The U-turn on how A-level grades were calculated should have been made earlier to avoid the “complete chaos” the university system has now been left in, Labour has said.

On Monday, ministers in England, Northern Ireland and Wales announced A-level grades could now be based on teachers’ assessments rather than an algorithm, following criticism from students, teachers and some Tory MPs.

Shadow universities minister Emma Hardy told BBC Breakfast it was “frustrating” the decision had not been made last week and the delay had caused “a massive headache” for universities.

Since results day on Thursday, she said some students had already accepted their second choice of university, while many courses had been filled up, meaning universities might not have the capacity to take more students, especially with social distancing in place.

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The UK's education secretary has defended the timing of his decision to change the way A-level results are calculated, following criticism that the U-turn meant some pupils had already missed out on university places, with some institutions unable to take any more students.

Gavin Williamson told BBC Breakfast that before results day there had been a cross-party consensus that standardising teacher-assessed grades was the right approach and the government had been confident the system it had put in place was robust.

However, on Monday the government said A-level grades could now be based on unstandardised teachers' assessment, rather than an algorithm.

Williamson said this decision had been taken because "there was mounting evidence there were flaws within that algorithm" which meant too many children had not got the grades they deserved.

He said he was "incredibly sorry for the distress this has caused" but refused to say whether he would resign.

Read more on this story here.

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The British household brand M&S will cut 7,000 jobs in the next three months following a fall in in-store sales.

During the pandemic a large amount of shopping has moved online, and the retailer said there had been a "material shift in trade".

In-store sales of clothing and home goods were "well below" 2019, although online and home deliveries were strong.

A "significant" number of positions will go through voluntary redundancy and early retirement, M&S said.

Last week figures revealed that Britain was experiencing its worst recession on record.

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Thousands of people packed shoulder to shoulder with no face masks in sight, frolicking on rubber floats and cheering along to a music festival.

It's not a very 2020 image, but it was the scene this weekend in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where Covid-19 first emerged late last year.

Pictures of partygoers at the Wuhan Maya Beach Water Park - looking very much removed from the outbreak that the rest of the world continues to battle - have now gone, well, viral.

It's worlds apart from the images that came out of Wuhan when it had the world's first Covid-19 lockdown in January - a ghost town devoid of residents and vehicles.

The lockdown was lifted in April and there have been no domestically transmitted cases in Wuhan or Hubei province since mid-May.

See more images here

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On Monday we reported that elected officials in Australia had apologised after an inquiry found “serious mistakes” were made when more than 2,500 passengers were allowed to disembark from a cruise ship in Sydney in March.

This was when cruise ships were a significant source of infections globally.

Passengers on the Ruby Princess were not tested, despite suspected cases, and until June it was the source of Australia’s largest outbreak, linked to 900 infections and 28 deaths.

A parliamentary committee has now heard that federal officials failed to speak to the doctor on board the ship.

The country's secretary for agriculture, water and the environment, Andrew Metcalfe, admitted to the Senate inquiry that protocols had not been followed on the vessel.

If you’re joining us from the UK here are the latest other stories this morning:

• Retailer Marks & Spencer has said it will cut 7,000 jobs over the next three months, after the pandemic made it clear there had been a “material shift in trade”
• Baroness Dido Harding, who runs NHS Test and Trace in England, is to be the interim chief of the government’s new Health Protection Institute. The agency - set to launch later today - will merge some of Public Health England's pandemic response work with the test and trace system
• A support group for people who have lost loved ones to Covid-19 is calling on the prime minister to hold an immediate public inquiry into the pandemic

Hello and thanks for joining our live coverage of the global pandemic. We’ll be following the latest stories and other things you need to know about coronavirus around the world. Here are the main stories on Tuesday:

• Federal officials in Australia tell a parliamentary committee they failed to speak to the doctor on board a cruise ship, the Ruby Princess, in a scandal that fuelled the country's first wave of coronavirus cases in March
• Universities prepare to deal with a rise in calls from students after ministers in England, Northern Ireland and Wales said A-level grades could now be based on teachers' assessments
• Thousands of anti-government demonstrators march through cities across Argentina to criticise quarantine restrictions, as well as proposed judicial reform
• Globally more than 774,000 people have died with Covid-19 and nearly 22 million cases have been reported