The Caribbean island of Barbados wants to remove Britain’s Queen Elizabeth as its head of state and become a republic, the government has said, reviving a plan mooted several times in the past.
Britain is prepared to leave the European Union on the same terms as Australia has with the bloc if it cannot agree on a future trading deal, Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Germany's Angela Merkel in a telephone call on Tuesday.
Britain's number of deaths involving COVID-19 has risen to 46,000, substantially higher than the 36,914 fatalities officially reported so far, according to a statistical update released on Tuesday.
The United Kingdom has overtaken Italy to report the highest official death toll from the new coronavirus in Europe, figures released on Tuesday showed, increasing pressure on Prime Minister Boris Johnson over his response to the crisis.
British new car sales slumped by an annual 97% in April to the lowest level of any month since February 1946 as factories and dealerships shut due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Around a quarter of employees in Britain have been furloughed and companies have claimed £8 billion from the government to sustain their wage bills during the coronavirus lockdown, tax authorities said on Monday.
With conferences cancelled and revenues hit because of a lack of rent from student accommodation, Britain's universities are reeling from the global coronavirus pandemic. Schools have already lost millions of pounds thanks to enforced closures under lockdown, and things could get worse still.
Britain now has Europe's second-highest official COVID-19 death toll with more than 26,000, according to figures published on Wednesday that raised questions about Prime Minister Boris Johnson's response to the outbreak.
Britain's government plans to test a sample of 20,000 English households for COVID-19 in the coming weeks to try to establish how far the disease has spread across the country.
The British Horseracing Authority announced on Friday a £22 million (US$27.5 million) aid package in response to the financial impact of the coronavirus. All racing in Britain was suspended on Mar 17 following the spread of COVID-19, with the shutdown made indefinite on Wednesday as a hoped-for resumption on Apr 30 was ruled out.