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Ending the French Ligue 1 season early was a "massive error" and one that showed "an obvious lack of leadership", says Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas.

The campaign was stopped on 13 March because of the global coronavirus pandemic and did not resume.

Paris St-Germain were crowned champions in April, with Toulouse and Amiens relegated to Ligue 2.

Top flights in Germany, Spain, Italy and England resumed in May and June.

Aulas said nobody "outside those who took the decision" understands why the campaign was declared finished.

He told the BBC: "All that was needed was to stop temporarily, assess the situation and take a decision on whether to stop later on."

The loss of revenue from ticketing, sponsorship and TV could see clubs forced to sell players, he said.

Read more here

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Prime Minister Boris Johnson is to face a fresh grilling over the UK government's handling of the pandemic at Prime Minister's Questions at 12:00 BST.

It comes after he set out a post-coronavirus recovery plan on Tuesday and vowed to "use this moment" to fix longstanding economic problems in the UK.

While we wait for PMQs to start in the House of Commons, here are the latest UK headlines:

• Doctors have called for the UK government to provide local data more quickly to local authorities to help them deal with Covid-19 spikes in their areas

• Upper Crust owner SSP Group says up to 5,000 jobs could be cut across its UK outlets and head office, as it struggles with the reduction in passenger travel
• Lockdown has added thousands more cases to the backlog already faced by courts in England and Wales, with a suggestion it could take up to 10 years to clear. The BBC has spoken to people tied up in the criminal justice system about how they've been affected
• From today, millions of furloughed workers can start returning to their jobs part-time. The government will continue to pay 80% of their wages for now, but it's the first step towards winding the jobs protection scheme down
• And Christmas pantomimes are starting to be cancelled

London enjoyed low pollution levels during lockdown as the number of vehicles in the city and planes over the capital reduced.

But now restrictions are easing, parents of children with respiratory illnesses along with scientists fear toxic air will soon be back.

Could the capital learn lessons from the experience to prevent pollution going back up to pre-lockdown levels?

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A Slovenian minister has been detained and another has resigned amid an investigation into the purchase of protective supplies during the pandemic.

Economy Minister Zdravko Pocivalsek is accused of favouring companies that did not offer adequate equipment, according to local media, although he denies the charge.

Interior Minister Ales Hojs stepped on Tuesday after a number of police raids related to the case and said the probe was politically motivated. The government has only been in power since March.

The country's police chief also resigned in protest, Hojs said.

Slovenia is not the only country where ministers have faced charges over the procurement of medical equipment amid the spread of coronavirus.

Last month, Zimbabwe's health minister was charged with corruption over a $20m (£16m) contract awarded to a Hungary-registered firm for coronavirus tests and equipment.

The number of women and girls facing period poverty in the UK has risen sharply during the coronavirus lockdown, according to charities working to help them.

Women unable to afford or access sanitary products have resorted to using items including newspaper, pillow cases, or tea towels.

One charity said the number of packs it gave out had risen about five-fold.

Poverty left some struggling to afford products while schools and community centres that normally distribute them have been shut.

The government said its scheme launched in January to give out free period products in schools was still in operation.

Read more on this story here

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The US is among a handful of countries that are facing a surge of new infections.

The states of Texas, Florida, Arizona and California are the latest virus epicentres - but state leaders and health officials are divided on the cause of the outbreaks.

We took a look at the four US hotspots, the facts and figures raising alarm and the theories that may help explain the surge.

Read more here

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Government and firms should cooperate to ensure access to coronavirus treatments, business minister Nadhim Zahawi has said.

As we have been reporting, the US has bought up virtually all stocks for the next three months of remdesivir, a drug shown to cut recovery times for those who have had Covid-19.

Mr Zahawi said the UK had "rightly" stockpiled dexamethasone, another drug which has proven effective in the most seriously ill Covid-19 patients, but suggested cooperation rather than competition was the way forward.

"The best outcome for the whole world is that we work together," he said.

"By attempting to compete, I think we ultimately undermine all of our strategies," he said. "Much better to work together than to work to undermine each other."

Martin Patience
BBC News, Middle East correspondent

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Lebanon’s only international airport has reopened after being closed for more than three months.

For now, Beirut's airport is operating at 10% of its normal capacity. Passengers will be tested for Covid-19 upon arrival and be required to quarantine at home if they have the disease.

While Lebanon has largely avoided the worst of the coronavirus, the lockdown has hastened the country’s economic collapse.

The Lebanese currency has lost 80% of its value in recent months; people’s savings in the banks have been wiped out; and a growing number of Lebanese are unable to put food in the table.

The government is in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, but any bailout will involve painful economic reforms that the country’s sectarian leaders - for now, anyway - do not appear to be willing to make.

So instead despair is setting in across Lebanon - and many now fear growing social unrest and a brain drain from the country on the scale last seen during its civil war.

The German economy is expected to return to last year's level by the end of 2021, one of the country's largest economic think tanks has said.

IFO said in its quarterly report that coronavirus had left Europe's largest economy facing "what is by far the deepest recession in its post-war history", with a decline of 11.9% in the second quarter of this year.

This fall, it said, was twice as steep as that seen during the 2009 financial crisis.

But the report remained optimistic, with increasing growth projected for the rest of 2020 as lockdown lifts - albeit below last year's levels.

However, unemployment is likely to continue to rise to around 3 million in the coming months, with more than half a million more people out of work than in 2019.

Image source, Reuters

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The Queen and US President Donald Trump have spoken on the telephone about "close co-operation" on defeating coronavirus and re-opening global economies.

It is not known how long the pair spoke for, but the White House said Mr Trump wished the Queen a happy birthday after her official celebration last month.

He also expressed his condolences for those have died during the coronavirus, the White House added.

The Queen has spoken on the telephone to several leaders during the virus lockdown, including French president Emmanuel Macron, Australia's prime minister Scott Morrison and Canada's Justin Trudeau.

Calls of this nature are made at the request of the government, in what is known as "soft diplomacy", to help strengthen the UK's ties with its allies.

How the Royal Family is changing in lockdown

As the US gears up for November's presidential election, Joe Biden has announced he won't hold campaign rallies.

"I'm going to follow the doc's orders - not just for me but for the country - and that means that I am not going to be holding rallies," the former vice-president and Democratic nominee said on Tuesday.

It's a stark contrast to the stance of his rival, President Donald Trump, who held his first campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in June despite health warnings - although turnout was lower than expected and no new rallies have been announced.

The US has recorded more than 40,000 new coronavirus cases on four of the last five days.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

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A key scientist who advised the UK government in the coronavirus response has warned that Bradford and Doncaster are "clearly of concern" for potential local outbreaks, with high rates of Covid-19.

Professor Neil Ferguson, of Imperial College London, told the BBC: "It's inevitable we will [have further local outbreaks], we are relaxing lockdown rules and that means that contacts in the population are going up and that's a very variable process."

Asked about Bradford and Doncaster, he said: "Those are areas, where not as high as Leicester, but they have some of the highest numbers of cases per 100,000 of the population, which is the relevant measure, so they're clearly of concern."

Prof Ferguson also said there "really isn't a big distinction between a second wave and these local clusters".

"A second national wave is just a agglomeration of small outbreaks... merged together across the country," he said.

"That's exactly what we want to avoid by snuffing out those small outbreaks when they are just sparks."

A video showing bodies of Covid-19 victims being dumped in southern India has provoked outrage online.

The footage, which was shared on social media, showed workers wearing PPE tossing eight bodies wrapped in black garbage bags into deep pits.

Officials from the district in Karnataka state later confirmed that the footage was genuine and apologised to families.

Karnataka has seen more than 246 deaths due to Covid-19 but has been recognised as one of the states that has been more successful in tracing and containing the disease.

Read more here

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Upper Crust owner SSP Group says up to 5,000 jobs could be cut across its UK outlets and head office, as it struggles with the reduction in passenger travel during the coronavirus pandemic.

The firm said global sales in April and May were 95% below the previous year's.

SSP has 580 outlets across the UK, mostly at railway stations and airports, but fewer than 10 are currently open.

The company expects only one-fifth of its UK stores to be open by the autumn.

Read more here

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People in Leicester "just want clarity" over the return of tighter lockdown measures for the city, the UK's shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth has said.

The Labour MP for Leicester South told ITV's Good Morning Britain: "I don't think it's fair to the people of Leicester to announce at a press conference on a Thursday afternoon that Leicester has a problem, but then actually take 11 days to tell Leicester that they are going into lockdown and what they are going to do about it.

"People are really worried in Leicester, people are going to be anxious. People who are shielding are very, very scared.

"People who were planning to get their businesses open this Saturday are desperately worried about their livelihoods and what happens next with the economy.

"And every parent in Leicester is concerned about the safety of their children [and] also deeply concerned about their children missing out on more education."

What are Leicester's new lockdown restrictions?

From weekly claps to donating meals to hospital workers, people around the world have come up with various ways of thanking medical staff for their work during the pandemic.

And now the company making France's famous Petit Beurre biscuits has come up with a new way of honouring them.

LU's factory near Nantes is producing a limited-edition biscuit that replaces its traditional logo - which dates back to 1886 - with a heartfelt merci beaucoup (thank you very much).

Over 200,000 biscuits have been produced and will be given to medical facilities in the region.

Image source, LU/ Facebook

Image source, Reuters

Wednesday is a big day in Europe, as borders reopen to (some) countries and individual countries move into the next phase of lockdown easing. Here are the headlines:

• The EU has agreed to allow in visitors from 15 countries outside the bloc. The “safe travel” list includes Canada, Japan and New Zealand, but excludes countries with high infection rates – including Brazil, Russia and the US
• International flights resume to and from Greece on Wednesday. The country is expecting 104 flights to operate, according to local media, although visitors from Sweden and the UK won’t be allowed in until 15 July
• The border between Portugal and Spain also reopens. Portugal – which is reimposing lockdowns around Lisbon to tackle a rise in cases – had asked the Spanish government to keep it shut to prevent a flood of visitors
• From 1 July, brothels in Austria and the Netherlands can open their doors as those countries ease lockdown measures further. Sex workers worldwide have been hit hard by the pandemic – you can read more here
• But the outbreak seems to be worsening in the Balkans, with case numbers spiking in a number of countries. Overwhelmed hospital staff in the Serbian town of Novi Pazar turned their backs in protests when Prime Minister Ana Brnabic visited yesterday

As the US reached yet another record high in daily coronavirus cases on Tuesday, the country's top expert on infectious diseases voiced his concern.

Dr Anthony Fauci said current numbers of over 40,000 new cases reported every day put the "entire country at risk".

When asked how many cases the US might ultimately expect, he said he "would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day".

BBC Breakfast

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Business Secretary Alok Sharma has insisted that data is being shared with local authorities to help them tackle coronavirus in their areas, after doctors urged the government to provide vital information more quickly.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Mr Sharma said information was "being made available on a digital dashboard to local authorities".

Asked about length of time it took to get testing data to officials in Leicester, the first city to experience a local lockdown, Mr Sharma said: "My understanding is that data was shared and has been shared over the past two weeks."

"Of course where we are able to improve, we will do that," he added.

Read more about the call from doctors here

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

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A "stronger framework" is needed to ensure fair pricing and fair access to drugs during national emergencies, a leading UK scientist has said, after the US bought almost all the world's upcoming supply of Covid-19 treatment drug remdesivir.

Prof Peter Horby from the University of Oxford told the BBC it was "partly to be expected" as manufacturer Gilead was a commercial US company that would be under "certain political pressures locally".

But he added: "It does raise two very important questions: what is a fair price for a drug and what is fair access to a drug, and those are common issues but are particularly important in a global crisis like this."

Prof Horby noted that the trial enabling remdesivir to go on sale included patients participating in other countries, including the UK.

It also raises questions if a vaccine is found, he said, adding: "Commercial companies are built to behave like this and we need a much stronger framework if we are going to develop these things and they're going to be used for national emergencies."