A Brazilian variant of the coronavirus is significant enough to justify stopping flights from South America as a precaution, British transport minister Grant Shapps said on Friday.
Small businesses, from restaurants to nightclubs and wedding planners to beauty parlours, on Friday won the right to insurance payouts after Britain's highest court ruled their policies should cover losses caused by coronavirus lockdowns.
Britain's economy shrank in November for the first time since the initial COVID-19 lockdown last spring, hit by a tightening of social-distancing rules.
Britain will have to prove itself to be a successful nation after Brexit if it ever wants to return to the European Union, former Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Friday, calling for strong leadership to make the country's voice heard.
The estimated range of the UK COVID-19 reproduction "R" number narrowed to 1.2-1.3, the department of health said on Friday, similar to the range of 1.0-1.4 reported last week.
A Scottish court rejected on Friday an appeal to overturn the conviction of a now-deceased Libyan man found guilty of the 1988 Lockerbie plane bombing which killed 270 people.
The British government said on Friday it had no plans to lower standards on workers' rights, rejecting a Financial Times report that a shake-up of EU labour regulations as part of a post-Brexit overhaul was in the works.
Britain's decision to suspend flights from Portugal because of concerns about a new coronavirus strain in Brazil is "absurd", Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva said.
Former Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney, regarded as one of the best English players of his generation, has called time on his illustrious playing career after being named on Friday as manager of second-tier side Derby County.
AstraZeneca Plc said on Friday its cancer drug Imfinzi had been approved in Europe and Britain for a spaced-out regimen in a common type of lung cancer to help reduce the frequency of hospital visits while continuing treatment.