UK minister quits over Cummings lockdown trip

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government was hit by its first resignation on Tuesday over the controversy surrounding his top aide Dominic Cummings' cross-country trip during the coronavirus lockdown.
Undermining attempts by ministers to move on from a crisis that has dominated British politics for days, Douglas Ross, a minister for Scotland, quit in protest.
"I have constituents who didn't get to say goodbye to loved ones; families who could not mourn together; people who didn't visit sick relatives because they followed the guidance of the government," he said in a statement. "I cannot in good faith tell them they were all wrong and one senior advisor to the government was right."
The government said it regretted his decision. The resignation will pile more pressure on Cummings, who held a press conference on Monday to justify driving his wife and young son on a 264-mile (425-kilometre) trip from London to Durham in the northeast of England during the height of the coronavirus crisis.
Cummings said he had virus symptoms around the time of the trip and his wife was also suffering from COVID-19.
The Brexit campaign mastermind explained he wanted to drop off his four-year-old son at his parent's house in case both he and his wife became incapacitated. But many in Britain remain unconvinced.
A YouGov poll taken after Cummings' press conference found that 59 percent of respondents thought he should resign, up from 52 percent. More than two-thirds - 71 percent - thought he had broken the government's lockdown rules.