redfield said. “This nation has been unprepared for that for decades.”

Image source, Getty Images

If the US had imposed social-distancing measures earlier than it did, tens of thousands of lives would have been saved, according to new estimates , externalfrom Columbia University disease modelers cited by the New York Times.

They say about 36,000 fewer people would have died if social distancing and other control measures measures had come in a week earlier than they did in mid-March.

If the US had instituted lockdowns and limited social contact on 1 March, the vast majority of the nation’s deaths (about 83%) would have been avoided, the researchers estimated.

“It’s a big, big difference. That small moment in time, catching it in that growth phase, is incredibly critical in reducing the number of deaths,” said Jeffrey Shaman, the leader of the research team.

Read more of the New York Times report here. , external

Rupert Wingfield-Hayes
BBC Tokyo correspondent

One of Japan’s most senior public prosecutors is being forced to step down after he allegedly took part in an illegal gambling party during a Covid-19 state of emergency.

Japan has since lifted the emergency in most areas after a sharp drop in new infections.

But Hiromu Kurokawa, chief of the Tokyo High Public Prosecutors Office, is expected to announce his resignation later today.

Mr Kurokawa is seen as a close ally of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Mr Abe was reportedly preparing to appoint him to the position of prosecutor-general, despite Mr Kurokawa being beyond the official retirement age of 63.

Japan has recorded a little more than 16,400 infections so far, but the country's low level of testing has raised questions.

Image source, Getty Images

Malaria drug hydroxychloroquine has come under the spotlight in recent weeks over claims that it can help to combat coronavirus - even though there is no clear evidence to support this.

Since US President Donald Trump said that he was taking the drug, there has been a sharp increase in reported prescriptions in the country.

Hydroxychloroquine can reduce fever and inflammation and is used as both a prevention and a treatment for malaria.

It regulates the body's immune response and is used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and Lupus - an inflammatory disease caused by an overactive immune system.

Several trials are being carried out, including in the UK, to test its efficacy against coronavirus. And countries around the world - from France to India - are deploying the drug to varying degrees.

Aside from the lack of evidence that it helps against coronavirus, regulators warn the drug may cause heart problems. Lupus patients are also concerned that their supply could be threatened by surging demand.

Read more here about what we know.

Image source, Getty Images

The boss of London's Heathrow Airport has told us that a new thermal screening trial for arriving passengers “could be part of a future common international standard to get people flying again."

John Holland-Kaye, who heads up Europe's busiest airport, described the “mismatch of measures” currently in place across different countries as confusing.

He also backed the idea of “air bridges” allowing travel between countries with lower infection levels to help stimulate the tourism industry.

“There is no perfect way to make sure only healthy people fly at this stage, so we have to take a risk-based approach,” he said.

“As the level of transmission comes down in the UK and in other countries, we need to find a way that the vast majority of people who don’t have a disease can still fly.”

Image source, Getty Images

The UK government's plans to reopen primary schools for some children in England from 1 June has sparked a debate over the safety of the strategy.

More than 35 local councils have warned that not all of their primary schools will be ready to reopen by then; while teaching union NASUWT said it remained "unconvinced" reopening schools was "appropriate or practicable".

But aside from the political debate, there is a practical maths problem to be solved in terms of safe social distancing for staff and pupils, says Sean Coughlan, the BBC's education correspondent.

The government has said that there should be a maximum of 15 pupils per class - so in effect, every class of 30 would have to be spread over two classrooms.

While that might work for the phased return of the first few year groups, if all primary year groups are back in school for a month before the end of term - as is the government's aim, safety permitting - then there wouldn't be enough classrooms or teachers.

The Department for Education says new safety guidance will be provided if it's decided all primary pupils are going back to school.