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A major explosion in South Los Angeles on Wednesday evening damaged homes and injured 17 people, including police officers, as a bomb squad attempted to safely detonate improvised explosive devices that had been seized from a home along with about 5,000 pounds of illegal fireworks. The blast damaged cars in a residential neighborhood and left debris on the streets, video on social media showed. A truck that was being used to collect the explosives also appeared to be severely damaged.
 

US fashion giant Gap has confirmed it plans to close all its 81 stores in the UK and Ireland and go online-only. The firm said it would close all its stores "in a phased manner" between the end of August and the end of September. The company has not disclosed how many employees the closures will affect, but will shortly start a consultation process with the staff. The firm said it was "not exiting the UK market" and would continue to offer a web-based store when all the shops had closed.

Source: bbc.com

After dominating the film industry, Scarlett Johansson is trying her hand at beauty. The actress announced that she will be launching her own skincare brand in 2022 in partnership with beauty/fashion executive Kate Foster.

Source: lofficielusa.com

At least 486 sudden deaths were reported over five days during British Columbia’s unprecedented heatwave, suggesting the extreme weather that affected western Canada in recent days was far deadlier than initially believed. Typically, 165 sudden deaths would occur in the province over that period, the province’s chief coroner said, suggesting more than 300 deaths could be attributed to the heat. The new tally, announced on Wednesday, marks a 195% increase over normal years.

Source: theguardian.com

New court documents that were filed by the Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday show that the judge has denied a months-old request by Spears’ attorney, Samuel Ingham III, to remove her father, Jamie Spears, as her sole conservator. These documents are not in direct response to last week’s hearing, where Spears gave an explosive testimony; though Spears delivered a powerful 24-minute statement, the judge cannot make any ruling based on what she said as she still has yet to file a petition to terminate her conservatorship.

Source: variety.com

The European Commission has said it will work towards new laws to phase out caged animal farming across the bloc. It comes after a petition demanding an end to the controversial system collected more than 1.4 million names. Rabbits, young hens, quails, ducks and geese would be affected by the changes. The new legislation will be proposed by 2023 and the changes would be gradually phased in by 2027.

Source: bbc.com

Two elephants have been led to safety after nearly dying at sea off the coast of Bangladesh. The pair became separated from their herd in Myanmar, waded across a river into Bangladesh, and were driven on to a beach by scared local residents. After four days stuck by the sea surrounded by onlookers, the elephants swam into the Bay of Bengal. Authorities then rescued the animals with help from local fishermen, using ropes to bring them back to shore.

Source: bbc.com

Donald Rumsfeld, a two-time US defense secretary who was a key architect of America’s bitterly divisive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, has died at the age of 88. Rumsfeld passed away surrounded by his family in Taos, New Mexico, the family said in a statement on Wednesday. Former president George W Bush, whom he served for six years, led tributes by calling him “a man of intelligence, integrity, and almost inexhaustible energy”, adding that “he never paled before tough decisions, and never flinched from responsibility”.

Source: theguardian.com

Thomas Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy, a popular painting that left Britain a century ago to a public outpouring of anger and sadness, is to return temporarily to the National Gallery in London. Once owned by the Duke of Westminster, it was purchased by the American railway magnate Henry E Huntington a century ago for a then world record price of $728,000. The Blue Boy will hang in room 46 from 25 January until 15 May 2022. 

Source: theguardian.com

Actors, sportspeople, social media influencers, doctors and teachers have been among hundreds of people listed as wanted for opposing the junta.

Source: nbcnews.com

Cristiano Ronaldo has shot to the top of Instagram’s annual rich list of celebrities who can charge the most for a sponsored post, with the footballer able to command as much as $1.6m (£1.2m) to endorse a product on social media. The Portugal captain, who rattled the Euro 2020 sponsor Coca-Cola by removing its drinks from view at a post-match press conference, topped a list that includes the wrestler turned actor Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson and the singer Ariana Grande.

Source: theguardian.com

A prototype flying car has completed a 35-minute flight between international airports in Nitra and Bratislava, Slovakia. The hybrid car-aircraft, AirCar, is equipped with a BMW engine and runs on regular petrol-pump fuel. Its creator, Prof Stefan Klein, said it could fly about 1,000km (600 miles), at a height of 8,200ft (2,500m), and had clocked up 40 hours in the air so far. It takes two minutes and 15 seconds to transform from car into aircraft.

Source: bbc.com

Police arrested a man who allegedly threatened to blow up a McDonald's when he was not given sauce for his Chicken McNuggets. The customer was said to be furious to discover that the fast-food chain had given him an incorrect order, which resulted in his alleged bomb threat. The man also reportedly said he would punch an employee over the missing condiments in a moment of rage when he noticed their absence from his meal. The man was arrested on Saturday night and charged with a felony of making a false report of an explosive or incendiary device.

Source: express.co.uk

A convicted serial killer in Japan, dubbed the Black Widow, has lost her final appeal to avoid execution. Chisako Kakehi, 74, killed three of her partners, including her husband, and attempted to murder a fourth man. Kakehi pocketed millions in inheritance and insurance payouts after poisoning her victims with cyanide. Her lawyers appealed the 2017 sentence, arguing that she suffers from dementia and does not understand the legal proceedings. But Japan's Supreme Court rejected the appeal, clearing the way for her death sentence to be finalised.

Source: bbc.com

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un has berated his country's top officials for creating a "great crisis" through failures in coronavirus prevention, according to state media. Kim said "senior officials in charge of important state affairs neglected the implementation of the important decisions of the party on taking organisational, institutional, material, scientific and technological measures as required by the prolonged state emergency epidemic prevention campaign". And this "caused a crucial case of creating a great crisis in ensuring the security of the state and safety of the people and entailed grave consequences", KNCA added.

Source: news.sky.com

Most Indians see themselves and their country as religiously tolerant but are against interfaith marriage, a survey from Pew Research Center has found. The research comes follows laws introduced in several Indian states that criminalise interfaith love. Pew interviewed 30,000 people across India in 17 languages for the study. The interviewees were from 26 states and three federally administered territories. According to the survey, 80% of the Muslims who were interviewed felt it was important to stop people from their community from marrying into another religion. Around 65% of Hindus felt the same.

Source: bbc.com

A village in Canada has recorded the country's highest ever temperature, just one day after it smashed the previous record. Temperatures in Lytton, British Columbia, soared to 47.9C (118.2F) on Monday, up from 46.6C (116F) on Sunday. Before this week, temperatures in Canada had never passed 45C (113F).

Source: bbc.com

Tennis great Serena Williams limped out of Wimbledon in tears on Tuesday after her latest bid for a record-equalling 24th Grand Slam singles crown ended in injury. The American sixth seed and seven-times Wimbledon winner was clearly in pain on a slippery Centre Court and sought treatment while 3-2 up in her first round match against unseeded Belarussian Aliaksandra Sasnovich.

Source: reuters.com