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This year's Miss World competition, scheduled to take place Thursday in Puerto Rico, has been postponed after multiple people linked to the event -- including 23 of the 97 contestants -- tested positive for Covid-19. In a statement released hours before the pageant was due to start, organizers said they were rescheduling the televised finale, citing the "health and safety interest of contestants, staff, crew and general public."

Source: cnn.com

Eight people in northern Iraq died Friday in flash floods caused by torrential rains in Arbil, capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region, provincial governor Omid Khoshnaw said. In a country dealing with severe drought, many were caught by surprise and drowned as powerful storm waters began surging into their homes before dawn.

Source: france24.com

Talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal will be held in Vienna on Friday before breaking for a "few days", Iran’s chief negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani said. The indirect U.S.-Iran talks on bringing both sides back into full compliance with the deal are in their seventh round.

Source: reuters.com

Melania Trump is getting in on the latest crypto craze -- NFTs. The former first lady announced Thursday that she is selling an NFT, or a non-fungible token, titled "Melania's Vision" -- her first public endeavor since leaving office almost one year ago.

Source: cnn.com

 Mexican actress and singer Tania Mendoza was shot dead while she waited to pick up her 11-year-old son from a football academy in the state of Morelos, reports say. Mendoza was outside the sporting complex in the city of Cuernavaca with other parents when two armed men arrived on a motorbike on Tuesday. One of them shot her multiple times before escaping with his accomplice.

Source: bbc.com

The widow of late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet died on Thursday at the age of 99, her family said. Hiriart aroused strong reactions among Chileans for the perceived influence she had on Pinochet, who ruled for 17 years.

Source: aljazeera.com

A fire broke out in a building in a shopping district in Osaka, Japan, according to the Osaka Fire department. The local fire department received reports of a fire on the fourth floor of a building in the Kita district at 10:18 a.m local time. The fire was almost extinguished by 10:46 a.m., according to the department. A total of 28 people were injured, including the 27 feared dead.

Source: cnn.com

The mother of a Japanese reality TV star who took her own life after being targeted by online abuse said Thursday she will sue the major station that produced the show. Pink-haired professional wrestler Hana Kimura, a cast member of the hit Netflix series "Terrace House", died last year aged 22 during the show's run. The show was cancelled after Kimura's suicide, which also prompted Japanese ministers and lawmakers to revise laws to more easily identify cyber bullies.

Source: france24.com

Queen Elizabeth has cancelled a pre-Christmas lunch with her family as a precaution while cases of COVID-19 soar in Britain, a Buckingham Palace source said.

Source: reuters.com

The UK reported 78,610 news COVID-19 infections, about 10,000 more than the previous high reported in January.

Source: aljazeera.com

Bruce Springsteen has sold the master recordings and publishing rights for his life's work to Sony for a reported $500m. The deal gives Sony ownership of his 20 studio albums, including classics like Born To Run, The River and Born In The USA, according to multiple US reports. A 20-time Grammy winner, Springsteen's music generated about $15m in revenue last year.

Source: bbc.com

Thousands of people in the Philippines fled their homes and beachfront resorts as super typhoon Rai slammed into the country Thursday, with a charity warning the storm could hit coastal communities "like a freight train". Rai was packing maximum sustained winds of 195 kilometres an hour as it made landfall on the southern island of Siargao at 1:30 pm (0530 GMT), the state weather forecaster said.

Source: france24.com

Four children have died and five others are injured after falling from a bouncy castle that was blown into the air in Australia, police say. The accident - caused by a wind gust - happened on Thursday at a primary school fun day in Devonport, Tasmania. Police said the children had fallen from a height of about 10m. Two boys and two girls died.

Source: bbc.com

An album made up entirely of tweets and squawks from Australian birds has made history by entering the Top Five ARIA album charts, surpassing Mariah Carey and ABBA. Titled Songs of Disappearance, the album features birdsongs of 53 of the rarest species in Australia that are on the brink of extinction.

Source: abc.net.au

South Africa reported a record number of new daily COVID-19 infections on Wednesday in a fourth wave believed to be largely caused by the Omicron coronavirus variant. The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) reported 26,976 new cases in the past 24 hours, surpassing a peak of 26,485 in early July during a third wave driven by the then-dominant Delta strain.

Source: reuters.com

South Korea's biggest dairy brand has been forced to apologise over an advert depicting women as cows. The video by Seoul Milk shows a man secretly filming a group of women in a field, who later turn into cows. After facing a public backlash, the company removed the promo from YouTube, but it has since gone viral after being re-uploaded by internet users.

Source: bbc.com

Queen Elizabeth II on Wednesday made a rare public appearance, hosting Oman's Sultan Haitham bin Tareq and his wife, Sayyida Ahad bint Abdullah, at Windsor Castle.

Source: france24.com

Inter Milan are preparing to terminate Christian Eriksen's contract. The Denmark midfielder has not played since he collapsed during his country's Euro 2020 match against Finland in June. It was recently revealed that he had started training again on his own, at a facility arranged by his local club in Denmark. There has been no confirmation about whether or where Eriksen is going to resume his professional career.

Source: bbc.com