UK's National History Museum gets ready to reopen

London, England: London's Natural History Museum is dusting off the blue whale that soars above its central hall, along with its dinosaur skeletons and thousands of other exhibits in preparation for re-opening next month after COVID-19 forced its closure in March.

Museum Director Michael Dixon said staff had been working for weeks to make the museum, which is one of London's most popular attractions, safe for the limited number of visitors it can accommodate with social distancing measures in place. "We want to the museum to look at its fabulous best - this great cathedral to nature," he told Reuters on Monday, July 27.

"As you can see behind me, Hope the whale is getting her annual dusting, we have brought that forward this year, and she will look her magnificent best on the 5th of August when we reopen to the public." The museum, which has been based in South Kensington since 1881, closed its doors on March 17, six days before Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered a nationwide lockdown to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

Though the museum receives government support, which has been bolstered during the crisis, a lack of income from visitors has hit the museum hard, said Dixon. Even once reopened only 20 percent of the normal number of visitors would be admitted, he added.

While unfortunate for the museum, those lucky enough to get a visiting slot will be in for a "fantastic VIP experience," said Dixon. "They will be able to see things without so many people around them, and I think that will be a wonderful experience for many, many people," he said.

.Roles swapped: rescuers help St Bernard dog from England's highest mountain

Brown Tongue, UK: A rescue team has had to rescue a St. Bernard dog named Daisy after she got into difficulty on England's highest mountain, in an unusual reversal of the traditional roles.

Daisy collapsed last Friday, July 24 while descending from the summit of Scafell Pike in Cumbria, northwest England, so the 16-member rescue team scrambled to the scene and carried the 55kg dog down the mountain on a stretcher. Video from the rescue shows Daisy sitting quietly as the rescuers - wearing masks due to the coronavirus pandemic - strapped her to a stretcher and then began the arduous descent. The giant dog appeared relaxed but showed an interest in the rescue operation.

The dog had shown signs of pain in her rear legs and had refused to move, the Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team said on its Facebook page. Her owners had kept Daisy fed and well-hydrated while waiting for the team to arrive. "A few different tactics needed to be tried until both Daisy and her stretcher bearers were all satisfied and progress down-hill could be made," the team said in a statement.

Daisy then "had a good night's sleep, snoring a little louder than normal, but back to her usual high spirits," Mountain Rescue said.

It was Daisy's second rescue by humans. She had a hard start in life until her current owners, according to Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team.

St. Bernards, also known as Alpine Mountain Dogs, hail from the Great St Bernard Hospice on the Swiss-Italian border. Originally used as guard dogs, the breed became famous for saving travelers who had lost their way in the snow and mist of the Alps.

Corona Crisis: Decision on staging London Marathon 2020 delayed until next month

London, UK: A decision on whether this year's London Marathon can be held has been pushed back until Aug. 7, the organisers said on Monday, July 27.

The event, originally scheduled for April 26, was postponed to Oct. 4 after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the international sporting calendar in March. In an open letter to all participants on Monday, event director Hugh Brasher said the delay was due to a need for further consultation with local NHS Trusts, the emergency services and local authorities.

"We know how important the Virgin Money London Marathon is to you, to charities and in showing the world the wonderful spirit of London, of Great Britain and of our running community," he said.v"So please bear with us while we finish the extensive work we have been doing to try to enable us to run together, safely.

"I will be in contact with our final decision and the options available to you no later than Friday, Aug. 7."

The cancellation of September's Great North Run raised concerns about the London Marathon going ahead due to the challenges faced by organisers in implementing social distancing protocols. The London Marathon routinely attracts close to 40,000 participants and this year's race was set to pit the world's fastest runners Eliud Kipchoge and Kenenisa Bekele against one another.

The event is last of the World Marathon Majors still hoping to be held this year after Boston, Berlin, New York and Chicago shelved plans for their 2020 races.

England: Beverley Knight pilots socially distanced gig at London Palladium

London, UK: Theatre fans in London got a taste of how live performances might work in the future at a socially distanced pilot show featuring Beverley Knight.

640 people were allowed into the concert at the London Palladium on Thursday (July 23) designed to test and showcase COVID-19 safety procedures in place at the venue. With only 30 percent of the 2,297 seats occupied and audience members in face masks, British singer Knight said performing was an ''odd experience''. ''You can't read people's expressions. You can't feel what they're feeling,'' she said in an interview after the concert.

The London Palladium is one of seven theatres owned by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber's theatre group, LW Theatres. It hopes that the 110 year-old building will become home to popular musical "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" from July 2021.

Theatres in the UK have been closed since March his year, due to the coronavirus pandemic. According to the UK government, indoor performances can resume from August 1, but social distancing rules apply as well as guidelines to protect performers.

Andrew Lloyd Webber said in an interview that operating with a socially distanced audience is not economically viable.

''I mean, the average play needs a 65 percent capacity, really, a musical needs more. But that's before, you know, it even starts to repay anything," he said. "So we've got to get to a pilot where we don't have social distancing, which is why we put all these measures in at the Palladium, not to prove - I must stress this, not to prove that the Palladium can work, it's to prove that every venue can work," added Lloyd Webber.

As well as some happy members of the public who praised the safety measures put in place, Thursday's event was also attended by industry and media guests.

England: Rembrandt and Picasso entice life back to auctions after lockdown

London: Works by Rembrandt, Miro and Picasso are being offered to entice life back to the auction world next week when Sotheby's holds its first face-to-face sale since the coronavirus in London with a line-up from the Renaissance to the European Avant Garde.

With art collectors locked down from Moscow to Manhattan and some fortunes in peril from the worst economic hit in centuries, the art auction world is trying to bring back some sparkle after the gloom of the pandemic. Sotheby's will on Tuesday, July 28 hold its first face-to-face auction at its Bond Street salerooms since the outbreak, with 71 works spanning half a millennium of European art history, from Gerhard Richter to Rembrandt.

The Rembrandt is a self portrait of the artist as a young man, one of only three left in private hands. The Dutch master looks out with the slightly affected confidence of youth. Price tag: 12-16 million pounds ($15-20 million). One of Miro's dream paintings, Peinture (Femme au chapeau rouge), from 1927, shows a woman floating against striking blue, deliberately obscure like a wistful love poem. It is on offer for 20-30 million pounds.

"It's fantastic to be back in the galleries here in Bond Street," Helena Newman, chairman of Sotheby's Europe, told Reuters.

The Picasso is a seductive image of his lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter, Femme Endormie. In charcoal on primed canvas, her curved face, arms and lips are visible but her body is only hinted at. Price: 6-9 million pounds.

Fast forward 40 years to Richter's Clouds (Window), which evoke the Romantic landscapes of Constable and the light-effects of Turner. On sale for 9-20 million pounds. Presale estimates for the auction range from 128.8 million pounds to 185.8 million pounds. There will be limited attendance and bidders will be in a separate room to the auctioneer and admittance is by ticket only.

Pompeo meets with UK's PM Boris Johnson in Downing Street

London: British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab said on Tuesday, July 21 the UK, the United States and other allies needed to stand up for their values on the international stage amid ratcheting tensions with both China and Russia.

Raab made the comments to reporters in London alongside his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Pompeo took the opportunity to extend Washington's condolences for British deaths linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, which he pointedly highlighted as having originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

"The Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) exploitation of this disaster to further its own interests has been disgraceful," Pompeo added. He encouraged other nations to push back against the CCP and described China's leadership as a threat. 

Meanwhile, Raab rejected criticism that the government had failed to look into potential Russian meddling in the 2016 referendum on membership of the European Union following the delayed release of a parliamentary report earlier on Tuesday. The report cast Russia as a hostile power which posed a significant threat to Britain and the West across a range of fronts, from espionage and cyber to election meddling and laundering dirty money.

Stewart Hosie, a Scottish National Party member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which published the report, had earlier accused the government of not even looking into the possibility of Russian actors interfering in the 2016 vote. "We are not for a second complacent about the threat Russia poses when it comes to cyber," Raab said in response.

Pompeo also mentioned that the United States and Britain still have more work to do on a free trade deal, adding that he hoped a deal could be finalised before too long, with a third round of negotiations scheduled for late July.