Michelle Bolsonaro, wife of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, said on Sunday she had tested negative for coronavirus, roughly two weeks after first contracting the disease, Reuters reports.
Several members of the Bolsonaro family have fallen sick with Covid-19. Brazil has the second highest number of cases in the world after the United States.
Michelle’s grandmother died from the disease earlier this week, Jair himself was ill in July, and his fourth son, Jair Renan, has tested positive.
“Thank you for your prayers and for all your acts of love,” Michelle Bolsonaro said in a post on social media announcing her test result.
As of Saturday, Brazil had 107,232 deaths attributed to coronavirus and 3.3 million confirmed cases.
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A deepening rift between Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and his finance minister about coronavirus spending is fuelled by disagreements over the scope and scale of proposed green initiatives, three sources familiar with the matter said.
Trudeau and finance minister Bill Morneau are due to meet on Monday in a bid to sort out their differences, said a fourth source aware of the meeting, Reuters reports.
Morneau and his team have pushed back against other cabinet ministers about how much funding was needed, including to what extent the recovery could be helped by investing in environmental projects, the sources added.
Trudeau, who campaigned on a platform to tackle climate change, believes the 2021 budget should have an ambitious environmental element to start weaning the heavily oil-dependent economy off fossil fuels and has recently hired former Bank of England governor Mark Carney as an informal adviser, aides say.
The appointment, coupled with a Globe and Mail report that Trudeau and Morneau had clashed over the amount of money Ottawa is spending to combat coronavirus, led to speculation about the future of the finance minister.
Morneau, 57, has been in the job since the Liberals took power in late 2015.
Trudeau spokesman Cameron Ahmad said the prime minister had issued a statement on Tuesday saying he had “full confidence” in Morneau, who confidants say is alarmed by ballooning budget deficits.
After a meeting on Sunday afternoon with the regional authorities, the Italian government has decided to close all discos in the country and to make mandatory wearing masks in outdoor public spaces where it is not possible to practice social distancing.
The decision follows a rapid increase in coronavirus infections: for the first time since May and for three consecutive days, Italy registered more than 500 new coronavirus cases per day, most of which concern holidaymakers returning from Croatia, Spain, Greece and Malta.
The fear of a new lockdown has begun to spread among Italians, as the country registered 479 new cases and 4 deaths on Sunday.
The British government faces the threat of legal action and criticism from its own MPs after it sparked anger by mishandling English exam grades.
After a nationwide lockdown forced exams to be cancelled, the government used an algorithm to assess grade predictions made by teachers, and lowered grades for almost 40% of students taking their main school-leaving exams. That process led many students to lose places at universities they had previously been offered.
Results show that grades were less likely to be lowered for students who attended fee-paying private schools, while bright students at traditionally poorly performing schools have had results downgraded, often dramatically.
On Saturday night the exam regulator published guidance on an appeals process, only to withdraw it hours later because it needed further review.
The barrister Jo Maugham said his Good Law Project had appointed solicitors to pursue litigation on behalf of students, and urged the government to launch a suitable appeal system in time for students to go to college in September, Reuters reports.
Robert Halfon, the Tory chair of the cross-party education select committee in parliament, described the removal of the appeal guidance as farcical. “It sows confusion among pupils, head teachers and school teachers, and it’s the last thing we need at this time,” he told the BBC.
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Over in Cyprus, more cases of coronavirus have been recorded today, with the health ministry in the island nation’s internationally recognised southern sector announcing seven new infections, bringing the total tally to 1,339.
Three of those who tested positive for the virus were tourists and repatriated Greek Cypriots, according to authorities.
The Mediterranean island has handled the pandemic better than other EU member states, but in recent weeks has seen a flare-up of cases, particularly around the marina of Limassol.
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The head of a US House of Representatives committee has invited the Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, to appear on 24 August to testify about postal service changes that some suspect are aimed at holding up postal ballots in the 3 November election.
Democrats have accused Donald Trump of trying to hamstring the cash-strapped postal service to suppress mail-in voting. DeJoy has been donating to Trump’s campaign.
Trump said on Thursday he had held up talks with Congress over a fresh round of coronavirus stimulus funding to block Democrats from providing more funds for postal voting and election infrastructure.
“[DeJoy’s] testimony is particularly urgent given the troubling influx of reports of widespread delays at postal facilities across the country as well as President Trump’s explicit admission last week that he has been blocking critical coronavirus funding for the postal service in order to impair mail-in voting efforts for the upcoming elections,” the House oversight and reform committee chairwoman, Carolyn Maloney, said in a statement.
The pandemic has significantly affected the US election, with campaign rallies and convention speeches unable to go ahead as planned.
So far, the altered landscape appears to be hurting Trump and helping his Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
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Island nations have an advantage when it comes to stopping travellers importing disease, be it Covid or other infections.
Seas are usually harder to cross than land, and beaches are easier to police. There are no cross-border towns, and fewer ways to sneak over frontiers.
These advantages, combined with strict quarantine policies, have made island nations some of the most successful at containing Covid. But the ones that did best shut themselves off from the world to varying degrees. And a fresh outbreak of cases in New Zealand last week suggests coronavirus can evade even tight controls.
Experts say the lack of special border measures in the UK before lockdown was a “serious mistake” that significantly increased the pace and scale of the epidemic. Even now, the UK’s quarantine measures – for selected countries and with limited enforcement – appear to be nowhere near as comprehensive or effective as those used by other island nations.
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Dozens of students have sat down on the floor at the front door of the Department of Education in London, UK, as hundreds filled the street.
They are protesting against the downgrading of thousands of students’ A-levels by an algorithim that accounted for schools’ historical performance, effectively discriminating against high-achieving children at schools that have had low performance.
Exams were cancelled in the UK due to the pandemic, though they went ahead in some countries such as Germany.
The protesters chanted “vote them out”, “fuck Eton” and “come out Gavin” (in reference to the education secretary, Gavin Williamson), with many demonstrators holding signs referencing the next election.
Maya Szollosy, 18, from London, said:
We’re voting age now, most of us, and we’re young. We’re going to remember this for many years until the general election and I don’t think many students are going to vote for the Conservative party after what they did to us.
A science teacher who did not wish to give her name, said:
I think this is the biggest attack on the working class probably since Thatcher, or at least the most brazen. This is going to be devastating, particularly for the working class, including black and minority ethnic students. I’ve seen that up to 2 million GCSE kids are going to get downgraded potentially, so I’m so scared for them, my heart is breaking for these kids.
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