UNITED STATES
New virus test unveiled
Abbott Laboratories on Friday unveiled a portable device that can tell if someone has COVID-19 in as little as five minutes. The Food and Drug Administration has given it emergency authorization to begin making the test available to healthcare providers as early as next week, the company said. The device, which is the size of a small toaster and uses molecular technology, also shows negative results within 13 minutes, it said. “The COVID-19 pandemic will be fought on multiple fronts, and a portable molecular test that offers results in minutes adds to the broad range of diagnostic solutions needed to combat this virus,” Abbott president and chief operating officer Robert Ford said.
UNITED STATES
Subway driver killed in fire
A New York City subway driver was killed and several other people were injured early on Friday in a fire on a train that is being investigated as a crime, officials said. Fires were reported at three other stations nearby at the same time, police said. “We are investigating it as a criminal matter,” New York Police Department Deputy Chief Brian McGee said, adding that no arrests have been made. The fire killed the motorman who was helping passengers to safety, officials said, and came the day after two of his fellow New York City Transit employees fell victim to COVID-19.
UNITED STATES
Tom Hanks returns to LA
Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, on Friday returned to Los Angeles after spending more than two weeks in quarantine in Australia after testing positive for COVID-19. The actor and Wilson were photographed smiling while driving a vehicle in the city. Celebrity Web site TMZ said the photographs were taken shortly after the pair landed at a small Los Angeles area airport. The New York Post’s Page Six column said that Hanks was seen touching the tarmac and dancing after getting off a private jet.
UNITED STATES
Missing girl found with dog
Searchers on Friday found a four-year-old girl who had been missing for two days in a wooded area in east Alabama. The girl was in good condition with a dog at her side when rescuers approached, authorities said. They said the child had disappeared from her babysitter’s sight on Wednesday afternoon while they were walking in a backyard with a hound dog. A member of the search team that found the girl told media outlet WRBL-TV that they were searching the woods when they heard a dog bark, and then the girl “popped her head up” and they saw her bright red hair. He said the girl drank some Gatorade offered to her and was talking “like it was no big deal” what she had been through.
LATVIA
Locals aid stranded circus
A traveling Czech circus stuck abroad under a coronavirus lockdown has been overwhelmed by the generosity of strangers helping to feed its troupe of animals after canceled shows left it penniless. The family-run Circus Alex has been unable to perform or return home since borders were closed this month. Its desperate owners were forced to turn to social media to ask for help to feed their horses, goats, a llama and themselves. “We have been overwhelmed by the support of strangers,” circus owner Anna Polachova told reporters, adding that the circus has received “more food for ourselves and our animals than we can eat.”
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS