Boris Johnson has refused to apologise after he suggested "too many" care homes did not properly follow procedures during the coronavirus pandemic.
His comments have sparked outrage, with Keir Starmer branding them "shameful".
The number of deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK remains a little over 55,000, according to the latest available data from the Office for National Statistics.
Meanwhile, Brazil's president - who has downplayed the dangers of the virus and opposed local lockdowns in his country - says he has tested positive for the virus. He would join a handful of other national leaders, including the UK prime minister and the Honduran president, to have contracted the disease.
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Westminster Abbey is to reopen to visitors on Saturday after its longest closure since the Queen's coronation nearly 70 years ago.
The royal church in central London has been shut for four months because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Visit England has awarded the Abbey its Good to Go official kite mark in recognition of its high standards of protection through cleanliness and social distancing.
It will initially be open to visitors on Saturdays and Wednesday evenings, with a limited number of timed-entry tickets available solely through advance booking online at westminster-abbey.org/visit-us.
PA
The coronavirus outbreak took a heavy toll on workers at US meat and poultry processing facilities, with more than 17,000 Covid-19 cases and nearly 100 deaths in April and May, according to a Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report.
In many rural parts of the country, meatpacking plants have been the main source of local outbreaks as employees are forced to work long hours indoors and in close proximity to each other.
The CDC report was based on surveillance data from health departments in 23 states through May 31 for all meat and poultry facilities affected by the coronavirus. It compiled 16,233 confirmed cases among the workers, with 86 related deaths.
Among cases in states where demographic details were available, 87 per cent occurred among racial and ethnic minority workers.
Twelve percent of the reported cases were asymptomatic or presymptomatic, CDC said. But not all facilities performed widespread coronavirus testing, so there may have been many more cases that went unreported, according to the study.
Combined with an earlier CDC assessment of meat processing plant workers through April 27, the totals were 17,358 Covid-19 cases and 91 deaths through the end of May.
Reuters
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that a so-called outbreak of bubonic plague in China is not being treated as high risk.
Officials in the city of Bayan Nur, in the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia, issued an early epidemic warning on Sunday – one day after a hospital in the region reported that a man had displayed symptoms of the disease known as the “Black Death”.
Pregnant women and new mothers are being made redundant due to the coronavirus crisis, campaigners have warned.
Charities told The Independent women are calling their advice lines in tears after being laid off due to employers singling out mothers-to-be or new mothers for redundancy.
President Donald Trump has incorrectly claimed that the US's coronavirus mortality rate is among the lowest in the world.
He tweeted: "The Mortality Rate for the China Virus in the US is just about the LOWEST IN THE WORLD."
'Shameful'
Keir Starmer has denounced as "shameful" Boris Johnson's apparent attempt to blame care home operators for deaths of residents and staff from coronavirus, our political editor Andrew Woodcock reports.
The Labour leader demanded an apology from the prime minister a day after Mr Johnson suggested that the 20,000 fatalities in care homes during the pandemic could in part be explained by the failure of many to "follow the procedures" to protect residents and staff.
Full story below:
Visitors from three more US states who travel to New York will be required to quarantine for 14 days to control the spread of coronavirus, Governor Andrew Cuomo said.
New York state, which had been the early epicenter of the US outbreak, unveiled the travel advisory last month in an effort to prevent a resurgence after the state got its outbreak under control.
Delaware, Kansas and Oklahoma, all of which are grappling with "significant" community spread of the virus, have been added to the list, Mr Cuomo announced on Tuesday.
This brings the total number of states under the travel advisory to 19.
Additional reporting by Reuters
WHO experts in China
Experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO) are to travel to China at the weekend to prepare a study on the origins of coronavirus and how it jumped from animal to humans, the global body said.
"The best place to start is clearly where the disease emerged in humans first, and where the disease emerged in humans first, where the first clusters of atypical pneumonia occurred, was in Wuhan," Dr Mike Ryan, the head of the WHO's emergencies programme, said.
Heavily criticised by the United States and others who have accused it of secrecy and a late response to the outbreak, China has claimed it was transparent throughout the early stages of the pandemic.
The first cases of Covid-19 were reported in Wuhan, a central Chinese city, towards the end of last year.
Additional reporting by Reuters
Two thirds of people testing positive for coronavirus have no symptoms, according to Office for National Statistics data.
The new figures suggest there is a potentially large number of asymptomatic cases – meaning the virus could be spread by people who do not realise they are carrying it.
Chiara Giordano reports:
People who test positive for the coronavirus but refuse hospital treatment could face a prison sentence under a new regulation introduced in Italy's northeastern region of Veneto.
The order by governor Luca Zaia says that until the end of July hospitals must tell the public prosecutor's office of anyone refusing admission after testing positive.
Anyone returning to Veneto, which includes the city of Venice, must also be given two compulsory swab tests, Monday's regional order says if they are returning from a business trip outside the European Union or a non-Schengen country.
Under Italian law, anyone who negligently spreads an epidemic risks a prison sentence up to 12 years, while anyone who does so wilfully may face up to life imprisonment.
"It is a way to partially compensate the national law that does not require isolation upon return from a non-EU country if the stay abroad lasts up to five days", Mr Zaia said during a news briefing which was streamed via Facebook.
Mr Zaia's order says that the person's employer faces a penalty of 1,000 euros multiplied by the number of its employees, if it does not enforce the rule.
The president today told reporters he was "feeling good", according to Sky News.
According to earlier reports, Mr Bolsonaro had cancelled his schedule for the rest of the week after developing a fever.
The UK coronavirus death toll has risen by 155 to 44,391, according to the latest government figures.
Between 24 and 25 June, YouGov conducted a survey of 1,663 people in Britain, on behalf of research group Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).
The participants were questioned over how inclined they would feel to take up a vaccine for Covid-19 if one became available.
Meanwhile, 15 per cent said they weren’t certain, meaning that the total percentage who may not undergo vaccinations came to just under a third.
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Greece moved 25 unaccompanied minors from overcrowded migrant camps to Portugal on Tuesday as part of a relocation programme to EU countries.
The boys, all aged between 15 and 17, had lived in refugee camps on outlying Greek islands. They have no relatives in Europe.
Hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees fleeing conflict and poverty countries used Greece as a springboard to European countries in 2015 and 2016, when an EU-brokered accord with Turkey all but halted the flow, trapping many in Greece.
At least 5,200 migrant children from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Africa currently live in Greece, many of them in harsh conditions.
Tuesday's transfer was part of a voluntary plan to relocate minors from Greek camps to other European countries amid concerns about the impact of the coronavirus on vulnerable groups.
Leicester's rate of new Covid-19 cases has dropped to a level last seen nearly a month ago, new figures suggest.
The equivalent of 106.4 cases per 100,000 people were detected in the city in the seven days to July 4, according to the latest data published by NHS Digital.
This is the lowest level since 101.1 cases per 100,000 were recorded in the seven days to June 11.
The rate peaked in the seven days to 25 June, when 159.1 cases per 100,000 were recorded.
The figures for Leicester are based on the number of people with coronavirus identified through an NHS lab ('pillar 1' of the Government's testing programme) or from commercial swab testing ('pillar 2').
Because of the time it takes for tests to be processed, NHS Digital uses data only up to three days before the current calendar date, to allow for any revisions to the figures.
New data on confirmed cases of Covid-19 for every local authority in England is published daily.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has been asked to look into new rules that could see employees, especially those in the healthcare sectors, hit with an extra tax bill for the coronavirus tests they take.
Mel Stride, an MP who chairs the influential Treasury Select Committee, asked the chancellor to look into the issue which could see tax bills for doctors and nurses "mount up".
The rules, which were published by HMRC on Monday, say that staff should pay income tax on Covid-19 tests that are paid for by an employer. The tests are treated as a taxable benefit in kind.
"Given that many employers will require these tests on a regular basis, especially in health care settings but also in many other industries (such as hospitality), the tax bills could soon mount up and this does not seem to be a helpful policy at this time," Mr Stride wrote.
"As you know testing for Covid-19 is an essential precaution and supports our contact tracing systems and it is vital to carry out as much testing as possible to ensure we can return to a normal economy," he added.
"I think this policy risks deterring workers from taking employer sponsored tests.”
Montenegro has introduced a compulsory quarantine for all people arriving from Serbia, citing coronavirus health risks in the neighbouring Balkan country.
South Africa's confirmed coronavirus cases have surpassed 200,000 as the country continues to post some of the highest daily numbers in the world.
A major passenger railway system in the Philippine capital has been shut down for five days starting Tuesday after nearly 200 employees, including 15 ticket sellers, tested positive for the coronavirus, officials said.
The shutdown of the 13-station MRT Line 3, which runs for nearly 17 km (10.5 miles) from north to south of metropolitan Manila, further complicates a transport shortage caused by quarantine restrictions. The government has allowed the deployment of more shuttle buses to ease the shortage.
The Philippines has seen a spike in infections in recent days after easing quarantine restrictions and ramping up tests, reporting nearly 48,000 infections, including 1,309 deaths.
