Real Madrid attacker Luka Jovic has fracture his right heel, the La Liga giants have announced. In a statement, Real said the 22-year-old's injury had been diagnosed during tests at the club's medical centre, but didn't say how long they expect him to be out of action. According to Spanish media, Serbia's Jovic picked up the injury while training at home shortly after returning to Spain from his home country at the start of the week. Jovic caused controversy in March when he left for Serbia while Real were in quarantine after some of the club's basketball players tested positive for coronavirus. He subsequently explained his test for the virus was negative. He arrived at Real last summer from Eintracht Frankfurt for a reported fee of 60 million euros ($65.1 million). Before the season was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he had played 22 times for the capital city club in all competitions, scoring twice.

AC Milan president Paolo Scaroni has revealed that some of his squad members were still recovering from coronavirus. Serie A has been on hold since mid-March but Italian Sports Minister Vincenzo Spadafora said on Thursday he was hopeful group training could resume on May 18. "We have some infected players in the process of recovery," Scaroni told local media. Scaroni believes Italian football must live with COVID-19 and take an example from the Bundesliga which will restart on May 16. "We have to get used to living with the virus and this also applies to football," he said. "It is not possible to stand still until there is zero infection. Basically we can adopt the German formula that provides that those who are sick go into quarantine while their teammates continue." Milan technical director Paolo Maldini, together with his 18-year-old son Daniel, a youth team player, have both recovered from the virus. "Maldini father and son are doing well. There are players who are improving, but .

Indian Olympic Association President Narinder Batra's tenure as the chief of the International Hockey Federation (FIH) has been extended till May next year after its annual congress was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The decision to postpone the Congress, which was earlier scheduled to begin in New Delhi on October 28, was taken at an online meeting of the FIH Executive Board on Friday. "I'm looking forward to the numerous tournaments and competitions ahead of us, which we are preparing with full dedication and passion with all National Associations involved," Batra said. The exact date of the postponed congress will be confirmed as soon as possible, the FIH said in a statement. "This decision, made due to the current uncertainties following the global COVID-19 pandemic, is based on Art. 12.1 of the FIH Statutes, covering cases of force majeure," it added. The postponement means the tenures of all the current FIH office-bearers get extension until next year's ...

Actor Elle Fanning says she would love to pursue direction if she gets a good story. The actor said she "badly" wants to go behind the camera. "It's something that I do want to do badly. You've just got to find the right story. What is it that you want to tell? Is it going to be personal? Is it not? Are you going to write it? Are you not? A lot of big questions. I will for sure one day," Fanning said in an interview with Variety. She will next be seen as Catherine the Great in Hulu's 10-part satirical comedy series "The Great", which debuts on May 15. Fanning is also looking forward to The Nightingale, which also features her sister Dakota. The film, directed by actor Melanie Laurent, was scheduled to release in December but has been postponed by a year due to coronavirus pandemic.

Amazon Prime Video has given a second season order for Greg Daniels' show "Upload". The season two renewal comes just a week after the show premiered on Amazon Prime Video, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The single-camera sitcom, featuring Robbie Amell and Andy Allo, takes place in the near future, where people who are near death can be "uploaded" into a virtual afterlife of their choice. "I am thrilled to continue a great relationship with Amazon Studios and this wonderful cast and find out what happens next to Nora and Nathan and Ingrid and their 2033 world. With this news I can stop drawing my season 2 flip book," Daniels said in a statement. "Upload" is executive produced by Daniels and his producing partner Howard Klein.

Several American lawmakers have introduced a legislation in Congress to offer the 40,000 unused green cards to thousands of foreign nurses and doctors to meet the urgent needs of the overstretched healthcare sector in the US, the worst hit nation by the coronavirus pandemic. The US has nearly 1,284,000 cases of confirmed COVID-19 cases and over 77,000 people have died due to the highly contagious disease. The Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act would allow for recapturing green cards that were approved by Congress but unused in past years, allowing thousands of additional medical professionals to serve permanently in the United States. The legislation would send green cards to 25,000 nurses and 15,000 doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure that states like Iowa have the professionals they need to serve patients for years to come, a media release said. The move is likely to benefit a large number of Indian nurses and doctors in the US, who are either on H-1B or J2 visas. The ..

Filmmaker Mike Flanagan is set to tackle the film adaptation of yet another book from celebrated author Stephen King. Flanagan, who previously helmed the film version of King's novel"Doctor Sleep", is now adapting a scrip from the author's 2014 book "Revival". The filmmaker also has the option to direct the movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The project has been set up at Warner Bros and will be produced by Flanagan and Trevor Macy through their banner Intrepid Pictures. "Revival" centres around the relationship between a heroin-addicted musician and a dubious faith healer with a hidden agenda. The minister is obsessed with trying to find a way to communicate with his departed wife and child but ends up connecting to a Lovecraftian horror. Flanagan and Macy have earlier teamed for the 2017 adaptation of King's novel "Gerald's Game", which released on Netflix. They also collaborated on the 2018 Netflix series "The Haunting of Hill House".

World Cup winning-Australia captain Meg Lanning has used the extra time in hand amid the COIVD-19 pandemic to provide a virtual batting class to Ireland women's cricket squad. Lanning was joined by former Ireland skipper Isobel Joyce in the initiative that took place this week to help the players keep their skills sharp during the forced break from cricket. The duo touched upon a number of topics, including the mental preparation going into a big game, shot selection and an analysis of the Australian captain's T20I century against England last year. The session was chaired by Irish women's team head coach Ed Joyce and also featured Australia boss Matthew Mott. "Any time you can pick the brains of experienced cricketers such as Meg and Isobel is valuable, and I know that our entire squad enjoyed this unique opportunity," Ireland skipper Laura Delany said. "People often underestimate the mental aspect of the game, and both players spoke about the importance of mental preparation before .

President Donald Trump says he's in no rush to negotiate another financial rescue bill, even as the government reported that more than 20 million Americans lost their jobs last month due to economic upheaval caused by the coronavirus. The president's low-key approach came Friday as the Labor Department reported the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression and as Democrats prepared to unveil what Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer calls a Rooseveltian-style aid package to shore up the economy and address the health crisis. Some congressional conservatives, meanwhile, who set aside long-held opposition to deficits to pass more than USD 2 trillion in relief so far, have expressed reservations about another massive spending package. We've kind of paused as far as formal negotiations go, Larry Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council told reporters Friday. He said the administration wanted to let the last round of recovery funding kick in before committing to ..

In a worrying development, a five-year old boy has died in New York from a rare inflammatory illness linked to the coronavirus, while the death of another seven-year-old boy is being investigated for possible links to the mysterious pediatric syndrome. The New York State Department of Health is investigating several cases of the severe illness in children and child deaths that may be linked to the serious inflammatory disease called "Pediatric Multi-System Inflammatory Syndrome Associated with COVID-19." There have been 73 reported cases in New York where children are experiencing symptoms similar to Kawasaki disease and toxic shock-like syndrome possibly due to COVID-19. On Thursday, a 5-year-old boy died in the New York City from these COVID-related complications, Cuomo said. Officials in Westchester County in upstate New York say that a 7-year-old boy died late last week at Maria Fareri Children's Hospital in Valhalla. Michael Gewitz, Physician-in-Chief of Maria Fareri Children's ..

Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on Saturday approved amendments to the country's state of emergency that grant him and security agencies additional powers, which the government says are needed to combat the coronavirus outbreak. An international rights group condemned the amendments, saying the government has used the global pandemic to expand, not reform, Egypt's abusive Emergency Law. The new amendments allow the president to to take measures to contain the virus, such as suspending classes at schools and universities and quarantining those returning from abroad. But they also include expanded powers to ban public and private meetings, protests, celebrations and other forms of assembly. The government has waged an unprecedented crackdown on dissent since 2013, when el-Sissi rose to power, and unauthorized protests have been banned for years. The amendments also allow military prosecutors to investigate incidents when army officers are tasked with law enforcement or when the .

The WHO and the UN's postal agency have released a commemorative postage stamp on the 40th anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, with the head of the global health body expressing gratitude to a top Indian-origin UN official. In May 1980, the 33rd World Health Assembly issued its official declaration that "the world and all its peoples have won freedom from smallpox." It was ended on the back of a 10-year WHO-spearheaded global effort that involved thousands of health workers around the world to administer half a billion vaccinations to stamp out smallpox. "When WHO's smallpox eradication campaign was launched in 1967, one of the ways countries raised awareness about smallpox was through postage stamps when social media like Twitter and Facebook was not even on the horizon," World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. "I especially want to thank my friend Mr Atul Khare, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Operational Support, for ...

Nepal has reported seven new coronavirus cases, taking the number of infections in the country to 109, the health ministry said on Saturday. Nepal is among the nations that has the least number of cases of the deadly coronavirus. The new cases involve three women and four men aged between 17 and 65 years. The women belonged to Udayapur district, while three men are from Kapilavastu district and one from Parsa district. With this, the total number of infections in the Himalayan nation has reached 109, it said. So far, 30 people have recovered from the disease, the ministry said. According to the Johns Hopkins University data, the virus has infected over 3.9 million people and claimed over 270,000 people worldwide.

Singapore on Saturday saw a drop in its daily tally of new coronavirus cases as the city-state reported 753 new COVID-19 cases, taking the country's total to 22,460, majority of them foreign nationals, including Indians, living in dormitories. On Friday, Singapore reported 768 new cases of coronavirus. The Health Ministry said the vast majority of the 753 new cases reported on Saturday are work permit holders (foreigners) residing in worker dormitories. Nine cases are Singapore citizens or permanent residents (foreigners). As of Friday, 19,232 of the 323,000 foreign workers living in dormitories, or nearly six per cent, have tested positive for COVID-19, reported The Straits Times. Singapore had placed 18,402 coronavirus patients in isolation while 1,245 are hospitalised by Friday, according to a data from the Health Ministry. The Ministry said 1,245 cases were still in hospital while 20 people have died of the disease. Singapore currently has the highest number of coronavirus cases ..

Luke Greenfield, the director of films such as "The Girl Next Door" and "Something Borrowed", will helm STXfilms' upcoming movie "We Are Untouchable". The director will also co-write the action-thriller in collaboration with Captain Mauzner, reported Deadline. The screenplay has been penned by Oritte Bendory and Aaron Feldman with revisions by Michael Diliberti and by Anthony Drazan. The story is about a group of international college grads working in Mexico City at their respective diplomatic embassies. "By day, they're slaving away as mailroom assistants getting abused by their bosses. But when they find out they have diplomatic immunity and they can't get arrested for anything they do they go wild with it and live out their fantasies. "Soon they're living double lives in the ultimate wish-fulfillment...until it isn't. They gradually fall into serious danger when they get entangled with a violent and savage group who extort them for their 'get out of jail free' cards," the ...

An Indian teenager here has recorded songs in over 20 languages, including Arabic, to spread awareness on the COVID-19, saying music has always been her choice for effective communication, according to a media report on Saturday. Suchetha Satish's songs advise the people to keep distance, maintain cleanliness and practice hand washing regularly, the Khaleej Times reported on Saturday. Satish, who hails from Kerala, released her first coronavirus awareness song on March 16 in English, titled 'Say No To Panic', the daily reported. Since then, 14-year-old Satish, who holds the world record for singing in most number of languages in a concert, has recorded the awareness songs in Malayalam, Bengali, Arabic, Kannada, Tulu, Konkani, Marathi, Gujrati, Rajasthani, Sindhi, Himachali, Odiya, Manipuri, Nepali, Urdu, Punjabi, Bhojpuri, Telugu, Kashmiri and Sanskrit. Her songs in Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil and Assamese were used by the Kerala government in its 'Break the Chain' campaign, the .

Diego Maradona has lent a hand in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic in his hometown by autographing an Argentina national team jersey for a raffle. The sale raised money for an underprivileged area on the outskirts of Buenos Aires affected by quarantine rules. "We're going to get through it," Maradona wrote on the jersey, a replica of the one he wore when he led his country to victory in the 1986 World Cup. The jersey was first offered at auction, but is being raffled to those who have given donations in an initiative that has collected hygiene products, masks and around 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of food for charity. "Diego can't even imagine what he has done for us, it's priceless. I'll be grateful to him until the day I die," said local resident Marta Gutierrez. In addition to the pandemic, Argentina is facing a serious economic crisis and is in laborious negotiations on debt restructuring with creditors.

Jihadists burst into the gold mine where Moussa Tambura worked in Burkina Faso, forbidding everyone from smoking and drinking. It wasn't long before the men returned and leveled the place to the ground. They attacked the site, killed people and burned houses, said Tambura, 29, clenching his fists. He was able to find work again after fleeing to Bouda, another town in country's north that still has small-scale mining. Still, he struggles to provide for his family since his new job isn't as lucrative as his old one. Jihadists linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State organization have been overrunning gold mines like Tambura's one by one as they try to gain control of Burkina Faso's most lucrative industry. The extremists are then collecting a protection tax from communities living around the gold mines and also forcing the miners to sell them the gold exclusively, which is then smuggled and sold across the border in places like Benin, Ghana or Togo. The violence already has shuttered ...

Russian President Vladimir Putin marked Victory day, the anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, in a ceremony shorn of its usual military parade and pomp by the coronavirus pandemic. Putin on Saturday laid flowers at the tomb of the unknown soldier just outside the Kremlin walls and gave a short address honouring the valour and suffering of the Soviet army during the war. Victory Day is Russia's most important secular holiday and this year's observance had been expected to be especially large because it is the 75th anniversary, but the Red Square military parade and a mass procession called The Immortal Regiment were postponed as part of measures to stifle the spread of the virus. The only vestige of the conventional show of military might was a flyover of central Moscow by 75 warplanes and helicopters. In the final events of the VE Day commemoration in Western Europe, which took place a day earlier, Berlin's landmark Brandenburg Gate was illuminated late ...

A 40-year-old Indian-origin woman in Singapore was charged with five counts, including use of criminal force, in a court here on Saturday for refusing to wear a face mask for protection against COVID-19 and assaulting a police officer who tried to ascertain her identity. Kasturi Govindasamy Retnamswamy was arrested after the incident that happened at a shopping mall on May 7 and was captured on video. Retnamswamy, who is a Singaporean, was remanded at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) for psychiatric evaluation after the incident, reported The Straits Times. She was taken to a court on Saturday and faced five charges, including use of abusive words and criminal force against a public servant. The next hearing is scheduled for May 22 after her remand in the IMH. According to the police statement on Friday, the woman insulted the mall staff and hurled abuses at a security officer who was trying to get her to put on her mask correctly. The widely-shared video of the incident shows a ..

Australia's Super Rugby competition is planning for an early July return, a spokesman said Saturday, after the coronavirus outbreak derailed the season and sparked turmoil within the sport's cash-strapped governing body. Rugby Australia's board suffered another tumultuous week with new director Peter Wiggs -- who had been tipped to take over the chairman's role -- quitting after just five weeks in the job. His departure followed the resignation last month of chief executive Raelene Castle after pressure from the board and a simmering financial crisis. Clubs are set to begin training in the coming days under strict health regulations aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19 among players, a spokesman said on Saturday. "We do not have a confirmed date for the resumption of Super Rugby in Australia, however early July presents a best case scenario," he added. This year's Super Rugby competition saw seven rounds played before the pandemic forced a stop to the season in March. The ...

Mounting a strong defence of the ruling Communist Party of China, President Xi Jinping has said the COVID-19 fight has once again shown that the CPC leadership and the country's socialist political system can overcome any challenge. Xi's comments came as China faced global criticism for its initial inaction to act against the novel coronavirus, which according to Chinese officials emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December last year. Pressure is also mounting on Beijing to agree for an international probe on the origins of the vicious virus, including from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), as claimed by the US leadership. China curbed the spread of the coronavirus in over a month and brought COVID-19 under control at its first epicentre in Wuhan in about three months, Xi, also the General Secretary of the CPC, said at a symposium held on Friday to get suggestions from non-ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) parties on COVID-19 prevention and control. He termed the

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas says Europe must acknowledge that it wasn't well-prepared for the coronavirus pandemic. In a statement marking Europe Day, Maas said that initially most countries, including Germany, were focused on coping with the outbreak at home. While defending the national response as necessary, in order to safeguard our ability to act and then also help other, Maas said the European Union had grown in the crisis. The EU's sluggish response has given way to cross-border medical aid, a massive financial support package and coordinated scientific research programs. Maas called the solidarity provided by EU member states unique in the world, adding that Germany wants the bloc to emerge from the crisis stronger. Berlin takes over the six-month rotating presidency of the 27-nation EU on July 1.

CBS network has given straight-to-season orders to TV spin-offs based on movies The Equalizer and Silence of the Lambs. The Silence of the Lambs series, titled Clarice, features Pretty Little Liars actor Rebecca Breeds as FBI agent Clarice Starling, the character portrayed by Jodie Foster and later Julianne Moore on the big screen. In The Equalizer reboot, Queen Latifah will play the role of a retired special-ops agent, the part previously essayed on TV and film by Edward Woodward and Denzel Washington. Chris Noth, Lorraine Toussaint, Tory Kittles, Liza Lapira, and Laya DeLeon Hayes also star. According to Entertainment Weekly, CBS also greenlit to series a new comedy from Chuck Lorre along with Marco Pennette titled B Positive. The network is planning to premiere the shows sometime later this year or in 2021.

Seoul has shut down more than 2,100 nightclubs, hostess bars, and discos after dozens of infections were linked to clubgoers who went out last weekend as the country relaxed social distancing guidelines. The measures imposed by Mayor Park Won-soon on Saturday came after the national government urged entertainment venues around the nation to close or otherwise enforce anti-virus measures, including distancing, temperature checks, keeping customer lists and requiring employees to wear masks. Park said that the entry bans on the facilities will be maintained until the city concludes the infections risks as meaningfully lowered. South Korea's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier said 18 fresh cases were reported in the 24 hours to midnight Friday, all but one of them linked to a 29-year-old man who visited three clubs in Seoul's Itaewon district last Saturday before testing positive on Tuesday. But Park said 16 more cases were confirmed in Seoul alone in the following hours .

Watford chairman Scott Duxbury says at least six of the 20 English Premier League clubs are concerned about the plan to use neutral stadiums to finish the season. Duxbury says there is no altruism in the Premier League and that there are 20 different vested interests, which sometimes align but more often than not work purely to protect each individual club. Ahead of Monday's crunch meeting of topflight clubs, the Hornets have joined Brighton and Aston Villa in making clear their opposition to the current Project Restart plans. With nine rounds left, Watford is 17th in the league and looking to fight off relegation amid a challenging backdrop brought on by the coronavirus outbreak. Duxbury says some clubs are happy to sign up to 'Project Restart' because arguably there is only an upside in participating in this compromised format. It means Liverpool can win the title, other clubs can book their place in Europe next season or potentially fight their way up the table from a position of ..

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) has tweaked its rules for the Golden Globes in regard to the foreign language film category, amid the coronavirus pandemic. According to Variety, HFPA has announced that foreign language films will not need a theatrical release in their own country to be eligible for the 2021 Golden Globes. Earlier there was a rule that foreign films must be released in their country of origin during the 15-month period from October 1 to December 31 prior to the awards. Foreign-language motion pictures that had a bona fide theatrical release planned to begin in their country of origin during the period from March 15 until a date to be determined by HFPA when cinemas in that country have generally reopened, may instead be released in any country in any format and will still be eligible for the Golden Globe foreign-language motion picture awards, the new rule states. The films can be released in motion picture format such as in theatres or on pay-per-view ..

Federal investigators have found reasonable grounds that a government whistleblower was punished for speaking out against widespread use of an unproven drug that President Donald Trump touted as a remedy for COVID-19, his lawyers said. Dr Rick Bright headed the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, a unit of Department of Health and Human Services that focuses on countermeasures to infectious diseases and bioterrorism. He had received a job performance review of outstanding before he was summarily transferred last month, with his agency email cut off without warning. Investigators with the Office of Special Counsel made a threshold determination that HHS violated the Whistleblower Protection Act by removing Dr Bright from his position because he made protected disclosures in the best interest of the American public," his lawyers Debra Katz and Lisa Banks said in a statement Friday. The OSC is an agency that investigates allegations of egregious personnel practices in

Iran warned Saturday that coronavirus infections were rising in the southwest despite falls in other regions, as it announced more than 1,500 new confirmed cases. "All provinces are showing a gradual drop in new infections... except for Khuzestan, where the situation is still concerning," health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said in televised remarks. The health ministry stopped publishing provincial figures for the coronavirus last month. It has instead opted for a colour-coded system of white for low-risk parts of the country, yellow for medium-risk and red for high-risk areas. Latest reports have shown Khuzestan red along with a few other provinces, including the capital Tehran and the Shiite clerical centre of Qom, where Iran reported its first cases in February. Early last week, Iran's official daily caseload hit its lowest level since March 10, but it has since climbed again steadily. Jahanpour said 1,529 new cases were confirmed in the past 24 hours, taking the ...

The first Air India flight from the UK, scheduled as part of the Vande Bharat Mission to repatriate Indians stranded overseas due to the coronavirus lockdown, took off from London's Heathrow Airport on Saturday and will land in Mumbai in the early hours of Sunday. Around 250 Indian students and tourists were seen queuing with their luggage at the airport from early on Saturday as they prepared for the journey home. Each one of them underwent temperature tests before boarding and could face 14 days of quarantine at a hotel or other location designated by the Maharashtra government on landing, with those details to be made available on arrival in Mumbai. "Finally going back to India! Although it was at the last moment but I was lucky enough to get the ticket of the first flight to India under Vande Bharat Mission," said a relieved Indian student, who was part of a group of seafarers who came to the UK for an examination. "We got continuous updates from NISAU (National Indian Students ...

A shootout erupted on Saturday at a protest in western Afghanistan by residents demanding economic assistance, leading to the deaths of at least six people, including a local reporter and two police officers, officials said. Interior Ministry spokesman Tareq Arian said the protesters had gathered outside the governor's office in Feroz Koh, the capital of the western Ghor province. They were demanding relief after weeks of restrictions aimed at containing the coronavirus pandemic. He said some people at the protest opened fire at police, igniting a gun battle that killed the six people and wounded another 19, including nine police. The ministry has launched an investigation and plans to send a delegation to the province. Afghanistan was already mired in poverty before the onset of the pandemic, which has infected nearly 3,800 people in the country and killed at least 109. Many Afghans rely on day labour, which has dried up because of the closure of nonessential businesses.

Kansas harvester Mike Keimig is growing increasingly anxious about whether the foreign seasonal workers he needs to run his nine combines and drive his grain trucks will arrive in time for the start of the winter wheat harvest, which is just weeks away. His regular crew mostly comprises farm kids from South Africa who return to work for him every year, but they are stuck overseas. The paperwork for about half of the 20 agricultural worker visas he has applied for remains in limbo at the shuttered U.S. Consulate in Johannesburg. The closure of embassies and consulates due to the coronavirus pandemic is not the only obstacle to bringing in seasonal workers. Governments have closed their borders. Overseas workers who have visas cannot get on a flight. And once they arrive, they would face weeks of quarantine before they could work. It will definitely have a big impact on our finances ... if we can't get help to run our equipment, Keimig said. It would even have an effect on the farmers. .

South Korea's capital closed down more than 2,100 bars and other nightspots Saturday because of a new cluster of coronavirus infections, and Germany scrambled to contain fresh outbreaks at slaughterhouses, underscoring the dangers authorities face as they try to reopen their economies. Elsewhere, Belarus, which has not locked down despite increasing case numbers, saw tens of thousands of people turn out to mark Victory Day, the anniversary of Nazi Germany's defeat in 1945. That was in contrast to Russia, where a muted event took place over an empty Red Square. Around the world, the US and other hard-hit countries are wrestling with how to ease curbs on business and public activity without touching off a deadly second wave of infection. Germany and South Korea have both carried out extensive testing and contact tracing and have been hailed for avoiding the mass deaths that have overwhelmed other countries. But even there, authorities have struggled with finding the balance between ...

South Korea's capital has shut down more than 2,100 nightclubs, hostess bars and discos after dozens of coronavirus infections were linked to club goers who went out last weekend as the country relaxed social distancing guidelines. The measures imposed Saturday by Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon came after the national government urged entertainment venues around the nation to close or otherwise enforce anti-virus measures, including distancing, temperature checks, keeping customer lists and requiring employees to wear masks. Park said the entry bans on the facilities will be maintained until the city concludes that risks of infection have been meaningfully lowered. South Korea's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or KCDC, said earlier in the day that 18 new cases were reported in the 24 hours to midnight Friday, all but one of them linked to a 29-year-old man who visited three clubs in Seoul's Itaewon district last Saturday before testing positive days later. But Park said 16 more

The first Air India flight from the UK, as part of the Vande Bharat Mission to repatriate Indians stranded overseas due to the coronavirus lockdown, took off from London's Heathrow Airport on Saturday with 326 passengers to Mumbai. The packed flight took off with Indian students and tourists, who were seen queuing with their luggage at the airport from early on Saturday as they prepared for the journey home. Each one of them underwent temperature tests before boarding and face 14 days of quarantine at a hotel or other location designated by the Maharashtra government on landing, with those details to be made available on arrival in Mumbai in the early hours of Sunday. While there is no social distancing possible on the packed flight, Air India is providing a kit for all passengers confirmed to fly, with meals, snacks, sanitizer, mask and gloves. Finally going back to India! Although it was at the last moment but I was lucky enough to get the ticket of the first flight to India under ..

ReNew Solar Power Pvt Ltd has emerged as the lowest bidder at a tariff of Rs 2.90 per unit for 400 MW renewable energy capacity put on auction by Solar Energy Corporatindia (SECI). SECI concluded the auction this evening for 400 MW renewable energy capacity, an industry source said. The developers can develop solar, wind, and hybrid projects under this tender. The developers would supply power to the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) and Dadra and Nagar Haveli. The second lowest bidder was Greenko Energies Pvt Ltd at tariff of Rs 2.91 per unit for 400 MW projects. These are the round the clock power supply projects which means these could be augmented by energy storage systems.

Two flights carrying a total of 335 people from the Gulf countries landed in Kerala's two airports on Friday night, as India's Vande Bharat Mission to bring home its nationals stranded due to COVID-19 lockdown in various countries entered second day. While an Air India repatriation flight from Riyadh carrying 153 passengers, including 84 pregnant women, 22 children and four infants landed at the Kozhikode airport 8 pm on Friday night, another Air India Express flight from Bahrain with 177 passengers, including 5 infants, reached Kochi airport at 11.32 pm. Two flights had landed at Kochi and Kozhikode on Thursday from Abu Dhabi and Dubai, respectively. According to Kozhikode airport sources, the flight from Riyadh carried five people having some health issues and they would be shifted to Manjeri and Kozhikode medical college hospitals. Ten passengers from neighbouring states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu also travelled in the flight from Riyadh, the sources said. The passengers were ...

Five people, who had travelled from Rajasthan to Silchar, tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, taking the total number of cases in Assam to 58, Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said. Of the total 58 cases, 23 are active, he said. "There are two more COVID-19 patients who travelled in the bus which ferried people from Rajasthan. They are from Cachar district," the minister tweeted. Three other persons tested positive earlier in the day, while four others tested positive on Thursday and another on Wednesday, taking the total number of cases related to this group, who came from Ajmer to 10. The patients have been admitted to Silchar Medical College Hospital. A bus carrying 45 passengers and crew, arrived at Silchar on Wednesday, after being given permission by the Ajmer Deputy Commissioner. Of them 10 have tested positive so far. As the passengers had gone home briefly after screening, several areas in four villages of Cachar district has been declared as containment zones, he ...

Amid the coronavirus outbreak, the iconic Rabindra Setu, popularly known as the Howrah Bridge that connects Kolkata and its twin city Howrah, was illuminated by the Kolkata Port Trust on the occasion of the 159th birth anniversary of poet Rabidranath Tagore. The bridge which was almost deserted because of the ongoing lockdown was lit up by colourful LED lights in the evening, KoPT officials said. They said the illumination is a symbolic 'Message of Hope, in these troubled times to the citizens of this great metropolis and beyond. White light washed the bridge to honour the front line Covid-19 warriors, followed alternately by red, orange and green signalling the zones that identify the intensity of coronavirus spread, they said. All this while, instrumental pieces of Tagore song was played at the nearby Millennium Park, the officials said.

Jharkhand on Friday reported its highest single-day spike in COVID-19 cases with 21 people testing positive, taking the total number of infections to 153 in the state, officials said. Of the total 455 swab samples tested during the day, 21 tested positive for COVID-19, said the Director of the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), Dr D K Singh. He said 25 more people recovered from the infection, bringing the total number of cured people in the state to 77. The officials did not provide any details of the 21 people who tested positive for COVID-19 in the state on Friday. Since the outbreak of the pandemic on March 31 in the state, two persons have died of the infection while one COVID-19 patient died due to underlying health condition after testing negative.

With Gujarat reporting a large number of COVID-19 cases and fatalities, medical experts from AIIMS, including its Director Dr Randeep Guleria, have rushed to Ahmedabad to provide expert guidance to doctors there on COVID-19 management. Following directions from the Centre, Dr Guleria, who is a pulmonologist, and Dr Manish Soneja from the AIIMS department of medicine left for Ahmedabad on special Indian Air Force flight on Friday evening, official sources said. With 390 more people testing positive for COVID-19 and 24 fatalities, the total number of cases in Gujarat climbed to 7,403 and the death toll reached 449 on Friday. Of the total coronavirus cases in the state, 5,260 have been reported from Ahmedabad district alone. "They will visit the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital and SVP hospital on Saturday to provide expert guidance and advice to the doctors on treatment for coronavirus-infected patients there," a source said.

Anyone home-quarantined for suspected coronavirus infection but found breaching the seclusion rules will invite home confinement for all his family members, the Kangra police warned on Friday. Kangras Senior Superintendent of Police Vimukt Ranjan said the new provisions have been made on Friday. As per the fresh orders issued today, any person who has come to the district from other districts of Himachal Predesh or other states of India and placed on home quarantine for 28 days from the date of his entry in district Kangra will be shall be dealt more strictly for its violations, said Ranjan He added that if a home-quarantined person with his other family members not confined along with him is found violating the seclusion rules, in any form, then his entire family members would be put in home0confinement along with him, he said. In Himachal around 90,000 persons returned home from other states on passes issued by state government in the past one week and another 20,000 plus are ...

Maharashtra Cyber has registered 363 offences of rumour mongering, spreading misinformation, hatred and fake news on social media during the COVID-19 lockdown, an official said on Saturday. The state police's cyber wing has been monitoring online activities to prevent the spread of misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic. As many as 196 persons were arrested for sharing or uploading objectionable posts, videos and photographs on social media, the official said. In Sangli district, a case was registered against some people for uploading a Tik-Tok video about a particular community being responsible for the pandemic and also using abusive language against prominent social reformers, he said. At least 14 offences were registered by the cyber wing in the district since the lockdown was enforced, he added. Similarly, in Parli town of Beed district, some persons were booked for a social media post linking the spread of COVID-19 to a particular community, he said, adding that

Odisha on Saturday reported 17 new COVID-19 cases, taking the total number to 287, the Health and Family Welfare Department said. Twelve new cases were reported from Ganjam district, three were detected in Mayurbhanj and one each in Bhadrak and Sundergarh district, it said. The total number of infected people rose to 83 in Ganjam district. The number of cases in Bhadrak stood at 25 and total 13 cases were detected in Sundergarh. At present, there are 222 active cases in the state and 63 people have recovered. Two people from Bhubaneswar have succumbed to the disease, an official said. There are currently 298 people in hospital isolation in the state, he said. The state health department had on Friday conducted 3,348 tests for COVID-19, he said, adding that Odisha has so far tested 56,322 samples. As per an analysis by the department, 240 of the state's total 287 cases have been reported from five districts. Ganjam reported 83 cases, Jajpur 55, Khurda 50, Balasore 27 and Bhadrak 25. In

India played out a 2-2 draw against Europe in Online Nations Cup chess tournament in the eight round, a setback after their first win in the event notched up against the Rest of the World. Vidith Gujrathi ended his barren spell with a win over Levon Aronian of Europe with white pieces while Jan-Krystozf Duda beat P Harikrishna to level the scores in the match on Friday. Former world champion Viswanathan Anand and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave played out a 60-move draw while the game between world rapid champion Koneru Humpy and Anna Muzychuk too ended in a stalemate to end the match on 2-2 draw. Earlier in the seventh round match, Anand and Harikrishna won their respective matches to help India beat Rest of the World and post their first win in the tournament. Anand beat Teimour Radjabov in 37 moves to help India win 2.5-1.5 score. The Indian had posted his maiden win in the tournament on Thursday by thrashing Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi in just 17 moves. Harikrishna posted his first win ...

Over 360 Kashmiri students stranded in parts of Madhya Pradesh due to the lockdown will be sent back to their native places in air-conditioned buses from Bhopal on Saturday, an official said. As many as 365 Kashmiri students stuck in different districts of the state will return home in 18 AC buses from Bhopal, a public relations department official said. The students are currently accommodated in a private school in Gandhinagar locality of Bhopal, he said, adding that they will leave at around 2 pm on Saturday. District collector Tarun Pithode and other officials visited the private school on Friday night to take stock of the arrangements there. Sources said that another group of Kashmiri students will also leave from Indore. Congress leader Digvijaya Singh had recently written a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, requesting him to make necessary arrangements for the nearly 400 Kashmiri students stuck in the state. He had said that as Jammu and Kashmir is under the .

Union Home Minister Amit Shah has said the West Bengal government is not allowing trains with migrant workers to reach the state that may further create hardship for the labourers. In a letter to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Shah said not allowing trains to reach West Bengal is "injustice" to the migrant workers from the state. Referring to the 'Shramik Special' trains being run by the central government to facilitate transport of migrant workers from different parts of the country to various destinations, the home minister said in the letter that the Centre has facilitated more than two lakh migrants workers to reach home. Shah said migrant workers from West Bengal are also eager to reach home and the central government is also facilitating the train services. "But we are not getting expected support from the West Bengal. The state government of West Bengal is not allowing the trains reaching to West Bengal. This is injustice with West Bengal migrant labourers. This ...

The Bombay High Court directed the Maharashtra government to take an appropriate policy decision to tackle the spread of COVID-19 at Arthur Road Jail in central Mumbai. At least 77 inmates and 26 personnel of Arthur Road Jail tested positive for coronavirus early this week. Justice Bharati Dangre on Friday was hearing a bail application filed by Ali Akbar Shroff, one of the inmates at the prison, seeking temporary bail on medical grounds. In his order, Justice Dangre noted that the situation was precarious and in such a contingency, the state government and the policy makers should take a decision. "If it is true that more than 100 patients have tested positive in Arthur Road Jail, then it is for the authorities to ensure that other inmates, who are presently lodged in the jail, are not infected by the virus on account of overcrowding," the court said. The authorities must remember that inmates had the right to a safe and healthy environment even when they were ...

Coronavirus infected patients developing severe illness or having compromised immunity will have to test negative through RT-PCR test before being discharged by a hospital, the Union health ministry on Friday said in its revised discharge policy for COVID-19 cases. Moderate cases of COVID-19 and pre-symptomatic, mild and very mild cases need not undergo tests before being discharged after resolution of symptoms. According to the rules till now, a patient was considered fit to be discharged if he or she tested negative on day 14 and then again in a span of 24 hours. "The revised discharge policy is aligned with the guidelines on the 3 tier COVID facilities and the categorisation of patients based on clinical severity," the ministry said. The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 1,981 and the number of cases climbed to 59,662 on Saturday, registering an increase of 95 deaths and 3,320 cases in the last 24 hours, according to the Union health ministry. The discharge criteria for severe ...

Two police officers and a constable were injured after a 27-year-old man attacked them with a chopper in south Mumbai early today, police said. Karan Pradip Nayar, resident of Silver Oaks estate near Breach Candy, attacked the policemen who were on routine 'nakabandi' duty at 1.30 am, senior police inspector of Marine Drive police station Mrityunjay Hiremath told PTI. The policemen, all deployed at the Marine Drive police station, received injuries on their shoulders and hands and were taken to the state government-run JJ hospital, he said. "When our policemen saw the man walking with a large chopper near the Pransukhlal Mafatlal Hindu Swimming Bath and Boat Club, they tried to stop him. He ran away and they chased him. When they tried to catch him, he attacked them with the chopper," Hiremath said. Nayar, an architecture graduate, has been arrested, the police officer said, adding a case has been filed against him under various sections of the IPC, including 307 ...