More than 200,000 people, mostly women and children, have fled surging violence in Ituri since March in the Democratic Republic of Congo's volatile east, the UN said Friday.

The U.S. unemployment rate hit 14.7% in April, the highest rate since the Great Depression, as 20.5 million jobs vanished in the worst monthly loss on record. The figures are stark evidence of the damage the coronavirus has done to a now-shattered economy.

Brazil, the country in Latin America that has been hardest hit by the coronavirus crisis, said Friday it had reached a new daily record for COVID-19 fatalities with 751 deaths.

Madonna said Thursday she has recovered from the Covid-19 disease, which forced her to pull out of a string of concerts in Paris in February and March.

Since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic, there has been no shortage of solidarity with those on the frontline on the pandemic. One such example comes from the French NGO Aviation Sans Frontières ("Aviation Without Borders"), which has brought together key players in the aviation sector to allow medical professionals to travel by plane free of charge from one French region to another. These flights help take some of the pressure off overwhelmed hospital staff. Our reporters Benoît Perrochais and Natalia Ruiz Giraldo went on board.

At least 40 civilians were killed, including 11 children, when a bomb detonated in the northern Syrian town of Afrin on Tuesday, the Turkish Defence Ministry said, blaming the attack on the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.

The Lebanese government on Thursday approved a long-awaited plan to rescue the economy from its worst crisis in decades following a fresh wave of angry street protests this week. Nationwide protests broke out in October accusing the country's political class of corruption and mismanagement.

Syrian air defences thwarted an Israeli missile attack on a research centre and a military base in the northern province of Aleppo, state media said on Monday, in the fifth such strikes in two weeks on suspected Iranian targets.

North Korean state media on Wednesday made no mention of new appearances by leader Kim Jong Un, a day after intense international speculation over his health was sparked by media reports he was gravely ill after a cardiovascular procedure.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced they had successfully launched the country’s first military satellite on Wednesday, at a time of fresh tensions with US forces in the Gulf.

South Korea's assessment is that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un did not have surgery, local news outlet Yonhap said, citing an unidentified senior official at presidential Blue House. 

Eleven people were killed and hundreds hospitalised after a pre-dawn gas leak at a chemical plant in eastern India on Thursday that left unconscious victims lying in the streets, authorities said.

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Chapter 12: "Broken" comic 1575
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A few weeks ago, I received an email from MamaSezz, a plant-based meal delivery service, offering me an opportunity to help promote their business in exchange for a commission.  As a blogger, I get a lot of offers like this, from companies selling everything from supplements to olive oil to keto meals (yikes!) I delete 99.9%...

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Spaced repetition is a memory hack. We know that spacing out your study is more effective than cramming, but using an app you can tailor your own spaced repetition schedule, allowing you to efficiently create reliable memories for any material you like. Michael Nielsen, has a nice thread on his use of spaced repetition on … Continue reading "spaced repetition & Darwin’s golden rule"