Worldwide Updates

Lowering the coffin of a person who died from a virus-related illness during a funeral in New Delhi in August. Credit...Xavier Galiana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images NEW DELHI — Mayandi Soundara Raj, an engineer pictured astride a motorcycle, was “a perfect husband” to his wife. He died on July 10. Arkadipta Basu, who died on Sept. 17, showered her family with “love and affection,” according to Anindya Basu, her husband. “I couldn’t keep my promise to be with you forever,” he writes under a photograph of her in a bright red sari. Mr. Raj and Ms. Basu are among those memorialized on a new website dedicated to people in India who have died of virus-related illnesses, who number more than 154,000. At the height of India’s outbreak last fall, more than 1,000 people were dying every day. As in many other places, pandemic restrictions often meant that friends and family members were unable to attend funerals or be present for last rites. “As a society, we probably couldn’t provide them

A medical worker preparing a syringe with the AstraZeneca-Oxford shot at a vaccination center in a public hospital in Brasília on Tuesday. Credit: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters The vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca not only protects people from serious illness and death but also substantially slows the transmission of the virus, according to a new study — a finding that underscores the importance of mass vaccination as a path out of the pandemic. The study by researchers at the University of Oxford is the first to document evidence that any coronavirus vaccine can reduce transmission of the virus. Researchers measured the impact on transmission by swabbing participants every week seeking to detect signs of the virus. If there is no virus present, even if someone is infected, it cannot be spread. And they found a 67 percent reduction in positive swabs among those vaccinated. The results, detailed by Oxford and AstraZeneca researchers in a manuscript that has not b

The newly elected Chairman of Tarauni Local Government Area of Kano State, Alhaji Abubakar Zakari, says he will adopt community consultation strategy to move the council to greater heights. The newly elected Chairman stated this while inaugurating members of his inauguration transition committee on Tuesday in Kano. He said that various committees were set-up to conduct research on all aspects of societal development and submit the reports to him to serve as guide in solving the challenges of the local government. He said that the committees’ reports would serve as a blueprint for discharging his duties of moving the local Government forward, adding that the new constituted committees should ensure they fulfill their mandates. According to him, it was a responsibility given to them to also contribute towards the development of the Local Government.

Neymar has agreed a four-year contract extension with Paris Saint-Germain after negotiations started a few months ago, sources have told ESPN.   The Brazil international’s contract was due to expire in June 2022, and his new deal will keep him in the French capital until 2026. PSG made Neymar’s extension a priority and the player was very keen to remain longer at the Parc des Princes. Neymar, who turns 29 on Friday, is delighted to continue his career in Paris and could sign very soon his new contract. Ideally, the club would like it all done before the Champions League round-of-16 first leg against Barcelona on Feb. 15.Since arriving at the Parc des Princes in August 201 on a world-record €222 million deal from Barcelona, Neymar has won three Ligue 1 titles, to go with two Coupes de France, two Coupes de la Ligue and two Trophees des Champions.   He also finished Champions League runner-up last season, losing to Bayern Munich in Lisbon (1-0).He reached the 100 games milestone for the

American lawyer and judge Alberto R. Gonzales was sworn in as the attorney general of the United States, becoming the first Hispanic to occupy the post.

District councilors typically tended to mundane matters like pest control and new bus stops. Now, they’re the last line of defense in keeping the city’s pro-democracy opposition alive. HONG KONG — Some days, Cathy Yau wanders down dark alleys looking for rats to poison. Other days, she helps food banks deliver meals to older people. Often her phone rings with calls from constituents: neighbors asking about their rights during a police stop-and-frisk, or how to best navigate the city’s welfare bureaucracy. Such is life for a Hong Kong district councilor. “I do things that nobody’s directed you to do, but which no one else would do if I didn’t,” she said. Ms. Yau, a 37-year-old former police officer, is among the hundreds of pro-democracy candidates who were elected to local government offices in Hong Kong in November 2019 on a wave of anti-establishment sentiment that followed months of street protests. As the political climate in Hong Kong has rapidly changed, the councilors’ advocacy

It did not take long for Keith Reed, a deputy health commissioner in Oklahoma, to spot a big logistical problem with the state’s vaccination rollout. Week after week, Oklahoma was allocating thousands of precious doses to a federal program for nursing home patients that was not using them all. In fact, tens of thousands of doses were sitting untouched in freezers. So his department called an audible. It decided to stop allocating any more of Oklahoma’s vaccine supply to the federal program, a partnership with private pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens that is meant to immunize residents of long-term care facilities. Instead, they would go to distribution channels that would get them into people’s arms faster. A number of states have made similar moves to shift supplies away from the federal effort, known as the Pharmacy Partnership for Long-Term Care Program, a telling example of how chaotic the inoculation effort in the U.S. has been so far. Some of the other states include Minnesota,

On this day in 1948 Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated “Great Soul” assassinated Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi —considered the father of his country and internationally esteemed for his doctrine of nonviolent protest (satyagraha) to achieve political and social progress—was assassinated on this day, 30th January 1948.

With pressure mounting to get Covid-19 vaccine doses into arms as quickly as possible, many overburdened city health departments across the country have turned to partnerships with hospitals, nonprofit organizations and pharmacies. In Philadelphia this week, one such deal went awry after the city leaned on a start-up led by college students who were eager to get involved but had little experience. The start-up is an organization called Philly Fighting Covid, which was founded last year by a 22-year-old graduate student, Andrei Doroshin. The group quickly won plaudits for volunteering to run free testing sites, and for using 3-D printers to make face shields that it supplied free to health care workers. So when Philadelphia began receiving shipments of vaccine and needed help administering doses on a large scale, the city health department turned to Philly Fighting Covid to operate what would be the largest vaccination site in the state, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. It took le

After the tech giant threatened to take its search engine offline in Australia, I’ve been looking into some alternatives. The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. It’s the first port of call for any random question that pops into our heads. The repository of basically all knowledge on the internet. The search engine so ubiquitous it’s a verb. And last week, Australians were forced to consider a future without it, after Google threatened to take its search engine offline if it can’t settle a bitter dispute with the Australian government over the country’s new media code. I’ve had a bit more time to think about it than most. For the past two weeks, I’ve been among a small number of Australians affected by Google’s new “experiment” where it hides or pushes down links to some local commercial media outlets. The move, ostensibly to “measure the impacts of news businesses and Google Search on each other,” has been interpreted by some

About 300,000 people are expected to leave Hong Kong for Britain using a new visa route which opens on Sunday. Hong Kong's British National (Overseas) passport holders and their immediate dependants will be able to apply for the visa using a smartphone app. Boris Johnson said the move honoured the UK's "profound ties of history and friendship" with the ex-British colony. The visa was announced in July after China imposed a new security law in Hong Kong. Beijing has previously warned the UK not to meddle in domestic issues. Those who apply and secure the visa will be able to apply for settlement after five years and then British citizenship after a further 12 months. Although there are 2.9 million citizens eligible to move to the UK, with a further estimated 2.3 million dependants, the government expects about 300,000 people to take up the offer. The prime minister said: "I am immensely proud that we have brought in this new route for Hong Kong BNOs to live, work

Ford is to start building its iconic Mustang cars in China for the first time. The US carmaker said its Mustang Mach-E will start being produced there later this year as it looks to tap into China's electric vehicle (EV) market. Earlier this month, Tesla started delivering its Model Y to Chinese customers from its Shanghai factory. Western brands are aggressively targeting China, where EV sales are expected to grow strongly. Volkswagen said it would soon begin delivering vehicles produced at two newly-built Chinese factories dedicated to electric cars. China is the world's biggest car market with more than 20m vehicles sold each year. On Thursday, Germany's Daimler posted strong company results for 2020, off the back of a strong recovery in the global car market led by China. Daimler boss Ola Källenius hailed the company's rebound in China as almost "too good to be true". Ford is also hoping to capitalise on China's economic recovery and the Chinese govern

On This Day Calendar Search 1st Winter Olympics Einar Landvik, Nordic skier from Norway, competes in the first-ever Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France, 1924 Historical Context The Winter Olympics are now a major international event, in many ways just as popular as the Summer Olympics, but it didn't start out this way. In 1924, the French Olympic committee organised the 'International Winter Sports Week' to be held in Chamonix, southern France, in the same year as the Summer Olympics in Paris. There were only a few events at this Olympics; including bobsleigh, curling, ice hockey and various versions of Nordic skiing. Despite the small nature of the event, it was considered a big success by the International Olympic Committee, who retroactively designated it the first Winter Olympics. Norway won the most Gold medals, with 4, for a tally of 17 overall. The practice of holding the Winter Olympics in the same year as the Summer Olympics would continue until 1992, when they wer

A Washington hospital system apologized after The Seattle Times reported that it had offered vaccines to wealthy donors while others went without the coveted shots. Overlake Medical Center & Clinics sent an email to about 110 donors who gave more than $10,000 to the hospital system, telling them they could register for open appointments “by invite” only. The report drew a rebuke from Gov. Jay Inslee, who said during a news conference on Tuesday that the practice was “simply unacceptable.” Overlake’s president and chief executive, J. Michael Marsh, apologized in a statement, adding that even those donors would have been required to show that they were eligible for the vaccine under state guidelines. “We recognize we made a mistake by including a subset of our donors and by not adopting a broader outreach strategy to fill these appointments, and we apologize,” Mr. Marsh said. The hospital’s conduct mirrors that of other facilities that have made news for prioritizing wealthy donors o