US President Donald Trump has said he is ending negotiations over a Covid-19 relief bill, and will only resume talks after the election. “Immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans,” he tweeted one day after leaving hospital. Budget talks between Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had been underway. US stock markets fell immediately after Mr Trump’s announcement. It comes as cases rise in several parts of the country, and the outbreak hits top Pentagon military officials, White House staff and Republican senators. Lawmakers from both parties had hoped for another round of Covid-19 relief spending to pass ahead of the 3 November election, but Mr Trump’s tweet appears to have abruptly suspended that prospect.

In his tweet, the president cast blame for the talks’ collapse on Mrs Pelosi, saying that she was seeking $2.4tr (£1.8tr) “to bailout poorly run, high crime, Democrat States”. He said he counter-offered $1.6tr (£1.2tr) but Mrs Pelosi “is not negotiating in good faith”. “I am rejecting their request, and looking to the future of the Country,” he wrote. He added that he had instructed Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to focus efforts on confirming his Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.(BBC)…[+]

Three scientists who discovered the virus Hepatitis C have won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology. The winners are British scientist Michael Houghton and US researchers Harvey Alter and Charles Rice. The Nobel Prize committee said their discoveries ultimately “saved millions of lives”. The virus is a common cause of liver cancer and a major reason why people need a liver transplant. In the 1960s, there was huge concern that people receiving donated blood were getting chronic hepatitis (liver inflammation) from an unknown, mysterious disease.

The Nobel Prize committee said a blood transfusion at the time was like “Russian roulette”. Highly sensitive blood tests mean such cases have now been eliminated in many parts of the world, and effective anti-viral drugs have also been developed. “For the first time in history, the disease can now be cured, raising hopes of eradicating Hepatitis C virus from the world,” the prize committee said.(BBC)…[+]

The health secretary has said a technical glitch that saw nearly 16,000 Covid-19 cases go unreported in England “should never have happened”. The error meant that although those who tested positive were told about their results, their close contacts were not traced. By Monday afternoon, around half of those who tested positive had yet to be asked about their close contacts. Labour said the missing results were “putting lives at risk”. Experts advise that ideally contacts should be tracked down within 48 hours.

The technical error was caused by some Microsoft Excel data files exceeding the maximum size after they were sent from NHS Test and Trace to Public Health England. It meant 15,841 cases between 25 September and 2 October were left out of the UK daily case figures. PHE said the error itself, discovered overnight on Friday, has been fixed, and outstanding cases had been passed on to tracers by 01:00 BST on Saturday. But Health Secretary Matt Hancock told MPs the incident as a whole had not yet been resolved – with only 51% of those whose positive results were caught up in the glitch now reached by contact tracers. He said it had “not substantially changed” the government’s assessment of the epidemic, however, and had “not impacted the basis on which decisions about local action were taken”. He also said outbreak control in care homes, schools and hospitals had not been directly affected, as they do not rely on the data in question.(BBC)…[+]

Sending thousands of older untested patients into care homes in England at the start of the coronavirus lockdown was a violation of their human rights, Amnesty International has said. A report says government decisions were “inexplicable” and “disastrous”, affecting mental and physical health. More than 18,000 people living in care homes died with Covid-19 and Amnesty says the public inquiry promised by the government must begin immediately.

Ministers say they protected residents.  According to Amnesty’s report, a “number of poor decisions at both the national and local levels had serious negative consequences for the health and lives of older people in care homes and resulted in the infringement of their human rights” as enshrined in law. Researchers for the organisation interviewed relatives of older people who either died in care homes or are currently living in one; care home owners and staff, and legal and medical professionals.(BBC)…[+]

People in the French overseas territory of New Caledonia have narrowly rejected independence from France in a referendum.  The archipelago voted to remain French with 53.26% of votes, according to final results reported by AFP news agency. Turnout – at 85.6% – was high. In a similar vote two years ago, the margin was slightly wider, with 56.7% voting to stay French. New Caledonia has been a French territory for nearly 170 years. French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the result as a “sign of confidence in the republic”, adding he also felt “humility” in view of the results. The referendum was part of a series of votes agreed two decades ago, following bouts of violence in the 1980s over the issue of independence between the islands’ indigenous Kanak people and descendants of European settlers. Kanaks represent around 40% of the population, while Europeans, mostly born in the territory, make up about a third. Others come from other Pacific islands or are of mixed heritage.(BBC)…[+]

Boris Johnson has warned it may be “bumpy through to Christmas” and beyond as the UK deals with coronavirus.

Speaking to the BBC’s Andrew Marr, the PM said there was “hope” in beating Covid, but called on the public to “act fearlessly but with common sense”. He said the government was taking a “balanced” approach between saving lives and protecting the economy. His comments come as the UK announced more than 10,000 new cases for the first time since mass testing began. There were 12,872 new cases announced on Saturday. However, the government said a technical issue meant some cases earlier in the week were not recorded at the time so had been included in Saturday’s data. Government sources told the BBC that because of an IT error there had been a delay entering the details of positive cases into the NHS Test and Trace system in England, which slowed the process of finding their contacts. The problem was a “serious issue” but it has been “contained”, sources said.(BBC)…[+]