INDIA
Nipah virus prompts curbs
The government has curbed public gatherings and shut some schools in Kerala state after two people died of Nipah, a virus from bats or pigs that causes fever, officials said yesterday. The virus has no vaccine and a fatality rate of 40 to 75 percent, according to the WHO. Symptoms include intense fever, vomiting and a respiratory infection, but severe cases can involve seizures and encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain, and result in a coma. Three others have tested positive and more than 700 people are under observation, health officials said.
UNITED STATES
Judge blocks gun ban
A federal judge on Wednesday blocked part of a public health order that suspended the right to carry guns in public across New Mexico’s largest metro area. The ruling by District Judge David Urias blocked New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s emergency public health order on Friday last week that suspended the right to openly carry or conceal guns in public places based on a statistical threshold for violent crime that applied only to Albuquerque and the surrounding area. Urias agreed with plaintiffs who have accused Lujan Grisham of trampling on constitutional rights, granting a temporary restraining order to block the governor’s suspension of gun rights until another hearing is held next month.
UNITED STATES
Hudson swim completed
British endurance swimmer Lewis Pugh on Wednesday completed a 500km journey down New York’s Hudson River, highlighting its successful decades-long cleanup as a beacon for other waterways. “Fifty years ago, this was one of the most polluted rivers in the whole world,” said Pugh, 53, who was appointed the first UN patron of the oceans a decade ago. “We need to have clean, healthy rivers,” he told reporters after completing the unassisted trip from the Hudson’s mountain source to New York City. He said that in New York’s industrial past, the river would sometimes change color from day to day, depending on what dyes and other pollutants were dumped or ran off, but after decades of action to clean up pollution, Pugh was able to safely swim down the river, a month-long feat he said will hopefully inspire others.
CHINA
Maduro targets moon
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday said that his country could soon send its first astronauts to the moon in a Chinese spacecraft following a scientific cooperation agreement reached with President Xi Jinping (習近平). Maduro arrived in Beijing on Tuesday, meeting Xi on Wednesday and agreeing to “upgrade” ties with Beijing. Maduro said that the two countries had agreed to train young Venezuelan astronauts in China, with plans to eventually send them to the moon. A special task team “on scientific, technological, industrial and aerospace cooperation will sooner rather than later [send] the first Venezuelan man and woman to the moon in a Chinese spacecraft,” Maduro said.
CHINA
Crane collapse kills six
A tower crane on Wednesday collapsed at a bridge construction project in Jianyang City, killing six people and injuring five others, authorities said. The collapse happened during work to build an expressway bridge over the Tuo River, the city’s transportation bureau said in a statement on its social media account. An investigation into the cause of the collapse was under way.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS