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Hong Kong says it will ban all passenger flights from the U.K. starting Thursday as it seeks to curb the spread of new variants of the coronavirus. It said in a statement Monday that the U.K. has been classified as “extremely high risk“ because of the “recent rebound of the epidemic situation in the U.K. and the widespread delta variant virus strain there.” Under the classification, people who have stayed in the U.K. for more than two hours will be restricted from boarding passenger flights to Hong Kong.

Source: apnews.com

A “psychic” elephant from a zoo in Hamburg has predicted that Germany will beat England in their Euro 2020 last-16 clash on Tuesday. The 42-year-old Yashoda correctly guessed that Germany would lose their tournament opener to France, beat Portugal and then draw against Hungary in the group stage. She pulled the German flag rather than the English one out of a wicker basket at Hagenbeck Zoo to the delight of many German fans who had turned up to see her.

Source: aljazeera.com

China's long-awaited Chengdu Tianfu International Airport has officially begun operations, offering travelers a new gateway to the home of giant pandas. Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, is now the third city in the country to have two international airports, joining Shanghai and Beijing. Constructed at a cost of about 70 billion Chinese yuan ($10.8 billion), phase one of the massive aviation hub has the capacity to handle up to 60 million passengers per year, further opening up the country's southwest region.

Source: cnn.com

A boat with 20 dead people aboard was found about a mile off Grand Turk island last week, authorities announced Sunday. The small vessel was found Thursday by fisherman who then alerted police. The small boat appears to have arrived from outside the the Caribbean, according to Police Commissioner Trevor Botting.

Source: nypost.com

Belgium held Cristiano Ronaldo scoreless and defeated defending champion Portugal 1-0 Sunday to advance to the quarterfinals of the European Championship. Thorgan Hazard scored the winning goal in the 42nd minute with a swerving shot from outside the area that left Portugal goalkeeper Rui Patrício wrong-footed and late to swat the ball away. Ronaldo stayed one goal away from becoming the all-time men’s top scorer in international soccer. He is tied with former Iran striker Ali Daei at 109 goals.

Source: apnews.com

China's space agency has released video of its Zhurong rover trundling across the surface of Mars. The pictures were acquired by a wireless camera that the robot had placed on the ground. The new media release also includes sequences from Zhurong's landing in May, showing the deployment of its parachute system and the moment of touchdown. The six-wheeled robot is investigating a region known as Utopia Planitia.

Source: bbc.com

British No 1 Johanna Konta has been forced to withdraw from Wimbledon after going into self-isolation having been identified as a close contact of a person with coronavirus. Konta, who had been due to start her tournament against Katerina Siniakova on Tuesday, has been told she must isolate for 10 days.

Source: skysports.com

Thousands of Peruvians supporting socialist Pedro Castillo and right-wing rival Keiko Fujimori took to the streets on Saturday amid uncertainty over the result of a tight June 6 presidential election that has been held up by legal challenges.

Source: france24.com

The Expert Committee on Covid-19 Vaccination is aware of an open letter calling for a halt in vaccinating Singapore's youths and is closely monitoring local and global data to keep its recommendations fresh, said the Ministry of Health in a statement on Sunday (June 28). The open letter, posted on Facebook on Saturday by a doctor, Dr Kho Kwang Po, was addressed to Professor Benjamin Ong, chairman of the expert committee. It comes after a 13-year-old American boy died days after he received his second dose of a Covid-19 vaccine in the United States.

Source: straitstimes.com

At least seven people were killed and more than 50 people were injured in an explosion in the Bangladeshi capital late on Sunday, police said. The cause of the blast, which occurred on the ground floor of a three-storey building on a busy street in Dhaka'a Moghbazar area, was not immediately known.

Source: reuters.com

As the death toll rose to nine with more than 150 people still missing, rescue teams on Sunday kept picking through the rubble of the Florida condo building that collapsed three days ago, as questions swirled about the tower's structural integrity. Officials in Surfside, the shore town near Miami where the building stood along the oceanfront, said hope remained that search teams would discover survivors in air pockets that may have formed in the pancaked debris.

Source: reuters.com

Britain’s Treasury has unveiled a new special edition coin to commemorate the life of Prince Philip, who died in April at the age of 99. The Treasury said Saturday that the design of the 5-pound coin had been approved by Philip in 2008. It features an original portrait of Philip, drawn by artist Ian Rank-Broadley.

Source: apnews.com

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore assessed if hearing impairment was linked with poorer physical ability. They recruited 2,956 US adults with an average age of 79 years, all with different levels of hearing ability ranging from normal to severe hearing loss. They found those with severe hearing impairment had poorer physical function. Hearing loss can affect physical functioning through 'reduced perception of auditory input that contributes to walking and balance', they claim.

Source: dailymail.co.uk

Electric car giant Tesla will "recall" over 285,000 cars from the Chinese market after an investigation found issues with its assisted driving software that could cause road collisions, a government regulator announced late Friday. Tesla would contact affected users to upgrade their vehicle's software remotely for free, a State Administration of Market Regulation (SAMR) notice said, adding that it affects some imported and domestically manufactured Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.

Source: france24.com

On the first high-level visit to Paris by president Joe Biden’s administration, secretary of state Antony Blinken and his French hosts saluted a new spirit of cooperation after four years of turbulence under Donald Trump. But the two sides said that one key Biden promise – to return to the 2015 Iran accord that was trashed by Trump – is at risk if the clerical regime does not make concessions during talks that have been going on for more than two months in Vienna. Blinken warned that the US still has “serious differences” with Iran, which has kept negotiating since last week’s presidential election won by a hardliner, Ebrahim Raisi.

Source: theguardian.com

US President Joe Biden has said that Afghans "are going to have to decide their future" as Afghan President Ashraf Ghani visited the White House. Mr Biden promised continued support for the country, even though US and Nato troops are set to finish their withdrawal on 11 September. It comes as hardline Islamist Taliban fighters have captured dozens of districts in a recent offensive.

Source: bbc.com

Gunfire has hit a helicopter carrying the president of Colombia as it flew near the border with Venezuela. President Iván Duque was flying toward Cúcuta in the Norte de Santander province, alongside the defence minister, interior minister, and the province's governor. A spokesman for the presidency said nobody was hurt in the incident. Mr Duque denounced the "cowardly attack" and said he was not frightened "by violence or acts of terrorism".

Source: bbc.com

A nine-year-old girl has won a prestigious food award for her homemade marmalade. Flora Rider became the youngest ever winner of Best in Show at the Homemade Marmalade Awards when she came top of more than 3,000 other entries. She said she made the preserve with her family on the Isle of Wight as a "fun activity" during lockdown in January.

Source: bbc.com