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Director Chloe Zhao, fresh off her "Nomadland" best film win at this year's Academy Awards, will sit on the jury of the upcoming Venice Film Festival, organisers said Wednesday. The annual international festival, to be held on the glitzy island of Lido from September 1-11, will be headed by Jury President Bong Joon Ho, the South Korean director whose "Parasite" won an Oscar for best film in 2019.

Source: france24.com

India is investigating its first documented human death from bird flu after an 11-year-old boy succumbed to the disease earlier this month, says the health ministry. The boy was admitted to New Delhi’s premier All India Institute of Medical Sciences on July 2. He died on Tuesday after a multiorgan failure, a government statement said late on Wednesday.

Source: aljazeera.com

More than 200 people in 27 US states are being tracked for possible rare monkeypox infections, health officials say. They fear people may have come in to contact with a Texas man who brought the disease in from Nigeria earlier this month. The man - believed to be the first monkeypox case in the US since 2003 - was taken to hospital but is in a stable condition. So far, no new cases have been found.

Source: bbc.com

Inspired by her late father's career, Mona decided to join the military and the first group of Saudi women soldiers to work in Islam's holiest sites, where they are helping secure the haj annual pilgrimage. Since April, dozens of female soldiers have become part of the security services that monitor pilgrims in Mecca and Medina, the birth places of Islam. Dressed in a military khaki uniform, with a hip-length jacket, loose trousers and a black beret over a veil covering her hair, Mona spends her shifts roaming in the Grand Mosque in Mecca.

Source: reuters.com

A week after slow-moving weather system released two months’ worth of rain in two days over western Germany, the number of fatalities has risen to at least 171, of which 123 have been confirmed in the hilly Ahrweiler district in Rhineland-Palatinate. Another 764 people have been injured, and 155 people are still recorded as missing. The president of the country’s disaster relief organisation said she “did not expect” rescuers to find any more survivors.

Source: theguardian.com

A team of scientists from the Natural History Museum has unearthed tens of thousands of fossils during a three-day excavation at what’s been described as one of the most important Jurassic sites ever found in the UK. The fossils, thought to be from around 167 million years ago, were originally identified by two hobby palaeontologists studying old research papers during lockdown. The secret Cotswold site was once a shallow tropical sea. Its inhabitants were probably caught in an underwater mudslide. This would explain their exquisite preservation.

Source: bbc.com

Brisbane will host the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games after being approved by the International Olympic Committee. The Australian city was named the preferred bidder before being proposed by the IOC executive board in June. It will be the third time the country has hosted the Olympics after Melbourne in 1956 and Sydney in 2000.

Source: bbc.com

More than 4,300 people have died of the deadly "black fungus" in India in a growing epidemic that mainly affects Covid-19 patients. India has reported 45,374 cases of this rare and dangerous infection, called mucormycosis, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya has said. It affects the nose, eyes and sometimes the brain, and usually strikes 12-18 days after recovery from Covid. Nearly half of those infected are still receiving treatment.

Source: bbc.com

Chilean taekwondo fighter and Dutch skateboarder test positive upon arrival in Japan as WHO chief says virus risk at Games is 'inevitable'. Fernanda Aguirre, a Chilean taekwondo fighter, has tested positive for Covid. She is now in 10-day isolation meaning she will miss her event on Sunday. Dutch skateboarder Candy Jacobs is also in isolation after positive test and will miss her event on Monday, ruling both the athletes out. Three other athletes - two South African footballers and a Czech volleyball player - have also tested positive but could still compete after quarantine ends.

Source: dailymail.co.uk

The Australian Olympic Committee said show jumper Jamie Kermond has been removed from the equestrian team for the Tokyo Games after testing positive for cocaine. Equestrian Australia had earlier said Kermond returned a positive A-sample for a metabolite of cocaine following a test conducted by Sport Integrity Australia on June 26. It said Kermond was banned from competing at the Tokyo Olympics but had the right to have his B-sample analyzed. The 36-year-old Kermond was expected to make his Olympic debut at Tokyo.

Source: apnews.com

An Indonesian man is reportedly facing arrest after disguising himself as his wife in order to board a flight. The man, who has been publicly identified only by the initials "DW," boarded a Citilink domestic flight from Jakarta to Ternate while wearing a niqab that covered him from head to toe. The disguise was intended to enable the man to fly even though he had reportedly tested positive for Covid-19. His wife, however, had tested negative, so he used her ID and negative PCR test results in order to board the plane at Halim Perdana Kusuma Airport in Jakarta, says the report.

Source: cnn.com

A Ugandan weightlifter has been found four days after he disappeared from an Olympic training camp in Japan leaving a note saying he wanted to find work, police have said. The disappearance of Julius Ssekitoleko came at a time of high public concern over COVID-19 risks as thousands of foreigners arrive for the Games. “Today, the man was found in Mie prefecture with no injuries and no involvement in any crime,” an Osaka police official, who declined to be named, told AFP news agency on Tuesday.

Source: aljazeera.com

A South Korean Paralympian has gone missing after a fall from the world’s 12th highest mountain, the 8,047-metre (26,400 foot) Broad Peak in Pakistan’s north Karakoram Range, the Alpine Club of Pakistan has said. Kim Hong-bin, 57, who represented his country in Alpine skiing at the 2002 Winter Paralympics in Salt Lake City, had reached the summit with other climbers on Sunday, but met bad weather on the way down, the club said on Tuesday.

Source: aljazeera.com

Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said on Tuesday that she asked U.S. officials to impose sanctions on companies in her country's potash, oil, wood and steel sectors, as she visited Washington seeking stronger action against President Alexander Lukashenko's government. Such measures would go beyond existing sanctions on Lukashenko's political allies and government bodies and "will be a real hit on him, to make him change his behavior and to release political prisoners," Tsikhanouskaya told reporters.

Source: reuters.com

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on the United States to meet “conditions” including financial, logistical and diplomatic support, so that Turkey can run and guard Kabul airport after other foreign troops withdraw from Afghanistan. Turkey has offered to deploy troops to the airport after NATO fully withdraws and has been in talks with the US for several weeks.

Source: aljazeera.com

Production at some of Nike's largest plants in Vietnam has been disrupted as Covid has spread through factories. The company refused to comment on whether store supplies would see shortages as a result of the outbreak. About half of Nike's shoes were manufactured in Vietnam in the last financial year, so this will mean challenges for its supply chain. Vietnam has seen a record rise in cases since last April with many infection clusters in its industrial provinces. Apple, Samsung and Puma could also be affected by the surge in cases recorded at suppliers' factories in the country.

Source: bbc.com

Everton have signed former England winger Andros Townsend on a two-year deal, the Premier League club announced Tuesday. Townsend, 30, was a free agent after his contract with Crystal Palace expired at the end of last season.

Source: france24.com

Billionaire Jeff Bezos blasted into space on Tuesday, in the first crewed flight of his rocket ship, New Shepard. He was accompanied by Mark Bezos, his brother, Wally Funk, an 82-year-old pioneer of the space race, and an 18-year-old student. They travelled in a capsule with the biggest windows flown in space, offering stunning views of the Earth. All four passengers have now parachuted safely back to Earth after their 10-minute, 10-second trip. New Shepard, built by Bezos' company Blue Origin, is designed to serve the burgeoning market for space tourism among the super-wealthy. On this flight was the oldest person who has been to space - Ms Funk - and the youngest, student Oliver Daemen.

Source: bbc.com