Scammers are sending 18 million hoax emails about Covid-19 to Gmail users every day, according to Google.

The tech giant says the pandemic has led to an explosion of phishing attacks in which criminals try to trick users into revealing personal data. The company said it was blocking more than 100 million phishing emails a day. Over the past week, almost a fifth were scam emails related to coronavirus. The virus may now be the biggest phishing topic ever, tech firms say. Google’s Gmail is used by 1.5 billion people.(BBC)…[+]

A drought, equal to the worst to have hit the western US in recorded history, is already under way, say scientists. Researchers say the megadrought is a naturally occurring event that started in the year 2000 and is still ongoing. Climate change, though, is having a major impact with rising temperatures making the drought more severe. Some researchers are more cautious, saying that it is too early to say if the region really is seeing a true megadrought.

According to the authors of this new paper, a megadrought in North America refers to a multi-decade event, that contains periods of very high severity that last longer than anything observed during the 19th or 20th centuries.

The authors say there have been around 40 drought events over the period from 800-2018 in the western US.

Of these, only four meet the criteria for a megadrought. These were in the late 800s, the mid-1100s, the 1200s and the late 1500s.(BBC)…[+]

The coast guard of Bangladesh says it has rescued at least 382 starving Rohingya refugees who had been drifting at sea for nearly two months. More than two dozen people died on the boat, which was trying to reach Malaysia, officials said.

Some reports said the boat had been turned back by Malaysia because of the coronavirus pandemic. It is unclear whether the refugees had left from Bangladesh or from Myanmar, where they are originally from.

In 2017, a crackdown by the Myanmar military left thousands of Rohingya Muslims dead and drove more than 700,000 to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh.  “We have rescued at least 382 Rohingya from a big overcrowded fishing trawler and brought them to a beach near Teknaf,” coast guard spokesman Lt Shah Zia Rahman told AFP news agency.

“They were starving. They were floating for 58 days and over the last seven days [the boat] was moving in our territorial waters.”Lt Rahman said authorities launched a three-day search for the boat after receiving a tip-off and found it at night off the south-east coast. Pictures on social media showed groups of emaciated people, mostly women and children, standing on a beach.(BBC)…[+]

Barcelona’s mayor has called for an end to strict coronavirus lockdown measures in Spain which bar children from going out for any reason. “These children need to get out,” Ada Colau wrote on Facebook, herself the mother of youngsters aged three and nine.

“Wait no more: Free our children!” Spain – which has the most confirmed cases in Europe – is the only country on the continent where children cannot leave home at all. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced the nationwide lockdown on 14 March. It has since been extended until at least 26 April – though people in construction, manufacturing and some service jobs were allowed to return to work this week.(BBC)…[+]

Stars, galaxies, planets, pretty much everything that makes up our everyday lives owes its existence to a cosmic quirk. The nature of this quirk, which allowed matter to dominate the Universe at the expense of antimatter, remains a mystery. Now, results from an experiment in Japan could help researchers solve the puzzle – one of the biggest in science.

It hinges on a difference in the way matter and antimatter particles behave. The world that’s familiar to us – including all the everyday objects we can touch – is made up of matter. The fundamental building blocks of matter are sub-atomic particles, such as electrons, quarks and neutrinos.

But matter has a shadowy counterpart called antimatter. Each sub-atomic particle of ordinary matter has a corresponding “antiparticle”. Today, there is far more matter than antimatter in the Universe. But it wasn’t always this way. The Big Bang should have created matter and antimatter in equal amounts.(BBC)….[+]

South Korea has been holding an election unlike any other. Voters wore masks and stood at least 1m apart. They had their temperature taken, disinfected their hands and wore plastic gloves. Only then were they given their voting slip and allowed to head into the booth to cast their ballot.

These are just some of the measures taken to allow the scheduled National Assembly election to take place during the Covid-19 pandemic. Three hundred seats at the National Assembly are being contested. Thirty-five parties have registered candidates, but the race will be between the ruling Minjoo (Democratic) Party and the main opposition, the conservative United Future Party.

The government’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak has dominated all discussions during this election. It has eclipsed fears of a struggling economy and a number of corruption scandals involving presidential aides.

The National Assembly elections are seen as a bit of springboard to test candidates and party popularity ahead of the presidential elections in 2022. After voting closed on Wednesday, exit polls published by the three main broadcasters suggested President Moon Jae-in’s ruling Democratic party had won the majority of seats and increased its majority.(BBC)…[+]

Children up to the age of 11 are returning to nurseries and schools across Denmark, as the government becomes the first in Europe to relax coronavirus restrictions on education. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen welcomed children as they went back to school in the capital Copenhagen. Denmark was among the first countries in Europe to impose a lockdown, with schools closed on 12 March.

Infection rates have been low but critics warn the strategy is risky. “We’re all a bit nervous and we’ll have to ensure that we stick to hygiene rules,” Elisa Rimpler of the BUPL, the Danish Union of Early Childhood and Youth Educators, told the BBC. “We have a lot of washing hands during the day. We don’t have masks and we have to keep a good distance from each other so that’s a very difficult task.” Denmark’s move came as European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen set out a roadmap on Wednesday for a gradual lifting of restrictions across the 27-state bloc, but made clear it was not a signal to act immediately.(BBC)…[+]

The founder and boss of Amazon has seen his wealth swell by $24bn (£19bn) after soaring demand for online shopping sent the firm’s share price to a new high. Jeff Bezos now has a fortune of $138bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, cementing his position as the world’s richest man.

Amazon has benefited from surging internet shopping by people forced to stay home during the Covid-19 outbreak.

The firm has been recruiting thousands of workers to cope with demand. However, Amazon has also been criticised by employees in the US over workplace protection against the coronavirus. Mr Bezos owns an 11% stake in Amazon and on Tuesday, the firm’s shares rose by 5.3%.The family behind retail giant Wal-Mart, which owns Asda in the UK, have also gained during the lockdown.(BBC)…[+]

A fire that threatened the abandoned Chernobyl nuclear plant has been contained, Ukrainian authorities said.

Emergency services said on Tuesday there were still some “smouldering” parts of the forest floor, but there was “no open fire” left. There had been fears the blaze could threaten the site of the 1986 nuclear catastrophe.

Greenpeace Russia said on Monday one blaze was just one kilometre from the plant itself. Though fires are common in the area, Greenpeace said this was the worst in decades. Police have arrested a 27-year-old man and accused him of starting the blaze. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was “carefully monitoring” the situation and praised emergency services for their “courage”. He tweeted that “society needs to know the truth and to be safe”.(BBC)…[+]

The trial of a former US marine accused of spying has begun behind closed doors in Moscow, 16 months after his arrest. The Russian government says Paul Whelan was caught “red-handed” with state secrets.

But the US ambassador to Moscow called the case a “mockery of justice” and described Mr Whelan’s treatment as a very serious impediment to improving bilateral relations. The American could be facing up to 20 years in prison.

He also has UK, Irish and Canadian citizenship. FSB security officers burst into Paul Whelan’s room at a central Moscow hotel in December 2018. He was detained with a USB flash drive which the FSB says contained secret information.Mr Whelan, who has visited Russia many times, has previously told the BBC that an old friend had turned up at his room uninvited and planted the drive.(BBC)…[+]