Clean air in Europe during lockdown ‘leads to 11,000 fewer deaths’

Study into effects of coronavirus curbs also finds less asthma and preterm births

The improvement in air quality over the past month of the coronavirus lockdown has led to 11,000 fewer deaths from pollution in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, a study has revealed.

Sharp falls in road traffic and industrial emissions have also resulted in 1.3m fewer days of work absence, 6,000 fewer children developing asthma, 1,900 avoided emergency room visits and 600 fewer preterm births, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

While the pandemic continues to take a terrible toll – more than 220,000 deaths worldwide since the start of the year – the authors of the report say the response has offered a glimpse of the cleaner, healthier environment that is possible if the world shifts away from polluting fossil fuel industries.

Compared with the same period last year, levels of nitrogen dioxide have fallen by 40% while tiny particulate matter – known as PM2.5 – is down 10%, which means that people without Covid-19 can breathe easier. These two forms of pollution, which weaken the heart and respiratory system, are together normally responsible for about 470,000 deaths in Europe each year.

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The NASA chopper set to be first aircraft to fly on Mars now has a name -- thanks to a 17-year-old girl

(CNN)Bound to make history as the first aircraft to attempt powered flight on another planet, NASA's new Mars helicopter now has a name that lives up to the daunting task: Ingenuity.

And it's all thanks to 17-year-od Vaneeza Rupani.

Out of 28,000 entries, NASA chose Vaneeza Rupani's submission of "Ingenuity" to name its Mars helicopter.

Rupani, a high school junior from Northport, Alabama, earned the honor of naming the helicopter after she submitted her essay into NASA's "Name the Rover" contest. While NASA announced in March that its next rover would be named Perseverance based on seventh-grader Alexander Mather's essay, the agency decided to also choose a name for the helicopter that will accompany the rover to Mars.

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Swedish city to dump tonne of chicken manure in park to deter visitors

Lund council hoping ‘stink’ keeps people away on Walpurgis Night as country eschews strict coronavirus lockdown

The university town of Lund in Sweden is to dump a tonne of chicken manure in its central park in a bid to deter up to 30,000 residents from gathering there for traditional celebrations to mark Walpurgis Night on Thursday.

“Lund could very well become an epicentre for the spread of the coronavirus on the last night in April, [so] I think it was a good initiative,” the chairman of the local council’s environment committee, Gustav Lundblad, told the Sydsvenskan newspaper.

“We get the opportunity to fertilise the lawns, and at the same time it will stink and so it may not be so nice to sit and drink beer in the park,” Lundblad said, adding that the only potential drawback was that the smell may not be confined to the park.

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Tara Reade: What are the sex attack allegations against Joe Biden?

Mr Biden has been accused of inappropriate touching by multiple women, but this was the first accusation of serious sexual assault to emerge against the Democratic politician.

Mr Biden's camp has denied the allegation made by Tara Reade, who worked for him when he was a senator, but now acquaintances have corroborated Ms Reade's account.

With accusations flying during a presidential election year - the first since the emergence of the #MeToo movement - let's take a look at what exactly Mr Biden is accused of and how he has responded.

Tara Reade, 56, worked as a staff assistant to Mr Biden from 1992-93 when he was a senator for the US state of Delaware.

In recent interviews, she has said that in 1993 her former boss forced her against a wall and put his hands under her shirt and skirt after she delivered him his gym bag.

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NY Times responds to Hannity demand for retraction, apology: 'Our answer is no'

The New York Times on Tuesday said it would not retract or apologize for columns critical of Fox News host Sean Hannity's coverage of the coronavirus pandemic after Hannity's attorney threatened legal action against the newspaper.

"The columns are accurate, do not reasonably imply what you and Mr. Hannity allege they do, and constitute protected opinion," wrote Times's legal counsel David E. McCraw to Hannity attorney Charles Harder. 

"In response to your request for an apology and retraction, our answer is 'no,' " the letter concludes. 

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Kim Jong-un's train possibly spotted at North Korean resort

As rumours persist that ruler is in poor health, satellite images emerge showing train parked at Wonsan’s ‘leadership station’

A special train possibly belonging to the North Korean ruler, Kim Jong-un, has been spotted at a resort town, according to satellite images reviewed by a Washington-based North Korea monitoring project, amid conflicting reports about Kim’s health and whereabouts.

The monitoring project, 38 North, said in its report on Saturday that the train was parked at the “leadership station” in Wonsan on 21 April and 23 April. The station is reserved for the use of the Kim family, it said.

Though the group said it was probably Kim’s train, Reuters has not been able to confirm that independently, or whether he was in Wonsan.

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Captain Tom Moore passes £23m in British National Health Service fundraising

A 99-year-old English war veteran has been left "speechless" after raising more than £23m for the NHS.

Capt Tom Moore originally aimed to raise just £1,000 for NHS Charities Together by completing 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday.

The Duke of Cambridge hailed him as a "one-man fundraising machine".

His daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore said: "There are no words left to say. We cannot believe people's generosity and he's just floored by it."

More than a million people have now made donations to his JustGiving page.

And more than half a million people have called for Capt Tom to be knighted in a petition to the Honours Committee.

The petition, which was set up earlier this week, has received more than 680,000 signatures after his efforts grabbed the nation's attention.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said he is looking at ways to recognise his "heroic efforts".

Captain Tom Moore has also now achieved the record title for the most money raised by charity walk (individual), raising a staggering total of £27,699,581 on JustGiving as of 21 April 2020. 

His total is now over £28 million and the figure continues to rise. As well as now becoming the oldest person ever to have a number 1 hit in the British music charts

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Hubble telescope delivers stunning 30th birthday picture

It's 30 years ago to the day that the Hubble telescope was launched - and to celebrate its birthday, the veteran observatory has produced another astonishing image of the cosmos.

This one is of a star-forming region close to our Milky Way Galaxy, about 163,000 light-years from Earth.

The larger object is the nebula NGC 2014; its companion is called NGC 2020.

But astronomers have nicknamed the scene the "Cosmic Reef" because it resembles an undersea world.

Famously blighted by blurred vision at the outset of its mission in 1990, Hubble was eventually repaired and upgraded.

The remarkable pictures it has taken of planets, stars, and galaxies have transformed our view of the cosmos.

Indeed, there are those who think Hubble is the most important scientific tool ever built.

It's still far from retirement.

The US space agency (Nasa), which runs the observatory in partnership with the European Space Agency (Esa), says operations will be funded for as long as they remain productive.

Last year, its data resulted in almost 1,000 scientific papers being published - so it continues to stand at the forefront of discovery. 

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I was being sarcastic about using disinfectant as COVID-19 cure

The US president had suggested that scientists should investigate inserting the cleaning agent into the body to cure COVID-19.

Donald Trump has said his comments on using disinfectant inside people's bodies to fight COVID-19 were sarcastic.

His words came just hours after he was widely criticised for holding up disinfectant and "(ultraviolet) light inside the body" as possible solutions to the corona virus crisis.

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He had said about disinfectant: "It knocks it out in a minute, one minute, and is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning..."

Coronavirus lockdown protest: What's behind the US demonstrations?

Across the country, groups of Americans are taking to the streets in protest of lockdown orders aimed at limiting the spread of Covid-19. Why?

The US now has over 761,000 cases and more than 40,000 deaths, with numbers still rising, though signs have emerged that infection rates are slowing in some states.

Some states are beginning to ease restrictions, re-opening parks, beaches and some small businesses in the coming days, but most of the US remains under some form of stay-at-home order.

In over a dozen states from coast to coast, protesters have taken to the streets, blocking roads and honking car horns.

Those taking to the streets say that the stringent measures restricting movement and businesses are unnecessarily hurting citizens.

Protesters say the stay-at-home measures imposed by state governments to control the spread of Covid-19 are an overreaction.

Some have also come bearing firearms as gun rights groups have been among the organisers, citing infringements on civil liberties.

Some also say keeping these restrictions in place too long will cause long-term damage to local economies.

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Gunman kills at least 18 in Nova Scotia

A gunman disguised as a policeman killed at least 18 people, including a female Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer, in the worst mass shooting in Canada's modern history.

The 12-hour rampage started late on Saturday and ended with a car chase.

Police said the suspect shot people at different locations in Nova Scotia, many of them randomly. He was killed in a confrontation with police.

The RCMP said on Monday that they believe there may be more victim within the remains of homes torched as part of the weekend's attacks.

Mr Trudeau said that his government was "on the verge" of introducing bans to assault style weapons before parliament was dissolved amid the coronavirus outbreak.

"We have every intention of moving forward", once the outbreak is curbed, he said.

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An ER doctor loses custody of daughter because of coronavirus fears

(CNN)An emergency room doctor in Miami has temporarily lost custody of her 4-year-old daughter while she treats patients during the coronavirus pandemic.

Dr. Theresa Greene told CNN's "New Day" that she was appealing the emergency order that granted her ex-husband full custody of their daughter.

"I think it's not fair, it's cruel to ask me to choose between my child and the oath I took as a physician," Greene said. "I won't abandon my team at work or the patients who will increasingly look to me to save their lives in the coming weeks, but it's torture."

Greene and her ex-husband have been divorced for almost two years and have split time with their daughter evenly.

Last week, Circuit Court Judge Bernard Shapiro ruled that the child should stay with her father, Eric Greene, to limit the risk of exposure to coronavirus.

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Watch the hero’s farewell sailors gave their fired Theodore Roosevelt skipper

“Captain Crozier! Captain Crozier!” the sailors chanted amid claps and cheers as their skipper walked along the gangway, leaving his ship of nealy 5,000 sailors.

“That’s how you send off one of the greatest captains you ever had,” one sailor said one of several cell phone videos posted online Thursday.

Capt. Brett Crozier, commanding officer of the sidelined aircraft carrier in port in Guam, was abruptly relieved of duty Thursday after copy of writing a letter describing the COVID-19 outbreak on the 4,800-person ship and pleaded for help from his senior officers.

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Unemployment in US and UK 'may be worse than in Great Depression'

Unemployment in Britain and the US could surpass the levels reached during the 1930s Great Depression within months as the coronavirus crisis crushes the global economy, a former Bank of England official has warned.

In a stark forecast as job losses mount around the world, David Blanchflower, professor of economics at Dartmouth College in the US and a member of the Bank’s interest rate-setting monetary policy committee during the 2008 financial crisis, said unemployment was rising at the fastest rate in living memory.

Writing in the Guardian, the economist said UK unemployment could rapidly rise to more than 6 million people, around 21% of the entire workforce, based on analysis of US job market figures that suggest unemployment across the Atlantic could reach 52.8 million, around 32% of the workforce.

“There has never been such a concentrated business collapse. The government has tried to respond but it has no idea of the scale of the problem it is going to have to deal with. We make some back-of-the-envelope calculations and they are scary,” he said.

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