Hello, I'm Daniel Lovanescu with the BBC News.
Health officials in Britain are urgently trying to establish how far the corona virus outbreak has reached within government after a minister announced she had tested positive for the illness. The Health Minister Nadine Dorries first showed symptoms on Thursday. The same day she attended a reception hosted by the Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Hugh Pym reports. Nadine Dorries confirmed she tested positive for the virus and said as soon as she was informed, she had taken all the precaution she'd been advised and had self-isolated at home. Public Health England has started tracing her recent contacts. If necessary, they'll advise them to self-isolate. It's not known how many meetings Nadine Dorries had attended at Westminster and in her Mid Medfordshire constituency in the days before testing positive. She was at a Downing Street reception hosted by Boris Johnson last Thursday.
The Bank of England has made an emergency cut to its main interest rate to help British businesses and households cope with any economic disruption caused by the corona virus outbreak. The base rate has gone down to a quarter of 1%, equaling the lowest it has ever been. Here's the BBC's Sally Bundock. So what does this do? Will it makes borrowing cheaper for businesses? Businesses are cash strapped right now. We're hearing especially small and medium-sized businesses which is the bulk of the UK economy, they're just really struggling with basics like cash flow. So this will mean borrowing from the banks will be that much cheaper. Record lows, in fact, I mean 0.25 percent interest rates. We've never seen this before in the UK. But also for individuals, their mortgages will be cheaper. And there's also talks some banks actually announced last night they're gonna get people mortgage relief, mortgage holidays for those who have been impacted, if they are self-isolating. They can't go to work.
The former Vice President of the United States Joe Biden has secured a series of victories over Bernie Sanders in the race to be the Democrats presidential candidate. Mr. Biden has won at least four of the six states in the latest primaries with Michigan, his most significant win. Mr. Biden is now the clear front-runner in the Democrats contest.
Russian lawmakers have given their final approval to constitutional amendments that could allow president Putin to stay in power for longer than the soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. No one in the Lower House voted against the amendments, which will be rubber stamped by the Upper House and regional governments before being put to a referendum next month.
German police have carried out raids in four German states targeting a haulage company suspected of trafficking foreigners into a form of bonded labor. Nearly 600 police and customs officers took part in the operation centered on the town of Werra-Suhl-Tal in Thuringia. Investigators say the firm smuggled in people, put them up in shoddy accommodation, and then deducted exorbitant rents from their already low wages.
BBC news.
