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.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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