Several countries have imposed restrictions on travelers from Britain amid rising cases of the delta variant of the coronavirus. Scientists say the delta mutation is more infectious and now makes up around 95 percent of new cases in Britain. Henry Ridgwell reports from London. …
The World Health Organization has expressed concern about Uganda’s approval of a locally made herbal treatment for COVID-19 amid a third wave of cases. The WHO has not approved the substance for COVID-19 treatment, but Ugandan pharmacists say they have little choice because drugs authorized for emergency use in developed countries are not available.Uganda’s drug authority said Tuesday that it had approved the herbal medicine, Covidex.Dr. David Nahamya, executive director of Uganda’s drug authority, said the approval followed a two-week scientific evaluation of the medicine’s safety and efficacy.“Covidex has been notified …
Pennsylvania’s highest court overturned Bill Cosby’s sex assault conviction Wednesday after finding an agreement with a previous prosecutor prevented him from being charged in the case. Cosby has served more than two years of a three- to 10-year sentence at a state prison near Philadelphia. He had vowed to serve all 10 years rather than acknowledge any remorse over the 2004 encounter with accuser Andrea Constand. He was charged in late 2015, when a prosecutor armed with newly unsealed evidence — Cosby’s damaging deposition from her lawsuit — arrested him …
Federal law enforcement agencies secretly seek the data of Microsoft customers thousands of times a year, according to congressional testimony Wednesday by a senior executive at the technology company.Tom Burt, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for customer security and trust, told members of the House Judiciary Committee that federal law enforcement in recent years has been presenting the company with between 2,400 to 3,500 secrecy orders a year, or about seven to 10 a day.”Most shocking is just how routine secrecy orders have become when law enforcement targets an American’s email, …
A former CIA operative known for his exploits everywhere from Miami to Nicaragua to Afghanistan has a book deal. Enrique “Ric” Prado’s “Black Ops: The Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior” will come out next March. “A lot has been said about the CIA over the years,” Prado said in a statement Wednesday. “And a lot of it has been (expletive). I wrote ‘Black Ops’ to clear the name of my agency. I know the untold sacrifices that have been made for this country by devoted men and women who …
Another major Australian city is under a coronavirus lockdown as local officials clash with the federal government over which age group should be eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine. The city of Alice Springs entered a three-day lockdown effective Tuesday after an infected gold mine worker spent several hours in the city’s airport before flying from the Northern Territory state to his home in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia state, where he tested positive after his arrival. A transit worker is seen wearing a face mask inside a mostly empty city …
Last week, a 12-story apartment building suddenly collapsed in a Miami, Florida, suburb, killing at least 11 people and leaving some 150 others missing. While the cause of the disaster is unclear, rising sea levels that flood parts of the Miami area with salt water and regularly left standing water in the underground garage of the Champlain Towers suggest that climate change played a role. Meanwhile, more than 4,000 kilometers away, residents of Seattle, Portland, and the rest of the U.S. Pacific Northwest endured a fourth consecutive day of a record-setting …
U.S. President Joe Biden is holding talks Wednesday with a group of governors from eight Western states about wildfire preparedness as much of the region deals with drought. Biden and other administration officials will be speaking from the White House with the governors joining by video. White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters last week the meeting will “focus on how the federal government can improve wildfire preparedness and response efforts, protect public safety, and deliver assistance to our people in times of urgent need.” Those attending include Democratic governors Gavin Newsom of California, Jared …
Cities in the Pacific Northwest of North America reported power outages Tuesday, both from failures of utility companies and rolling blackouts due to heavy power demand. Seattle and Portland temperatures were expected to fall Tuesday, below Monday’s record highs, but inland, the city of Spokane, Washington, continued to record high temperatures and experience rolling blackouts in the city. Lytton, British Columbia, set Canada’s all-time high temperature Sunday with 46.6 degrees Celsius, only to see it broken less than 24 hours later, hitting 47.9 C Monday. Officials said Tuesday that several deaths in Portland and Seattle were tied to the extreme heat. In Vancouver, British Columbia, first responders have said that as many as two …
Cuban screenwriter Delia Fiallo, widely seen as “the mother of the telenovela” and the writer behind international hits like the soap opera “Crystal,” died Tuesday in Miami at the age of 96, her daughter-in-law confirmed to AFP. A pioneer of the wildly popular romantic soap operas in Latin America, Fiallo , whose career began in the middle of the last century, told AFP in an interview in 2018 that she wanted to be remembered “as a person who loved a lot and who was very loved.”Her daughter-in-law, Odalis Baez, confirmed her death. Adored …
Tennis great Serena Williams limped out of Wimbledon in tears on Tuesday after her latest bid for a record-equaling 24th Grand Slam singles crown ended in injury. The American sixth seed and seven-time Wimbledon winner was clearly in pain on a slippery Centre Court and sought treatment while 3-2 up in her first-round match against unseeded Belarusian Aliaksandra Sasnovich. Williams returned after a lengthy break, but the distress was evident. She grimaced and wiped away tears before preparing to serve at 3-3 after Sasnovich had pulled back from 3-1 down. Serena Williams, right, retires …