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At least eight people are known to have died after Hurricane Grace tore through eastern Mexico, bringing torrential rain and high winds and causing power cuts and flooding. The deaths and the worst damage occurred in the state of Veracruz, where the storm uprooted trees when it made landfall early on Saturday.
Source: bbc.com
12 Stradivarius violins – worth a combined £146million – have been brought together for what is believed to be one of the most expensive recordings in the world. The instruments, which have a combined age of more than 3,000 years, were flown to London from their homes across Europe, America and Asia to record the album 12 Stradivari. The album 12 Stradivari is released on Decca Classics on September 10.
Source: dailymail.co.uk
On 14 August 2021, at a place normally far too frigid for water to fall as a liquid, the National Snow and Ice Data Center's (NSIDC) Summit Station recorded several hours of rain.
Source: sciencealert.com
Manny Pacquiao, the eight time world boxing champion and senator of the Philippines, takes on Cuban Yordenis Ugás in Las Vegas on Saturday night in a high-stakes fight that could kick-start his campaign to be his country’s next president.
Source: aljazeera.com
Sri Lanka will issue captive elephants with their own biometric identity cards and ban their riders from drinking on the job under a wide-ranging new animal protection law. Many rich Sri Lankans -- including Buddhist monks -- keep elephants as pets to show off their wealth, but complaints of ill treatment and cruelty are widespread. The new measures are aimed at protecting the animals' welfare and include strict regulations around working elephants, as well as mandating a daily two-and-a-half-hour bath for each creature.
Source: france24.com
A British national, desperate to escape Afghanistan with his new wife, is fearing for his life after being told by the Foreign Office to make his way to a hotel that is behind three Taliban checkpoints. Last night, he tried to travel to the hotel with his wife but was brutally beaten by Taliban guards at the first checkpoint on the way and told to return on pain of death. He told The Independent that he was now scared to leave the house and had moved with his wife seven times because the Taliban were targeting foreign citizens.
Hundreds were arrested after violent clashes between anti-lockdown protesters and police in Australia's two largest cities Saturday as the country recorded its sharpest rise in daily Covid-19 cases since the pandemic began. Sydney's state of New South Wales posted 825 infections -- a record for the entire country -- a day after authorities extended the city's lockdown until at least September to try to head off the Delta variant.
Source: france24.com
Greece has installed a 40km (25-mile) fence and surveillance system on its border with Turkey amid concern over a surge of migrants from Afghanistan. "We cannot wait, passively, for the possible impact," Greece's Citizens' Protection Minister Michalis Chrisochoidis said on a visit to the region of Evros on Friday. "Our borders will remain inviolable." His comments came as Turkey called on European countries to take responsibility for Afghan migrants.
Source: bbc.com
Hurricane Grace barreled into the oil-producing Mexican state of Veracruz with howling winds on Saturday, threatening coastal areas with flooding from the ocean's storm surge. Grace was a Category 3 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale when it made landfall near the resort town of Tecolutla on the Gulf of Mexico coast in the early hours.
Source: reuters.com
A suicide bombing targeting a vehicle carrying Chinese nationals in Gwadar in the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan has killed two Pakistani children playing by the roadside, the interior ministry and police said. A Chinese national and two other Pakistanis were wounded in the attack in Balochistan province. Hours after the bombing, the separatist Baloch Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the bombing in the port town of Gwadar.
Source: aljazeera.com
India's drug regulator has approved the world's first DNA vaccine against Covid-19 for emergency use. The three-dose ZyCoV-D vaccine prevented symptomatic disease in 66% of those vaccinated, according to an interim study quoted by the vaccine maker Cadila Healthcare. The firm plans to make up to 120 million doses of India's second home-grown vaccine every year. Previous DNA vaccines have worked well in animals but not humans.
Source: bbc.com
Iran’s death toll from Covid-19 exceeded 100,000 on Thursday with 564 fatalities recorded in the past 24 hours, state TV said, as the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus spread through the Middle East's worst-hit country.
Source: france24.com
US pop star Britney Spears is being investigated after one of her home staff alleged the singer had struck her, California law enforcement officials say. The employee made the claim after a dispute at Ms Spears' home on Monday. The Ventura Country Sheriff's Office said it will send its inquiry findings to prosecutors for consideration of misdemeanour battery charges. The singer's lawyer denied the allegation, calling it "overblown".
Source: bbc.com
Hong Kong has some of the toughest Covid-19 quarantine rules on the planet, capturing everyone from journalists to Olympic athletes. Not Hollywood actress Nicole Kidman, however. On Thursday, Hong Kong confirmed that the Oscar winner was granted a special exemption from the quarantine rules. Hong Kong newspapers, including the South China Morning Post and The Standard, said Kidman was in the city to film a series for Amazon (AMZN).
Source: cnn.com
Malaysia's king appointed Ismail Sabri Yaakob as the prime minister on Friday, replacing Muhyiddin Yassin, who stepped down this week after losing his parliamentary majority.
Source: reuters.com
Syria regime shelling has killed eight children and a woman in the country's last major rebel bastion of Idlib in just two days, a war monitor said Friday. Artillery fire early Friday morning on the village of Kansafra in the northwestern stronghold killed four children from the same family, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Source: france24.com
A man has been arrested after making a bomb threat near the Congress building in Washington DC. The man, identified as Floyd Ray Roseberry, 49, surrendered hours after the threat was made. US Capitol Police had been negotiating with the driver who had parked a pick-up truck near the Library of Congress, across the street from the Capitol building and Supreme Court. His motives remain unknown. Police are still searching the vehicle.
Source: bbc.com
The progress by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Myanmar has not been as effective as hoped, Singapore's foreign minister said in an interview. The United Nations and many countries have urged ASEAN, whose 10 members include Myanmar, to restore stability through diplomacy.
Source: reuters.com
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