this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. i'm mike embley. the us economy slumps and worse is still to come. spending nose—dived in the last quarter, as the lockdown began. the number of coronavirus deaths in the uk passes 26,000. for the first time, the figure includes deaths in care homes and the wider community. hope for a treatment — one of the most senior health advisers in the us says there's clear—cut evidence an antiviral drug can help people recover. it is a very important proof of concept because what it has proven is that a drug can block this virus. and, the british prime minister and his partner are celebrating the birth of their baby son.

hello. we're covering all the latest coronavirus developments here in britain and globally. in the us, at least 2,000 deaths have been recorded in the past 2a hours. that takes the total fatalities beyond 60,000 and officials say the american economy is shrinking at the fastest rate in more than a decade. figures from the first quarter of the year show a 4.8% contraction but economists say worse is to come in the current quarter, april through june. according to the international labour 0rganisation, more than a billion people have seen their incomes plummet, dropping on average by about 60%. here, in the uk, the number of dead has passed 26,000, as official figures now include fatalities in care homes and the wider community, as well as

hospitals, for the first time. more on all that shortly. first, nick bryant in new york on the latest signs of how the pandemic is impacting the world's biggest economy. new york is a city caught between dread and desire, desperate to open up after six weeks in lockdown but fearful of the fatal consequences of doing so, too soon. a new york without new yorkers has hammered its economy, tourism and hospitality sectors also decimated. also, the financial hub, fears the onset of another great depression but even though the city has passed the peak of its outbreak, the density of its population makes it especially hazardous to quickly open up. that covert conundrum. i cannot wrap my head around it. this man owns a

business in staten island which he fears will be bankrupt by june and he is a drum supporter who fears that the democrats who fears that the democrats who run new york art too cautious. if i'm not working and the economy is not opened up and the economy is not opened up and these very mongers do not back off and have everyone scared to death, we will all close. it is a vicious disease and i've had it myself, to accept that? the reality is, people will continue to get sick. i do not think they will continue to get sick at any alarming rate. we are seeing more beggars on the streets of new york. this is harlem, a mainly american african community, severely hit by this contagion and this is upscale so, the home of retail, boarded up so, the home of retail, boarded up likea so, the home of retail, boarded up like a hurricane is about to rip through, which economically it has, every single shutdown day. —— word this place soho.

these people warn against the rush to reopen. people are hurting financially and struggling to feed their families but we really need to ta ke families but we really need to take it slow because i would hate for us to shutdown take it slow because i would hate for us to shut down the economy again if we get more cases. this is one of the most impatient cities in the world. they talk about the new york minute, it means right now, immediately, without hesitation. although some parts of the state could start the gradual process of reopening in mid may, in new york city, the tough restrictions will remain in place, certainly for weeks, and may be for many months. every night at 9pm, the empire state building is eliminated in a red and white starry night to honour emergency workers providing care. it is a ritual that will continue until the crisis is over. but that is the u na nswera ble crisis is over. but that is the unanswerable question. when will new york return to being new york? (siren wails).

live now to massachusetts and to kenneth rogoff, professor of public policy and professor of economics at harvard university. thank you so much, really appreciate you coming on a thank you for waiting before coming on air. i think you will know far better than me, we we re know far better than me, we were seeing the longest employment boom in american history and clearly things very different now and these figures because do not reflect the full crisis. i do not think we will the full impact until the end of this current quarter, april— june? of this current quarter, april— june? this isjust the house of it, we are in the middle of the deepest fall in unemployment in may be years, and we may come out of it faster but otherwise, these are headed for great depression type numbers, at least in the short term. reading what you are writing about it, i think you feel

essential banks, including the fed, have made a historic mistake in dealing all of this? well, not immediately in the sense that they did not leave themselves with other tools so they are stuck guaranteeing all they are stuck guaranteeing all the credit in the economy. i wish that over the past couple of years they had thought had to do effective negative interest—rate policy, which is a more market—based mechanism and now the fed isjust guaranteeing sways of credit in the economy, corporate debt, municipal debt and if this does not end soon and i do not over will, they will have quite a mess to clean up, it would be better to have lower interest rates. i i know you have said really aggressive testing may allow for more robust recovery but i think i really address aggressive testing,... . a

number of nobel prize—winning economist have said if you can reach a level like that you will be able to open up with some confidence. if you do smaller numbers, it is much more limited. everyone agrees. we need testing. that is the way until there is a vaccine, if and when there is a vaccine, we need much better testing, he was harder, he was infected and who is not and that is unfolding but very slowly. antivirals, i hope they are coming. vaccines, i hope they are coming but it looks like it will good drag on for quite a while and we may have two adjust to it. you have any pictures of what this contraction means in terms of individual and businesses?” mean, it will be staggering. so, we're talking about many, many businesses are not going to come back, even now. they cannot take the blow like this for this long, even with the

support the government is giving. there are lots of other problems when you are in a depression like this. people not getting healthcare for normal things. children not getting an education. mental depression. there will be real tension in the united states between clearly, it will spread faster and be very deadly if we open up to quickly and on the other hand that collateral damage with having a locking like this. —— too quickly. it is astounding. a tough problem that will sort through better if we had testing, better if we had a vaccine, better if we had antiviral treatment but for right now, all of those things arejust a hope. briefly, if it is possible to put something briefly, how would you compare this to the 2008 crash, to the end of the second world war even? i'm afraid the 2008 feels like a even? i'm afraid the 2008 feels likea dry even? i'm afraid the 2008 feels like a dry run for this right now. this is worse. no question. this will be the

worst recession, certainly, since the second world war, may be if it lasts much longer, going back 150 years. wow! professor kenneth rogoff, thank you for your time. thank you and sorry to deliver this message! really appreciate you coming on. a senior white house health adviser has expressed optimism that an existing antiviral drug could help fight the coronavirus. dr anthony fauci said data from a clinical trial of remdesivir showed it could reduce the recovery time in sufferers and that the drug showed great promise. the data shows that it has a clear—cut positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery. this is really quite important for a number of reasons, and i will give you the data. it is highly significant. if you look at the

time to recovery being shorter in the remdesivir group, ii days compared to 15, and that isa days compared to 15, and that is a value for the scientists who are listening of 0.001. that is something that, although 31% improvement does not seem like a knockout 100% but it is proof of concept because what it has proven is that a drug can block the virus. 0ur health correspondent, james gallagher, explains the history of the drug. it is been developed by a pharmaceutical company called gilead and their original aim was to develop an ebola treatment. now, they tested it against ebola. it had some effect but there were other drugs that were better so it was this hugely promising drug that never quite delivered but it has shown to be effective against lots of other viruses, so they tried it against sars in the laboratory and it worked against that, they've tried it against this virus in the laboratory, it worked against that. so they started trialling it in patients.

it was the drug the world health organization, when it sent its mission to china, if you can remember — it feels like an eternity ago — but when this outbreak was confined to china, they sent their mission there. there they said remdesivir is the most promising drug but now we're getting the real data coming out and showing that, yes, it can change the course of this disease. i spoke earlier to bill hanage, associate professor of epidemiology at harvard university. he says there are grounds for cautious optimism. i think that it is definitely encouraging. i would sound a couple of notes of cautious optimism. like dr tony fauci said, it may not sound particularly amazing to bring it down by that amount, but just the fact that you can do something which does have a serious impact, that is statistically significant upon the course of disease, is very important. i want to note that this should be compared with a study which has just come out in the lancet, which came from china, and which also showed similar results, but they had difficulty actually nailing it down

into the statistical level because they had problems, at that stage, because the numbers of cases were declining so quickly that they had trouble recruiting enough patients. so i would sound a note of cautious optimism. this is definitely a good thing. and as far as you can tell, are we talking about something that might save the lives of people who might othewise die from coronavirus, or something that will help the recovery of people who are probably going to get better anyway, but make the recovery faster? we need more work on that. the headline figures are a drop of mortality from the control arm, who did not receive it, from 11.6% to 8% in the arm that did receive remdesivir. so that is a reduction. we still more work to know whether or not that's actually going to translate into a really significant impact. the other thing we need to do is we need to study exactly which patients it works best in. the chinese study i referred to earlier was mainly severe covid patient

but we know, from lots of studies of infectious diseases, that some treatments can depend on the time during the course of the disease in which they are given. so as we learn more, we are going to be able to say whether or not this needs to be given early or perhaps it can be given later. i will say, with reference to your previous segment, the discovery of things that might be able to save lives as we're going through the pandemic, is something which gives us real hope and is also a reason why we should avoid being overrun early on by being slow in taking up social distancing, and other things that we can do in oder to slow it down, before it starts really getting into our communities. let's get some of the day's other news. there have been clashes for a third night between anti—government protesters and the military in lebanon. these pictures show a standoff in the northern city of tripoli. the country is facing its most challenging period since the civil war, with a rapidly deteriorating economy exacerbated by lockdown. cyprus is easing some of its lockdown from monday. the construction sector will re—open, along with retailers and markets.

the evening curfew will remain, but people will be allowed to leave their homes three times—a—day, up from once a day. switzerland is also loosening its lockdown. shops, restaurants, bars and museums will be allowed to to re—open on the 11th of may. but there'll be a limit of four people around restaurant tables, two metres between tables, and large gatherings will still be banned. the spanish prime minister has said he will take personal responsibility for any mistakes his government has made, handling the pandemic. spain is one of the worst—affected countries in europe, with more than 2a—thousand deaths. the lockdown, imposed in march, is now being lifted in four stages. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: the 3—week—old boy meeting his mother for the frst time after covid—i9 kept them apart. nothing, it seemed, was too big

to withstand the force of the tornado. the extent of the devastation will lead to renewed calls for government help to build better housing. internationally, there have already been protests. sweden says it received no warning of the accident. indeed, the russians at first denied anything had gone wrong. only when radioactivity levels began to increase outside russia were they forced to admit the accident. for the mujahideen, the mood here is of great celebration. this is the end of a 12—year war for them, they've taken the capital, which they've been fighting for for so long. it was 7:00 in the morning, the day when power began to pass on the minority to the majority, when africa, after 300 years, reclaimed its last white colony.

this is bbc news, our main headline: the us economy slumps, and the worst is yet to come. spending nosedived in the last quarter, as the coronavirus lockdown began. borisjohnson and his partner carrie symonds have received congratulations and good wishes from around the world, following the birth of their baby boy. downing street say the prime minister won't be taking paternity leave at the moment — as our political editor laura kuenssberg reports. champagne arrives at number 10 after the birth of a baby boy for whom this will be home. there were whispers in westminster about the prime minister's whereabouts. then news confirmed just before 10:00am. no glimpse yet of carrie symonds or her first child, but a picture of borisjohnson, already known to have fathered five, on his return

from their side. so, again, the foreign secretary played understudy in parliament. good morning. the labour leader on his way to not—quite prime minister's questions again. both mother and baby are doing well and i'm sure the whole house will want to join with me in sending congratulations and our very best wishes to them. i think we all recognise the anxiety that the prime minister and carrie must have gone through in these past few weeks, unimaginable anxiety. and so i really hope this brings them incredible relief and joy. such happy news amid such uncertainty. 2020 is certainly a year they will never forget. with the most grave reasons to remember, a year more dangerous and dramatic than the most outlandish political fiction. thank you, thanks all. trying to run the government's response to a serious health and economic emergency... i must continue my self—isolation. .. ..then the prime minister confined to intensive care, his own health touch—and—go. back at work now, with plenty

of well wishes for his family news, but facing as a government the most agonising and important decisions of its time in charge. the government itself, the public, schools, businesses, trade unions, need to plan ahead. and they're saying that loudly and clearly. the prime minister said on monday that he wanted maximum transparency. well, will the first secretary give us some now and tell us when the government will publish an exit strategy? but with the government's scientific committee, sage, closely monitoring the situation, ministers are reluctant to give more clues. it would be very difficult for us to responsibly set out those proposals before we've had that subsequent advice from sage, both on the rate of infection, the death rate. we can't be pulled into making proposals in advance without sage opining. but after gathering his ministers tomorrow, it's likely the prime minister will inch towards what might be next. not with an encyclopaedic exit strategy, but with a gauge perhaps of how we might start to tiptoe our way out of this moment.

those in charge have been scrambling to keep up with the pace of the virus, yet the journey out of this crisis will be anything but quick. laura kuenssberg, bbc news, westminster. as the coronavirus outbreak sweeps across the us, it's killed black americans at a disproportionate rate. in albany, georgia, decades of poverty and economic inequality are threatening an entire generation of african americans. chelsea bailey from the bbc‘s 0nline team has paid a visit, and has this report. when america catches a cold, black america gets pneumonia. if this virus was an actual walking person it would be a villain that picked the right place, the right time and the right circumstances to do utter devastation. across the us,

predominantly black communities like this rural county in georgia are bearing the brunt of the pandemic. with more than 1400 of the pandemic. with more than 11100 infections and at least 100 deaths, the virus has nearly twice as densely here. this is a really forgotten, out of sight out of mind part of town. people on this side of town. people on this side of town don't have family doctors, so town don't have family doctors, so by the time they go by over—the—counter medication, they try to fix it themselves, by that time the symptoms get worse, by that time the symptoms get worse , so by that time the symptoms get worse, so by the time they have covid—19, they also have diabetes and all those other issues, it is like gas on the fire. is the coronavirus ravages the us similar disparities have played out in other virus hotspots, like new

york, detroit and chicago. decades of poverty, inequality and the lingering impact of racial discrimination have made african—americans racial discrimination have made african—america ns particularly vulnerable. there are a lot of diseases that disproportionately affect african—american communities such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and those illnesses are also affecting people who have a worse outcome. i don't think it is a factor of the disease itself, think that has more to with other disparities and socio—economic disparities that make it more likely to hit an african—american community. once we tally up the losses, look at the elders that we have lost, there are people behind these numbers. we didn't ask for this to happen. we need to

understand that if we are going to do anything, we have to make this right. we have to make the african—american community is healthy and whole. a romanian mother has met her newborn son for the first time — after they both tested positive for covid—19 in hospital. they've been separated for three weeks — but are now reunited — happy and healthy. freya cole has the story. applause it's an emotional exchange. a mother holds her newborn baby for the very first time, three weeks after birth. young dimitri was romania's first baby to test positive for covid—19. he is healthy now, and so is his mum after she too fell ill. in hospital, maternity nurses kept a close and caring watch. they even made daily video calls to help create a bond.

translation: i felt a huge pain during isolation, but i was very happy to see him by phone. i could recognise his crying from far away. translation: it was a huge responsibility for us all, and for me, this is the happiest time. a surreal moment to finally be able to leave hospital and go home together. freya cole, bbc news. one of india's best—known actors — irrfan khan — known to millions around the world for his starring roles in slumdog millionaire and jurassic world, has died at the age of 53. the actor had revealed two years ago that he'd been diagnosed with a very rare form of cancer. 0ur correspondent in mumbai, yogita limaye, looks back at his life and career. let's see, then. where to begin? irrfan khan in life of pi, one of the several english—language movies he starred in.

amongst his biggest hits overseas was slumdog millionaire, directed by danny boyle. it's a sad day, to think of his passing, but it's also a day when you can remember everything that he gave us, all the lovely roles that he played. and an actor who effortlessly bridged two cultures. abroad, he was india's best—known international actor. here in his home country, he was the unlikely leading man, who broke the stereotype of what it takes to be the protagonist in hindi—language movies. he's a big star in india... on a bbc programme seven years ago, he was asked if he sees himself as bollywood, or hollywood. i just see myself as an actor and i just want to engage the whole world. so, it can be bollywood, hollywood, dollywood, collywood, whatever—wood. over a career that spanned 30 years, irrfan khan acted in more than 100 films.

his last movie, angrezi medium, hit cinemas in india just as they had to close down because of the coronavirus crisis. many are hoping that when we all go back to the movies, perhaps they'll re—release it, so they get to watch him on the big screen one more time. two years ago, he'd shared a note about his battle with cancer. "little had i known that my search for rare stories would make me find a rare disease," he wrote. indian superstar shah rukh khan called him "the greatest actor of our times". he leaves behind heartbroken fans — in india and around the world. today's tributes to the indian actor, irrfan khan, who's died at the age of 53. just briefly, that may news again. the us economy has slumped and worth is to come, spending nosedived in the first quarter of the year as the

coronavirus lockdown began but the bulk of the impact will be felt in the current quarter. that is it for now, thank you so much for watching. hello. it wasn't so much a case of april showers on wednesday, this was the scene for a time across birmingham, but give it a wee bit of time and eventually that rain cleared away and out came the sun. the reason for it all? well, we had not one but two weather fronts to contend with. and thursday again is a real mishmash of weather, low pressure very much the dominant feature, the isobars squeezing together on its southern flank. so, it isn't going to be a particularly cold start to the day given all the breeze and the cloud as well, but for some it may be a wet one. we're just pushing wednesday's rain if you you like, away from the north of england up into central and southern parts of scotland.

right from the word go, there are showers to be had across wales and the south—west of england. these will rush their way ever further towards the east as we get on through the afternoon. we may even hear the odd rumble of thunder and those winds too, quite noticeable through the channel areas, 40—115 miles an hour or so in the highest of the gusts. for northern ireland, the best and the brightest perhaps later in the day, out towards the west. stuck underneath the cloud, the eastern side of scotland, nine only, a high in the day of about 13 or 1a. those showers keep going for those eastern areas during the course of the evening, gradually filtering away as the low pressure tries to move its centre of gravity out into the north sea. but it's still the dominant influence across the northern half of the british isles. and come the afternoon again, i think we'll see some pretty heavy downpours towards the eastern side of the pennines. perhaps the driest of the weather further towards the south and west where we could well see a high in the day of 15 or 16. that low pressure is still the dominant feature as i take you out friday and move you into the first part of the weekend. but you just get the sense

that it is drifting a little bit further towards the east and out allows it to start picking up the north and north—westerly wind. so the northern areas fully exposed to that wind, we will probably see the bulk of the showers there. elsewhere, saturday is shaping up to be a pretty reasonable day. quite a lot of sunshine around and the temperatures responding as a consequence. a high in the day of about 16 or 17. but it doesn't last. now, there is some uncertainty about sunday, it could well be the rain i'm showing you here working its way into the south actually moves a little bit further north. we will keep you posted on that one. take care, bye—bye.

this is bbc news, the headlines: the pandemic has driven the us economy into its most severe contraction for more than a decade. it shrank nearly 5% in the first quarter, the first three months of 2020. but the lockdown only came in towards the end of that quarter, so the head of the us central bank has warned there'll be much more economic pain in the figures for april through june. the death toll from coronavirus in the uk has now passed 26,000. for the first time, the official figures count all deaths linked than were being recorded previously. the white house health advisor, dr anthony fauci, has expressed optimism about an experimental anti—viral drug. he said trial data shows remdesivir had a clear—cut and positive effect in reducing recovery time. it's still unclear whether the drug actually saves lives.