Image source, EPA

Having returned to the Formula 1 calendar for the first time since 1985, the Dutch Grand Prix is the latest race in the 2020 calendar to be cancelled because of the pandemic.

"We ask everyone to be patient. I had to look forward to it for 35 years, so I can wait another year," Dutch Grand Prix sports director Jan Lammers said.

The 2020 season, which was scheduled to start on 15 March in Australia, has yet to get going but the sport is still seeking to hold a World Championship with between 15 and 18 races, starting in Austria on 5 July.

There are two races planned at Silverstone in England, while the Belgian government has given the go-ahead for its grand prix to be held behind closed doors at Spa-Francorchamps on its original date of 30 August.

England's test and trace system will not be fully operational until the end of June, two MPs have said.

Labour's Ben Bradshaw and Lib Dem Daisy Cooper both tweeted after a call for MPs with Baroness Dido Harding, the chairwoman of NHS Test and Trace.

A local government source also confirmed to the BBC that they were told on a government call yesterday that "we won't get test results at a local level until the end of June - so difficult to see how the system will be up and running by Monday".

Last week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson told MPs a "world-beating" test, track and trace operation would be in place by 1 June.

An NHS contact tracing app was originally due to be rolled out in mid-May but the government now says it will be ready "in the coming weeks", with Health Secretary Matt Hancock describing it as a "complement" to the system launched today.

Helier Cheung, Zhaoyin Feng & Boer Deng
BBC News

Attacks on East Asian people living in the US have shot up during the pandemic, revealing an uncomfortable truth about American identity.

Though Tracy Wen Liu was not born in the US, nothing about her life in the country felt "un-American". She went to football games, watched Sex and the City and volunteered at food banks.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, Ms Liu, 31, didn't think anything of being East Asian and living in Austin, Texas. "Honestly, I didn't really think I stood out a lot," she says.

That has changed. With the pandemic that has killed more than 100,000 people in the US, being Asian in America can make you a target - and many, including Ms Liu, have felt it.

Whether they have been faced with outright violence, bullying or more insidious forms of social or political abuse, a spike in anti-Asian prejudice has left many Asians - which in the US refers to people of east or southeast Asian descent - wondering where they fit in American society.

Read more here.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

The number of passengers arriving in the UK by air in April was down 99% on the same month last year, according to a Home Office report.

Just 112,300 people arrived in the UK via air in April, provisional advance passenger information (API) data showed.

Numbers fell from around 7.1 million in January to 3.8 million in March.

Airliners have already announced huge cuts as they struggle to cope with the collapse in demand for air travel caused by the pandemic. As we reported earlier, EasyJet is to cut up to 30% of its workforce.

About 400 people have escaped from a coronavirus quarantine centre in Malawi after complaining about its poor state, local media report.

Zodiak Online reported that the breakout happened in the city of Blantyre. The escapees were quarantined on arrival from South Africa and were yet to be tested for coronavirus, it said.

They had complained that the stadium, which was turned into a quarantine centre, lacked water, toilets and food.

The government has not yet commented on the escape.

The incident comes a day after local media reported that eight people who tested positive for the virus on arrival from South Africa had escaped from Kameza isolation centre in Blantyre.

Malawi has so far confirmed 101 coronavirus cases and four deaths.

Just in case you didn't catch Matt Hancock on BBC Breakfast, here's a clip.

The health secretary said he was confident people would co-operate with what is asked of them by the new test and trace system, which was launched today in England and Scotland.

Contact-tracers will text, email or call people who test positive with coronavirus and ask who they have had contact with.

Any of those contacts deemed at risk of infection will be told to isolate for 14 days, even if they are not sick.

We have more about how the test and trace system works here.

Image source, Senama

At 111, Juana Zúñiga has become the oldest patient in Chile to recover from Covid-19.

Zúñiga tested positive after an outbreak at her care home near Santiago, where she is the oldest resident.

Despite suffering from respiratory problems even before the pandemic, Zúñiga - who is known as Juanita - was not seriously affected by the virus, the director of her care home explained.

"She did not have any symptoms and very few bouts of fever, which was good," María Paz Sordo said.

Sordo added that they had to move Juanita to a different part of the home to keep her isolated from other residents. "Taking her out of her habitat was the most difficult thing."

Juanita has been a resident of the care home ever since her sister, with whom she lived, died six years ago. Juanita, who never married and has no children, will turn 112 in July.

We are sure her recovery is a great early birthday gift!

Image source, Reuters

Nissan is closing its factory in Barcelona with the loss of about 2,800 jobs, according to the Spanish government.

The move is part of a worldwide restructuring being unveiled by the Japanese carmaker.

The closure could cost Nissan, which has a major UK plant in Sunderland, up to €1bn (£898m; $1.1bn), the government said.

There were protests outside the Barcelona factory earlier, with tyres set alight.

Car sales have been hit by the virus pandemic, while manufacturers are investing heavily in electric vehicles.

As expected the company has preserved Sunderland as a production base, the BBC business editor Simon Jack reports. However, there is still talk about cost reduction at the plant, our correspondent adds.

Read more about the closure in Spain.

Reality Check

Image source, Getty Images

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has now replied to a letter from stats referee the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA), external that was sent to him on 11 May.

The UKSA asked him to clear up the confusion about the government’s target to achieve 200,000 Covid-19 tests per day by the end of May.

Statements in Parliament by Hancock and the prime minister left it unclear whether the target was to conduct those tests each day or have the capacity to do so, and indeed what sort of tests would be counted.

It turns out that the target is for capacity to test, and will include capacity for antibody tests, which are those to find out if people previously had the virus.

It will also include the capacity for tests being sent out to a random cross-section of society by statisticians, as well as those conducted on people actually displaying symptoms.

As we've been saying, England's new test and trace system is launching today.

However, there have been some reports from contact-tracers saying the website is crashing.

Sarah - not her real name - told BBC Radio 5 Live she tried to log in to the system this morning but could not get on to the website.

"I predicted there might be a surge this morning because I only got my email last night at about 22:30 to say I could login," she said.

Sarah said she was also concerned about whether people would comply with instructions to self-isolate and about a "potential backlash" and abuse towards contact tracers, particularly after the row over the PM's chief adviser Dominic Cummings' travel during lockdown.

But another contact-tracer who spoke to the BBC was more positive, saying the situation with the system had improved over the past week.

Image source, Getty Images

• Lawmakers in France voted in favour of a new tracing app called StopCovid - despite concerns about digital privacy. It will be rolled out starting next week. Later today, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe will announce the next stage of easing the lockdown throughout the country
• The lockdown in Switzerland will be eased even further. As of Saturday groups of up to 30 people can meet, rising from five currently. "We need to stay humble, but I think we have the situation under control," Health Minister Alain Berset reportedly said
• And Russia's recorded death toll has passed 4,000, with its confirmed case total rising to 379,051 - still the second-highest figure in the world. The reported number of dead is far lower than in other countries, but critics fear in reality it could be far higher. Our colleague Sarah Rainsford reports on the nightmare unfolding in the country’s care homes

The requirement to self-isolate for 14 days if contacted under England's new test and trace programme could be "a huge burden" for some people, Labour's shadow health secretary has said.

Jonathan Ashworth told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "There will be people whose work conditions and employment conditions make that difficult for them so they need that security, they need enhanced sick pay where necessary to make sure they stay at home.

"But of course it's perfectly possible that you could isolate for 14 days, come out, meet somebody else who has got the virus again and have to go back in."

Under the new system, those isolating will be eligible for statutory sick pay but Ashworth said the government should be looking at other options such as paying the living wage or the levels paid in other European countries.

Image source, Reuters

Russia has confirmed 8,371 new infections and 124 deaths linked to the virus in the past 24 hours, slightly more for both of those counts than the previous day.

The total virus death toll has increased to 4,142 and the overall number of cases stands at 379,051.

But the authorites maintain the number of new cases is stabilising with the number of new cases under 9,000 for a fifth day.

Russia has the third-largest number of confirmed cases in the world, after the US and Brazil.

Our correspondent Sarah Rainsford has more on the crisis in Russia's care homes

Image source, TF-IMAGES

An update on those Easyjet job cuts:

The airline's cost-cutting measures might see the closure of some of its bases. The airline has announced it will cut up to 30% of its workforce as it struggles to cope with the collapse in demand for air travel caused by the pandemic.

"We're going to look to do whatever we can to optimise the network," said CEO Johan Lundgren. "And that means that we also can't exclude that there will be base closures."

Pilots' union Balpa reacted angrily, describing the job cuts as an "ill-considered knee-jerk reaction".

Other airlines have already announced job cuts and restructuring programmes as they fight to stay in business. These include:

• British Airways, which is set to cut up to 12,000 jobs from its 42,000-strong workforce
• Ryanair, which is set to cut 3,000 jobs - 15% of its workforce - with boss Michael O'Leary saying the move is "the minimum that we need just to survive the next 12 months"
• Virgin Atlantic, which has announced it is to cut more than 3,000 jobs in the UK out of a total of 10,000 and end its operation at Gatwick airport.

Image source, AFP

Saudi Arabia has begun to ease a five-day nationwide lockdown imposed during the festival of Eid.

A round-the-clock curfew has been partially relaxed except in the holy city of Mecca, which has the highest number of infections.

Anyone wishing to leave home though is required to obtain a permit through a government app.

Measures will be further eased in phases over the next few weeks until the lockdown is fully lifted. It is still unclear whether the major annual Hajj pilgrimage will go ahead at the end of July.

Saudi Arabia has had more cases of coronavirus than any other place in the Arab world, with about 75,000 confirmed infections and 400 deaths.

Our colleague Frank Gardner has taken a look at the troubles the kingdom now faces.

More now on the health secretary's interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Matt Hancock was also asked about what changes might be introduced to the lockdown in England.

While he would not give specific details ahead of an official review later today, Hancock stressed the risk of transmission of coronavirus outdoors was "much lower" than indoors.

"During the summer in particular a lot of the changes that you can expect to see will be based on the principle that outdoors is safer than indoors," he said.

Asked about whether families might soon be able to be reunited he said: "I really hope so and we are seeing the number of new cases coming down which is very good news."

Image source, Getty Images

A body representing Nigerian doctors believes the real number of coronavirus cases in the country could be four times higher than the 8,733 cases confirmed by the authorities so far.

The head of Nigeria's Medical Association, Francis Faduyile, told the BBC they were disputing the official numbers.

"We're worried because the number that we have declared is still a far cry from the total number we have or we expect. As it is, we know we'll have nothing less than four times the total number that we have as it is," he said.

"We have so many patients who have shown signs of Covid-19 and we are waiting for three to five days before we see their results. So it means we have a lot of backlog."

There has been concern over the high number of unexplained deaths in the northern populous state of Kano, amid fears they could be caused by Covid-19. Grave diggers said they were burying a higher than usual number of bodies.

Image source, Aarhus

Having fans cheer their team inside a stadium via video screens might seem like science fiction, but Danish club AGF Aarhus is set to make it a reality.

With supporters banned from most sporting arenas worldwide because of the pandemic, Aarhus will use video-call technology to display the faces of about 10,000 of their followers on screens inside their Ceres Park stadium when they host Randers later today.

"It's about creating an atmosphere around the game so that the players will see that they have the support from the city even though there are no supporters in the stands," the project's co-ordinator Soren Carlsen told the BBC World Service.

In a later BBC interview, UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock again stresses that he believes the "vast majority of people" will follow instructions to self-isolate if told to under the new test and trace system being launched in England today.

He was asked on BBC Radio 4's Today programme whether the row over the PM's chief adviser Dominic Cummings would make it harder to persuade the public to abide by these instructions.

He said: "I think that the vast majority of people will understand that it is in everybody's interest that those who are at higher risk follow these requests from the NHS, these instructions, and it's very, very important that they do."

"Frankly this is about how as a country we get out of this lockdown in the safest possible way short of having a vaccine or an effective treatment," he added.

We have more about how the test and trace system will work in England.

Jonty Bloom
BBC Business correspondent

The first rule of advertising is that your adverts have to be seen to have any effect.

This is why if you have managed to get out of the house recently in the UK you might have noticed that there are an awful lot of adverts supporting the National Health Service, and key workers on billboards and bus stops.

As Anja Lambrecht, professor of marketing at the London Business School, explains, it is one of the signs that the advertising industry is struggling.

"It is most obvious outdoors with billboards - no-one is driving past them, so no commercial firms are advertising," she says. "That is why they all have adverts for the NHS."

On TV an ever-growing number of us are increasingly watching streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, which don't have any adverts. Meanwhile on traditional commercial TV channels, there are lots of advertising breaks with very few adverts in them.

In the UK, ITV's advertising revenue was down 42% in April,, externalwhile Fox in the US has seen revenues halve. It is a similar picture in other markets, because there are many products that are just not selling at the moment. So why advertise them?

Read more here.

Image source, Getty Images