TASK DEFINITION: Generate an appropriate single-sentence summary for the given text such that it includes the main topic of the text.
PROBLEM: Mr Macron said that schools would move to remote learning from next week. Lockdown measures, introduced in some areas of France earlier this month, are also being extended to other districts. All non-essential shops are to close from Saturday and there will be a ban on travelling more than 10km (six miles) from home without good reason. The country is facing a peak of over 5,000 people in intensive care. On Wednesday, the country's health ministry reported 59,038 new cases. France has so far reported more than 4.6 million cases of coronavirus and 95,495 Covid-related deaths. What measures has Macron announced? In his live televised address on Wednesday, Mr Macron described the situation in the country as "delicate" and said that April would prove crucial. "We will lose control if we do not move now," he said. The 43-year-old president said it was a race between vaccinations on the one hand and attempting to control the spread of the virus on the other. He said that while schools would be closing from next week, classes would remain open for the children of key workers. Primary schools and kindergartens will shut for three weeks and high schools for a week longer, although that includes two weeks of spring holiday from 12-26 April. Mr Macron said that measures introduced in 19 districts earlier this month - including the closure of non-essential businesses, exercise restricted to within 10km of an individual's home and a ban on travel to other parts of the country without a valid reason - would be extended nationwide. "Everyone should limit their contacts with other people," he said, adding that people would be given the Easter weekend to get themselves to where they want to spend the lockdown. France's nationwide 19:00 curfew will remain in place and people are again being asked to work from home. The president said "the end of the tunnel" was in sight if people respected the new measures. Parliament will debate the measures announced by Mr Macron before voting on them on Thursday, according to the prime minister's office. More than at previous turning-points, the politics of Covid in France is becoming interesting. For one thing, President Macron has opened up a much clearer target now for the opposition - they can argue that his decision back in January to overrule the scientists and not launch a third lockdown was a blunder. He was warned then that the so-called British variant would sweep all before it by the end of March - and lo and behold that is what has happened. And now he is eating his hat. For his enemies, it is the result of Macron's hubris - the insufferable self-belief that makes him think he knows better than the doctors. The other reason it's getting sensitive is the UK. Everyone in France can see how much better the vaccination programme is going there. If the UK starts resuming ordinary life while France is still struggling, tough questions will be asked of the president. And elections are only a year away. How serious is the situation in France? With serious cases of coronavirus increasing in France, the pressure on hospitals in the greater Paris region has resulted in a surge in demand for beds at intensive care units (ICUs). Hospitals in and around Paris have also been reducing non-Covid treatments. The French hospital federation (FHF) last week warned that wards across the country were facing an "unprecedented violent shock" in the coming weeks if authorities were unable to curb the rise in cases. It urged the government to issue a "strict lockdown" or risk hospitals becoming overwhelmed. In an interview with France Inter radio on Tuesday, head of infectious diseases at the Tenon hospital in Paris, Gilles Pialoux, said that lockdown restrictions should have been implemented sooner. "We've lost so much time that the measures now will be harder and last for longer," he said, adding that hospital staff were "tired of being tired". Public support for a new national lockdown has reportedly been increasing in recent days, with an Elabe Institute poll published on Wednesday suggesting that 54% of citizens questioned backed the move. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo on Wednesday backed the closure of schools, saying the move - which had been seen by the government as a last resort - was necessary because of the "very serious situation". A group of French school teachers had earlier filed a legal complaint against Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer for "endangering the lives of others", accusing him of failing to protect staff in regular contact with children in classrooms. What about elsewhere in Europe? In Germany, the leaders of Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg, the country's worst hit states, have called for tougher restrictions, saying the situation was worse than initially thought. The city of Hamburg is to introduce a night curfew on Friday. Spain is to revisit a new law implemented on Wednesday that requires face masks to be worn in outdoor spaces - including beaches and swimming pools - amid mounting criticism over the move. Authorities in Portugal say they aim to vaccinate all members of priority groups with at least one Covid-19 jab by 11 April. The head of the national coronavirus taskforce told parliament that the focus would be on care home residents, people aged 80 and over and those aged 50 and over with underlying conditions. A court in the Czech Republic has struck down the requirement for Czech citizens returning from blacklisted countries to test negative before leaving, arguing that tests can be carried out on arrival. Poland on Wednesday registered its highest daily Covid death toll this year, with 653 fatalities. The country has recorded a total of 53,045 coronavirus-related deaths since the start of the pandemic. Meanwhile, experts investigating possible links between the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and blood clots have so far found no specific risk factors, such as age, gender or medical history, European Union regulators have said. The European Medicines Agency (EMA), however, said that analysis was continuing.

SOLUTION: French schools will close for at least three weeks as part of new national restrictions to fight rising Covid cases, President Emmanuel Macron says.

PROBLEM: Consultancy CEBR said 2018's big freeze and heatwave would end up costing consumers about £7 extra per month. It follows price warnings from farmers' representatives about peas, lettuces and potatoes. Wholesale prices of other vegetables have already soared by up to 80% since the start of the year. But the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) explained that these increases can take up to 18 months to fully have an effect on shoppers. "So, while the worst of the recent heat may have passed, the cost to consumers looks set to climb," it warned. The UK saw record temperatures in June, July and August which caused widespread drought and crop failures. This, along with a "wet, cold and challenging" winter, particularly the cold spell caused by the Beast from the East, has put stress on farming costs and yields, CEBR said. As a result, it said: It said these "wholesale price shocks" were likely to push up consumer costs by about £45m per week - equivalent to £7.15 per month per household. 'Effectively bare' Tod Bulmer from Kenyon Hall Farm near Warrington said yields from his fruit and cereal harvest had been half of what he would normally expect. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the potential price rise would compensate "a little bit but not enough". He added that the low yields meant dairy farmers were having to pay more for their feed. National Farmers' Union president Minette Batters said the shelves for feeding livestock were "effectively bare" and that dairy farmers were having to rely on silage meant for winter use. "Many farmers are looking at £60,000 of added costs," she said. She added that she was still waiting on the government to deliver on a promise to take action. Following a drought summit earlier this month with the NFU, Environment Secretary Michael Gove said the government would do "whatever it takes" to maintain food supplies. Earlier this month, the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board warned that livestock and vegetable prices would be a "little bit higher right the way through until next spring" because of weather issues. Shortages of vegetables also helped drive food price inflation to 1.6% in July - up from the 1.2% in May and June, according to the British Retail Consortium and Nielsen. A spokeswoman for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: "Food prices are affected by a number of factors aside from the weather, such as fuel costs, international commodity markets and exchange rates." She said steps had been taken to help those affected, including allowing farmers to take more water from reservoirs and providing flexibility on funding. She added that the hot weather had helped boost products such as soft fruits and wine. But the CEBR said there was bad news for wine fans too, as severe hailstorms in the French wine regions of Bordeaux, Champagne and Cognac "have eliminated millions of bottles of product".

SOLUTION: Meat, vegetable and dairy prices are set to rise "at least" 5% in the coming months because of the UK's extreme weather this year, research suggests.

PROBLEM: "While internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics," company CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted. Social media rival Facebook recently ruled out a ban on political ads. News of the ban divided America's political camps for the 2020 election. Brad Parscale, manager of President Donald Trump's re-election campaign, said the ban was "yet another attempt by the left to silence Trump and conservatives". But Bill Russo, spokesman for the campaign to elect Democratic front-runner Joe Biden, said: "When faced with a choice between ad dollars and the integrity of our democracy, it is encouraging that, for once, revenue did not win out." Reacting to the move, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg defended his company's policy. "In a democracy, I don't think it's right for private companies to censor politicians or the news," he said during a conference call with journalists. Twitter's ban will be enforced from 22 November, with full details released by 15 November. How does Dorsey justify the ban? Mr Dorsey explained his position in a thread of tweets. Internet political ads, he said, presented "entirely new challenges to civic discourse". These challenges included "machine learning-based optimisation of messaging", "micro-targeting, unchecked misleading information, and deep fakes". "It's not credible," he wrote, "for us to say: 'We're working hard to stop people from gaming our systems to spread misleading info, but if someone pays us to target and force people to see their political ad…well...they can say whatever they want!'" Countering the argument that the new policy might be seen as favouring leaders already in office, he pointed out that "many social movements reach massive scale without any political advertising". Ads in support of voter registration would not be affected by the ban, he added. How is news of the ban playing out? Hillary Clinton, the former Democratic candidate who lost to Mr Trump in the 2016 presidential election, welcomed Twitter's ban and appeared to challenge Facebook to rethink its stance. Social media analyst Carl Miller said it was "one of the first times a tech giant has stepped back in concern for the enormous disruptions they're doing to the institutions that don't move as quickly as them". Jack Dorsey's decision is more significant for its timing and the principle it upholds than the practical effects it will have on modern democracy. Political ads on Twitter are just a fraction, in scale and impact, of those on Facebook. Mr Dorsey knew - and his chief financial officer has since confirmed - that this decision would have little impact on the company's bottom line. They therefore calculated that they could win a thumbs up from regulators and public opinion at little cost to the business. And they could also mischievously provoke Facebook, who are in a more difficult position on the subject. It cannot be mere coincidence that Mr Dorsey's tweet was just a fortnight after Mark Zuckerberg's speech on the same subject. A dividing line between the companies is useful for Twitter. It puts the onus on Facebook to once again defend its stance. It is very easy to find damaging or deceitful ads online. But asking Californian companies to decide what should or shouldn't be in the public domain grants them enormous power that is hard to undo. They already make such decisions on things like violent or hateful content; asking them to go further is, in effect, turning them into editorial arbiters of public conversation. That is, journalists. What is Facebook's policy? Earlier this month, Mr Zuckerberg went before an audience of students in Washington DC to defend the firm's decision not to ban political adverts that contain falsehoods. He had considered barring all political ads on his platforms, but said he believed the move would favour incumbent politicians and whoever the media chose to cover. The company should "err on the side of greater expression", he argued. Another spokesman for Mr Biden had criticised the firm for refusing to remove a video posted by Mr Trump's 2020 re-election campaign which promoted an unproven conspiracy theory involving the former vice-president and his son. "It is unacceptable for any social media company to knowingly allow deliberately misleading material to corrupt its platform," TJ Ducklo said. Fellow Democratic candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren then paid to run an intentionally misleading advert on Facebook that claimed Mr Zuckerberg had personally endorsed Donald Trump for re-election. She said she had done so to protest against the firm's decision to allow politicians to run ads containing "known lies". How much impact will this have on the US election? US federal campaigns are expected to spend about $6bn (£4.6bn) on advertising but most of it will go on TV ads, with about 20% put into digital ads, advertising research firm Kantar estimates. Twitter is also much smaller than Facebook. In February, it said it had 126m daily active users while Facebook boasted 1.63bn in September. Meanwhile the BBC's political editor Laura Kuenssberg said political strategists often counted on their message being spread for free.

SOLUTION:

Show your work and conclude with the exact phrasing "Therefore, the final answer is [answer]." where [answer] is just the final number or expression that solves the problem.
user
Twitter is to ban all political advertising worldwide, saying that the reach of such messages "should be earned, not bought".

