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.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing
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