If you're just finding time for a tea break, here's a quick recap of some of the main coronavirus-related headlines from the UK this morning:

• One of the UK's most notorious serial killers, Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, has died in hospital aged 74. He is said to have refused treatment for Covid-19 and also had other health problems
• Coffee chain Caffe Nero says the pandemic has "decimated" trading as it seeks a voluntary agreement with landlords and other creditors to reduce its costs
• Northern Ireland's First Minister Arlene Foster said she regrets the "torturous" decision-making of the Stormont executive over the last-minute decision to extend tougher coronavirus restrictions by a week
• And Kylie Minogue, one of the featured stars in tonight's 40th anniversary Children in Need broadcast, says the appeal is "more poignant than ever" in this pandemic year. A film about lockdown life for young people is one of the highlights of the programme

Image source, PA Media

The rules for people celebrating Diwali together this year are different because of the current restrictions in place.

But what are the regulations for meeting friends and family around the UK?

• In Scotland, with the exception of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles, people are not allowed to meet anyone outside their household or extended household inside a private home•Two households can form a bubble and meet in their own homes in Wales.

• In Northern Ireland, you must not socialise with anyone from outside your household, or bubble, indoors in private homes

• England is under its second national lockdown. People are not allowed to mix with anyone outside their household or social bubble indoors or in private gardens

For more on the latest regulations around the UK, read more here.

Liverpool's mass testing programme reached 90,000 people in its first week, the city's mayor has told BBC Breakfast.

That equates to 18% of the population of just under half a million being tested since last Friday, when Liverpool began offering tests to everyone regardless of whether they had symptoms.

Mr Anderson said 430 people had tested positive, only about 200 of whom had symptoms beforehand.

“Four hundred and thirty people are not spreading the virus – it means that we can break the chain of infection," he said.

The infection rate has dropped from 680 people per 100,000 when the city was first placed into the top tier of England's coronavirus restrictions in mid-October to below 300 per 100,000 now, Mr Anderson said.

City residents are now being encouraged to have a repeat test once a week.

The mayor added on Twitter that 50,000 people had received the "lateral flow" tests, which are being offered to people without symptoms and give results within an hour, and 40,000 had gone to mobile testing units across the city.

Concerns have been raised about how effective lateral flow tests are at picking up cases in the early stages of infection, as they need high levels of the virus to work.

Yolande Knell
BBC Middle East correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

In Jordan, security is being beefed up to enforce emergency laws after thousands defied a five-day Covid lockdown to party and protest at the results of parliamentary elections.

Social media shows large, unmasked crowds and celebratory gunfire – which is also illegal – in at least one case, with young children joining in. In some places, supporters of losing candidates broke the curfew to block streets with burning tyres and rubbish.

King Abdullah expressed his indignation in a tweet, saying lives had been endangered. The interior minister then resigned.

Jordan, with its population of an estimated 10m, is now among the Middle Eastern countries worst hit by the pandemic. It registered 5,685 new cases and 80 deaths on Thursday, bringing its total to 132,086 infections and 1,547 fatalities.

Early in the pandemic, the kingdom successfully contained a coronavirus outbreak with one of the strictest lockdowns in the world but in the past month, cases have risen alarmingly.

With heightened restrictions in Northern Ireland extended for another week, some businesses say they are still waiting for Covid-19 support funding.

Cafe owner Gemma Carinduff, from Downpatrick, said: "It is very stressful. All your bills are coming out as normal and they've told you to close."

Hairdresser Lorraine Quinn from Moy, County Tyrone, said she had received approval for funding on Wednesday, four weeks after she applied.

"It's been really tough going for small businesses," she said. "I still have mortgage payments, I still have creditors and you also still have to pay your staff."

Northern Ireland's Department of Finance said it "is working hard to process the applications as quickly as possible".

As of Thursday, it said £12m of payments have been issued to 3,224 businesses.

Image source, Getty Images

Getting Friends together was never going to be easy during a pandemic, but cast member Matthew Perry says the much-anticipated reunion will start filming at the beginning of March.

"Looks like we have a busy year coming up. And that's the way I like it!" he said on Twitter.

The special one-off show was due to start filming in August but was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

It will bring together the original cast of Perry, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer.

Friends, which followed the fortunes of six young friends living in New York City, originally aired from 1994 until 2004. Its final show was the most watched TV episode of the 2000s.

Streaming services have maintained its popularity, with the show topping the list of the most popular series after Netflix UK added it in 2018.

Image source, Naomi Brown

People with learning disabilities were up to six times more likely to die from Covid-19 during the first wave of the pandemic, a report from Public Health England says.

The death rate for those with a learning disability was 30 times higher in the 18-34 age group.

The report suggests the huge disparity could be because people with learning disabilities are more prone to obesity and diabetes, which can increase the risk of dying from Covid-19.

The charity Mencap said the government had "failed to protect" a group already experiencing health inequalities and Social Care Minister Helen Whately announced a review of the findings.

Naomi Brown, whose brother Adam fell ill while living in residential care and died of coronavirus in April, said she was saddened but not surprised by the report.

"People like Adam, people who don't have their own voices to speak for themselves are just left, kept in the dark, disregarded," she said.

The impact of the pandemic will be highlighted in this year's socially-distanced 40th anniversary Children in Need, to be broadcast on Friday evening. TV presenter Emma Willis, will narrate Life in Lockdown - a film showing youngsters living through difficult circumstances during the coronavirus pandemic.

The feature follows research commissioned by the charity, which found that 94% of children and young people have had cause to feel worried, sad or anxious in the last six months.

"The current pandemic has affected all of our lives, but some families have additional and complex needs and challenges outside of Covid-19," said Willis.

Fitness guru Joe Wicks will also be aiming to complete his 24-hour workout challenge, which began on Thursday morning and Kylie Minogue will cover the Oasis classic Stop Crying Your Heart Out.

Image source, Reuters

Today should have been the day when Northern Ireland's hospitality industry shutdown ended. But instead business owners complained of widespread confusion before a deal was finally stuck to extend restrictions for another week.

First Minister Arlene Foster told the BBC's Good Morning Ulster that the proceedings of the Stormont executive had been a "torturous example of how not to take decisions".

Some businesses had said they planned to reopen anyway if no agreement had been reached, while others said the decision was being made too late even if they had got the go-ahead to start trading again.

Foster said: "We need to look to the future and move on from this very difficult week for everyone in Northern Ireland watching as we struggled to make decisions."

The Northern Ireland Hotels Federation told the BBC that hoteliers had to make 3,000 phone calls on Thursday to customers who had already made bookings after the executive decided to keep hotels closed for two more weeks.

"What many people forget is we had brides who are getting married this Saturday on the phone this afternoon asking could they get married," said Janice Gault, the federation's chief executive.

Image source, PA

The cafe chain Caffe Nero is the latest business to be hit by the knock-on effects of the lockdown. The company, which has about 800 stores across the UK and about 6,000 employees, is asking landlords for better terms after their cafes were forced to close for a second time.

It's part of what's known as company voluntary arrangement, or CVA, which is a way for struggling businesses to renegotiate their costs.

"Like so many businesses in the hospitality sector, the pandemic has decimated trading, and although we had made significant progress in navigating the financial challenges of the first lockdown, the second lockdown has made it imperative that we take further action," chief executive Gerry Ford says.

Image source, Francesca Bhavisi

With lockdown restrictions in place in England, going to the temple for group worship or bringing together family members from different households are all out of the question for many during Diwali this year.

So how are Britain's Hindus, Sikhs and Jains planning to celebrate the festival of lights this weekend?

Harish Malhi runs Diaspo, an online platform offering cooking classes, so he plans to make use of his experience of bringing people together with food - even when they're far apart.

He says cooking together online means people can be "transported home and have the smells and tastes they would usually have on Diwali".

Image source, Getty Images

Francesca Bhavisi, a 21-year-old Hindu, says she's going to enter online competitions to make rangoli (traditional Indian decorations) and mithai (sweets).

"Celebrating in this pandemic has meant we can connect to people in ways we never thought would normally be possible," she says.

Amandeep Turna, who is 25 and a Sikh, is spending the first Diwali away from her family. She says she plans to connect to her faith by teaching her housemates about the celebration and what it means.

Read more

Millions of Hindus, Sikhs, and Jains will be celebrating Diwali on Saturday.

The Indian festival of lights is often marked through lighting candles and setting off fireworks.

To worshippers, it symbolises good over evil and is a time for family, food, and dance.

But with restrictions in place across the UK, for many it will be Diwali with a difference this year. The BBC's Sima Kotecha met Chaaya and Maaya to see how their family will be celebrating.

Image source, Reuters

With the UK seeing it's highest-ever coronavirus cases yesterday, there have been questions about whether the spike was caused by people rushing out for a last social gathering before lockdown plans were announced.

But Prof Steven Riley from Imperial College told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the timing of the cases meant this was "not a good explanation" and the leaking of the plans is not likely to be to blame.

He said "the day that that news came out is probably too late in the sequence of data we have for it to be a primary driver of the uptick".

Instead, he suggested that people are more likely to have contracted the illness in the days before news of the lockdown leaked out, perhaps because they were anticipating greater restrictions anyway and changed their behaviour earlier.

Image source, Rex Features

Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, one of the UK's most notorious serial killers, has died at the age of 74.

He died in hospital where he is said to have refused treatment for Covid-19. Sutcliffe also had a number of other underlying health problems.

In 1981 Sutcliffe was convicted of the murder of 13 women and the attempted murder of seven others. His victims, in Yorkshire and Manchester, were aged between 16 and 47.

Richard McCann, aged five when his mother Wilma was murdered, said the serial killer's death would bring "some kind of closure".

The West Yorkshire force were heavily criticised over their investigation of the murders, which took place between 1975 and 1980.

Former police officer Bob Bridgestock, who worked on the hunt for Sutcliffe, said he "won't be shedding any tears".

After his conviction in 1981, he spent three decades at Broadmoor Hospital before being moved to HMP Frankland in County Durham in 2016.

Image source, PA Media

“Diwali is special, and it's going to be difficult this year,” Chancellor Rishi Sunak told the BBC.

A practicing Hindu, he has urged people to stick to lockdown regulations throughout the five-day Festival of Lights - celebrated by millions of Hindus, Sikhs and Jains.

Many councils are providing online events on Saturday, the main celebration of the festival, as England’s lockdown continues.

Sunak said: “We've got Zoom, we've got the phone, and most importantly, we've got each other. Whether you can see someone or not the bond of family, that bond of love is always going to be there.”

He urged families to "stick with this for a couple more weeks”.

Image source, PA Media

Good morning and welcome to today's live coverage. Here's a look at the main headlines this morning to bring you up to speed:

• Chancellor Rishi Sunak has said Diwali celebrations will be difficult this year but urged the Hindu community to stick to lockdown restrictions and meet up virtually this weekend. A practising Hindu, Sunak said: "We're going to get through this."
• People with learning disabilities were up to six times more likely to die from Covid-19 in the first wave of the pandemic, a report has found. The charity Mencap said the government “failed to protect” a vulnerable group.
• In several European countries, people are being warned it is too early to plan for Christmas travel, as cases surge across the continent. Sweden has said it may introduce travel restrictions and Irish and French authorities said it was too soon to tell if people could make travel arrangements
• More than 800 police officers have tested positive since the pandemic began, new figures show. The Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, said there was a “constant worry” offenders might spit or cough at them

• The number of job adverts posted has risen to its highest level since March. Wales and the north-west of England have seen the most marked recovery, while London saw a fall in vacancies

• MPs have called for better remote participation in Parliament after an MP with cancer was unable to take part in a debate about the illness. Ex-minister Tracey Crouch could not speak because current rules only allow limited video link contributions during the pandemic.
• In Northern Ireland, tougher Covid-19 restrictions will continue for one more week. But hair salons and coffee shops will be able to reopen from next Friday as part of a phased easing of regulations
• And Fife, Perth and Kinross and Angus moved to Scotland’s level three restrictions at 06:00 GMT with further limits on the hospitality industry, including a ban on alcohol sales, and tighter travel rules.