Sat, Aug 19, 2023 page5

• World News Quick Take

  • Agencies
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  SWITZERLAND

  WHO tracks new variant

  The WHO and US health authorities yesterday said that they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 was unknown. The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance “due to the large number [more than 30] of spike gene mutations it carries,” it wrote in a bulletin on Thursday. So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the US. The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) confirmed that it is also closely monitoring the variant, in a message on the X social media platform. There are only four known sequences of the variant, the WHO has said. “The potential impact of the BA.2.86 mutations are presently unknown and undergoing careful assessment,” the WHO said. It is monitoring upward of 10 variants and their descent lineages. Most countries that had established surveillance systems for the virus have since dismantled operations. As of Sunday last week, there were more than 769 million cases of COVID-19 confirmed and more than 6.9 million deaths worldwide, although the real toll is expected to be much higher because many cases went undetected.

  UNITED STATES

  Ice chunk hits home

  A large ice chunk fell from the sky and hit a house in Massachusetts, damaging the roof of the home, the homeowner said. Jeff Ilg said he and his wife, Amelia Rainville, suspect that the ice fell from an airplane traveling to Boston Logan International Airport. Neither the couple nor their two children were hurt when the ice chunk, which Ilg said was initially estimated to be 6kg to 9kg, hit the roof on Sunday night. “We heard an explosion, basically,” he said on Thursday. “The loudest pop, bang I’ve ever heard.” Then they heard debris rolling down the roof onto a lower roof, he said. Initially it was thought the house was struck by lightning. The couple ran upstairs to check on their children, who were asleep, despite the noise. They then ran around the house to see what happened and then outside where Ilg said he saw a giant partial block of ice on the back step, and debris scattered around the backyard and on the roof. “I had no idea what this was,” he said. He grabbed a flashlight and started looking for damage, but could not see any at first. His wife called the police and then he spotted hole in the roof. He ran up to the attic to see if there was a hole. “Sure enough it was in there and it was big,” Ilg said. The impact on the outside was about 45cm to 60cm in diameter, he said, but the damage to the inside was bigger.

  UNITED KINGDOM

  Michael Parkinson dies

  Michael Parkinson, a veteran British chat show host whose decades-spanning career featured interviews with some of the world’s highest-profile figures, has died, his family said on Thursday. He was 88. His BBC show Parkinson, which first aired in June 1971, made him a household name. He died late on Wednesday following a brief illness. Muhammad Ali, Fred Astaire, Elton John, Paul McCartney and Peter Sellers were just a few of the famous names to grace his interview couch. “Sir Michael Parkinson passed away peacefully at home last night in the company of his family,” his family said in a statement, requesting “privacy and time to grieve.” The interviewer’s BBC chat show enjoyed a successful run until 1982 before being revived in 1998. He switched from the BBC to commercial rival ITV in 2004, where he continued until 2007.
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