Author: News Desk

USA : Vice President Kamala Harris will focus on defending international rules in the South China Sea, strengthening U.S. leadership in the region and expanding cooperation on matters of security during her trip to Vietnam and Singapore, a senior White House official. Reuters

Belarus : A Belarusian activist living in exile in Ukraine was found hanged in a park near his home in Kyiv early on Tuesday, and Ukrainian police launched a murder investigation. Reporting by Natalia Zinets, Margaryta Chornokondratenko, Ilya Zhegulev and Sergiy Karazy in Kyiv and Emma Thomasson in Geneva; Writing by Matthias Williams Editing by Andrew Heavens, Peter Graff

TOKYO — Lisa Carrington stood on a windy podium to accept her latest Olympic gold medal for a kayak sprint race she has dominated for more than a decade. But any celebrations would have to wait. The New Zealander still had another one to win about an hour later. Carrington opened her medal march at the Tokyo Games with a pair of victories Tuesday, first in the single 200 and then the double 500 with teammate Caitlin Regal, on the opening day of kayak and canoe sprint medal events. Carrington came to Tokyo as a medal favorite in four events, and the 32-year-old…

Tokyo : U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken blasted Belarus’ attempt to send home a sprinter from the Tokyo Olympics against her wishes as intolerable “transnational repression”. President Alexander Lukashenko’s “regime sought to commit another act of transnational repression: attempting to force Olympian Krystsyna Tsimanouskaya to leave simply for exercising free speech”, Blinken wrote on Twitter late on Monday. Tsimanouskaya, who sought refuge in the Polish embassy on Monday after refusing her team’s orders to fly home, will travel to Poland on Wednesday, a group of her supporters said. Warsaw has offered her a humanitarian visa. USN

India : A five-day-old OnePlus Nord 2 5G allegedly exploded in the sling bag of a woman in Bengaluru on Sunday. The spouse of the affected user took to Twitter just hours after the incident to inform the public about the sudden accident. He, however, pulled the tweet shortly after it came into the limelight. OnePlus has confirmed to Gadgets 360 that it reached out to the user and was investigating the issue. The OnePlus Nord 2 5G was launched as the latest smartphone by Chinese company last month. Twitter user Ankur Sharma reported that the OnePlus Nord 2 explosion took place on Sunday…

Washington: Natasha Peri, an 11-year-old Indian-American girl has been judged as one of the brightest students in the world by a top US university for her exceptional performance in the SAT and ACT standardised tests. Both the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) and American College Testing (ACT) are standardised tests that many colleges use to determine whether to accept a student for admission. In some cases, companies and non-profits also use these scores to award merit-based scholarships. All colleges require students to take either the SAT or the ACT and submit their scores to their prospective universities. Peri, a student at Thelma…

Tokyo : Germany’s Malaika Mihambo has snatched gold in her final jump of the women’s long jump on Tuesday in Tokyo. Mihambo saved her best for last, clinching gold from 2021 gold medallist American Brittney Reese with a season best jump of 7 metres, dpa reports. Reese, the 2012 gold medallist and four-time world champion, held the lead from the third round with a jump of 6.97m. However, she couldn’t better Mihambo’s final leap, taking home silver. Nigeria’s Ese Brume also reached 6.97m but took bronze, as her second best effort of 6.67m was inferior to Reese’s 6.81m. Seven women…

US : The U.S. has finally reached President Joe Biden’s goal of getting at least one COVID-19 shot into 70% of American adults — a month late and amid a fierce surge by the delta variant that is swamping hospitals and leading to new mask rules and mandatory vaccinations around the country. In a major retreat in the Deep South, Louisiana ordered nearly everyone, vaccinated or not, to wear masks again in all indoor public settings, including schools and colleges. And other cities and states likewise moved to reinstate precautions to counter a crisis blamed on the fast-spreading variant and…

Bahrain :  President of the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities (BACA), Shaikha Mai bint Mohammed Al Khalifa, today received the outgoing Omani Ambassador and the Dean of Diplomatic Corps in Bahrain, Abdulla bin Rashid Al-Mudailawi. Shaikha Mai affirmed the depth of the brotherly Bahraini-Omani relations, and stressed the importance of enhancing cultural exchange and extending bridges of civilisational communication between the two countries, thanks to their common cultural features. Shaikha Mai wished the ambassador every success in his future assignments, expressing hope that the ongoing cooperation between BACA and the Sultanate of Oman will yield more civilisational projects. The…

Adelaide : Qantas Airways Ltd (QAN.AX) is temporarily idling about 2,500 employees without pay for at least two months in a bid to cope with fresh COVID-19 restrictions in Australia slashing domestic travel demand. The decision will directly impact domestic pilots, cabin crew and airport workers, mostly in New South Wales, the airline said on Tuesday, adding that no job losses were expected from the move, Reuters reports. Qantas said it had gone from operating almost 100% of its pre-COVID domestic flying capacity in May to less than 40% in July due to lockdowns meant to curb the rapid spread…