The acting White House chief of staff says US media is stoking a coronavirus panic because they hope it will take down President Donald Trump. “The reason they are paying so much attention to it today is that they think this is going to bring down the president,” Mick Mulvaney said.

Speaking to a group of conservatives on Friday, he added people should ignore the media in order to calm the markets. Global markets have continued to fall as the virus infects over 50 countries. There have been 82,000 reported cases of Covid-19 worldwide and 2,800 deaths since the disease emerged late last year. All but 3,664 cases and 57 of the deaths have been reported in China.

“We took extraordinary steps four or five weeks ago,” Mr Mulvaney said, referring to the Trump administration order to close the border to foreign travelers coming from China, where the virus originated. The move was widely covered in the media at the time. “Why didn’t we hear about it? What was going on four or five weeks ago? Impeachment. And that’s all the press wanted to talk about,” he told a gathering of conservatives outside Washington on Friday.(BBC)…[+]

Rock royalty met the Royal Family when the Duke of Sussex got behind a microphone with Jon Bon Jovi. They met at Abbey Road Studios, where the US rocker is re-recording his song Unbroken with the Invictus Games Choir.

The prince – who will step down as a working royal at the end of March – posted a video of both men in a recording booth. Bon Jovi said he looked forward to working with the “artist formerly known as prince”. Both men greeted each other warmly on the steps of the world-famous London studio synonymous with the Beatles. They were then ushered inside to the control room overlooking Studio 2 – where Fab Four recorded during the 1960s. A video filmed during the duke’s visit showed the prince and the popstar wearing headphones. The footage ends just as the pair are about to break into song. (BBC)…[+]

A Swiss village may have to evacuate for over a decade while authorities clear a huge World War Two arms dump.

The defence ministry concluded last year that the cache posed an “unacceptable” risk to the nearby people of Mitholz. Now, authorities say residents may have to leave while they clear the site. “Depending on how the work develops, residents should expect the evacuation to last up to more than 10 years,” the ministry said. Residents would have to approve the plan to leave the area. A public consultation is under way to see how best to proceed.”People live there who have been rooted in the village for generations,” Brigitte Rindlisbacher, chair of the Mitholz working group, reportedly said. “It hurts to see them in this situation.“(BBC)…[+]

Five people have been killed in a shooting at the Molson Coors Brewing Company campus in Milwaukee, Wisconsin state, local officials say. They say the gunman died from “self-inflicted wounds”. The man – a 51-year-old Milwaukee resident – worked for the company. His motives were unclear.

The shooting occurred in the early afternoon while hundreds of employees were still at work. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said it was a “tragic day for the city”. Speaking at a news briefing shortly after Wednesday’s shooting, he described it as a “horrific act”. Meanwhile, Milwaukee police chief Alfonso Morales said that the five victims were all employees of the brewing company. He praised the way the city’s police, FBI officers and firefighters responded to the attack. As the incident unfolded, nearby schools and businesses were locked down, local media report.(BBC)…[+]

Barack Obama has made a rare intervention in the 2020 White House race to decry a “despicable” racially charged attack ad against Joe Biden. A pro-Trump group put out the clip that twists Mr Obama’s own words in order to undermine the Democratic contender. Mr Biden is hoping the black vote in South Carolina’s primary on Saturday will revive his campaign. Though Mr Biden was his vice-president, Mr Obama has observed neutrality in the race, refusing to endorse a contender. Joe Biden is one of eight candidates remaining in the race to become the Democratic candidate who will take on President Donald Trump, a Republican, in November’s election.

The ad – entitled South Carolina, Joe Biden Can’t Be Trusted – was broadcast on TV stations in the southern state before Tuesday night’s Democratic debate in Charleston, formerly America’s largest slave port. “Joe Biden promised to help our community,” says a female narrator in the video. “It was a lie.”

She introduces audio from Mr Obama in which he says: “Plantation politics. Black people in the worst jobs, the worst housing. Police brutality rampant. “But when the so-called black committeemen came around election time, we’d all line up and vote the straight Democratic ticket. “Sell our souls for a Christmas turkey.(bbc)…[+]

The Mexican government says it regrets a ruling by the US Supreme Court that bars the family of a Mexican boy who was killed in 2010 from suing the US border patrol agent who shot him. The boy, Sergio Hernández, was shot dead on Mexican soil by US border patrol agent Jesús Mesa, who was on the US side of the border. The court ruled that the parents could not use US courts to sue Mr Mesa. The Mexican government says it is concerned it could set a precedent. The incident happened on the border between El Paso, Texas, and Juárez, Mexico. Agent Mesa was on a bicycle patrol on the US side of the border and was reportedly alerted to the presence of people smugglers.

Sergio Hernández, 15, was with a group of youths in the dry bed of the Rio Grande when Agent Mesa approached.

The international border runs through the middle of the concrete culvert built to contain the river but is unmarked.(BBC)…[+]

Grammy award-winning singer Duffy has revealed she was drugged and raped after being held captive by an attacker. The 35-year-old Welsh star posted on her verified Instagram account that her “recovery took time”.

The performer, who had a UK number one single Mercy in 2008, wrote to her 33,000 followers: “The truth is, and please trust me I am OK and safe now.” “I was raped and drugged and held captive over some days,” she wrote.

Duffy, whose debut album Rockferry went seven times platinum as it went to number one in six countries, won three Brit Awards and a Grammy following her breakthrough. At the Brits, she won British Breakthrough, Best British Female and Best British Album awards. “You can only imagine the amount of times I thought about writing this,” she wrote on Instagram.(BBC)…[+]

The Democratic presidential candidate debate in Charleston, South Carolina, reprised a piece of political theatre similar to a performance six days earlier in Las Vegas. On stage in Nevada last week, the debate played out like a dinner-theatre murder mystery. Michael Bloomberg was the victim, while everyone else on the stage had a motive and the means to do him in.

This time, on Tuesday night, it was Bernie Sanders who got the rhetorical bludgeoning. It was the last debate before South Carolina votes on Saturday – followed by 14 other states next Tuesday – and was full of tense moments and sharp exchanges, reflecting the high stakes. Right at the top, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg referenced a recent report that Russia was attempting to boost Sanders’s presidential campaign. “Vladimir Putin thinks that Donald Trump should be president of the United States,” he said. “And that’s why Russia is helping you get elected, so you will lose to him.”(BBC)…[+]

A popular pro-democracy party in Thailand has been dissolved over a loan it received from its leader. The constitutional court ruled a loan of around $6m (£4.6m) to Future Forward from Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit was a donation, and therefore illegal.

Mr Thanathorn, a wealthy young businessman who is critical of the government, established the party in 2018 to contest last year’s election. It performed unexpectedly well, winning more than six million votes. Future Forward had garnered the third largest share of seats in parliament with 80 MPs.   Mr Thanathorn and other party executives have also been banned from politics for 10 years and will lose their MP status, Thai TV said. The party’s remaining 70 MPs have 60 days to switch to a new party in order to preserve their MP status, it added. Mr Thanathorn argues the party was given no other opportunity to raise funds to fight the election. Mr Thanathorn and his party have been hit with multiple lawsuits, which he says are politically motivated, reports the BBC’s Jonathan Head in Bangkok. (BBC)…[+]

Lesotho’s Prime Minister Thomas Thabane has denied reports that he has fled to South Africa after he failed to appear in court to face charges of murdering his estranged wife in 2017. He has gone there for a medical check up instead, his office said.  His current wife Maesaiah Thabane has already been charged with the murder.

Mr Thabane would be the first African leader to be charged with a domestic murder while in office, in a case that has shocked the tiny mountain kingdom. His office says he respects the rule of law and that he plans to appear before the court when he returns from South Africa. Police on Thursday said he would be charged with murder in court on Friday. He was expected in court at 09:00 local time (07:00 GMT), reports the Reuters news agency.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Paseka Mokete told reporters he was not aware of Mr Thabane’s whereabouts, but said that if he was out of the country receiving treatment then they would wait to resume the case when he returns.

“We cannot at this stage say he is contemptuous [of the court],” he added. Mr Thabane’s previous wife Lipolelo Thabane, 58, was shot dead in the capital, Maseru, two days before Mr Thabane became prime minister in 2017.(BBC)…[+]