Author: News Desk

An uncrewed Chinese spacecraft successfully landed on the surface of Mars on Saturday, state news agency Xinhua reported, making China the second space-faring nation after the United States to land on the Red Planet. The Tianwen-1 spacecraft landed on a site on a vast plain known as Utopia Planitia, “leaving a Chinese footprint on Mars for the first time,” Xinhua said. Chinese President Xi Jinping issued a message of congratulations to all the people involved in the mission. “You were brave enough for the challenge, pursued excellence and placed our country in the advanced ranks of planetary exploration,” he said.…

3 mosques in the Capital Governorate have been shut down temporarily for failure to comply with COVID-19 health regulations concerning Eid Al-Fitr prayer. The Ministry of Justice, Islamic Affairs and Endowments, in coordination with the National Taskforce for Combating Coronavirus (COVID-19), decided to close the mosques for two weeks to enable the competent teams to track infections, carry out the disinfection operation and ascertain proper compliance and implementation of the precautionary procedures. The ministry called on all to assume the religious and national responsibility and fully adhere to the health regulations to ensure the safety of all citizens and residents.…

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives elected Donald Trump’s candidate Elise Stefanik to their leadership, succeeding Liz Cheney, who they ousted earlier this week for criticizing the former president’s continued false claims of election fraud. Stefanik, a 36-year-old congresswoman from New Yorkstate, rose to prominence with her fierce defense of Trump during his first impeachment trial, while Cheney angered her Republican colleagues by rejecting what she called Trump’s “big lie” about his November loss to Democratic President Joe Biden. The secret-ballot vote boosted Trump’s dominance over the party even after it lost its majorities in the House and Senate, as well as the…

Wealthier nations should postpone plans to give children and teenagers Covid vaccines and instead donate supplies to low-income countries, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) says. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Friday urged countries to supply more vaccines to the global fair-access scheme Covax. The international distribution of Covid vaccines remains vastly uneven. Since the first vaccines were approved in December, wealthier countries have bought up most of the supply. Many are racing to vaccinate as much of their population as possible. Speaking at a virtual conference in Geneva on Friday, the WHO’s Dr Tedros said he understood why…

There has been a growing demand for cancellation of CBSE’s Class12 Board exams this year in view of the surging Covid-19 infections across India. According to the Times of India, sources in the ministry of education (MoE) say there is a likelihood of the exams being scrapped. A senior ministry official said, “Given the current situation, there is possibility of scrapping the exams altogether. CBSE will review the situation and probably would have to work out an alternative assessment scheme for the Class12 students.” “The pandemic situation at present is at least four times worse than last year and schools are likely to stay…

Saudi authorities have started enforcing a decree requiring workers in certain commercial activities to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or undergo weekly testing for detecting the virus, local media reported. The move adopted by the Ministry of Municipal and Village Affairs applies to workers at restaurants, coffee shops, all types of food stores, barber shops and women’s beauty centres. The decree took effect as of Thursday, the first day of the Islamic month of Shawwal. Negative result The ministry said that workers in these businesses must get vaccinated against the highly contagious disease, or show a weekly negative result through PCR…

Ireland’s health service operator shut down all its IT systems on Friday to protect them from a “significant” ransomware attack, crippling diagnostic services, disrupting COVID-19 testing and forcing hospitals to cancel many appointments. Ireland’s COVID-19 vaccination programme was not disrupted as it is on a different system, but the attack was affecting IT systems serving all other local and national health provision, the head of the Health Service Executive (HSE) said. The HSE shut down the IT systems as a precaution to protect as much information as possible and was assessing how the attack would affect other services, Chief Executive…

A woman who claims to have purchased the winning ticket in a $26m (£18.5m) California Lottery draw says she left it in a trouser pocket and destroyed it in the wash, US media report. The winning SuperLotto Plus ticket was sold at a convenience store in the Los Angeles suburb of Norwalk in November. The woman, who has not been named, was reportedly captured by CCTV purchasing a ticket at the store at the time. But a deadline set for claiming the substantial prize passed on Thursday. Lottery organisers say the win must be redeemed within 180 days of the…

The rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in England has prevented nearly 12,000 deaths and more than 30,000 hospitalisations in older people, an analysis by government agency Public Health England (PHE) said on Friday. Britain has given two-thirds of its adult population at least one shot of COVID-19 vaccine, helping Prime Minister Boris Johnson in his efforts to reopen the economy by the summer. Up until the end of April, the COVID-19 vaccination programme prevented 11,700 deaths in people aged 60 or over in England, PHE said. An estimated 33,000 hospitalisations of people aged 65 and above had been avoided in the…

Google said on Friday it was leading about 30 companies and trade groups in opposing a lawsuit that seeks to stop over 90,000 spouses of highly skilled U.S. visa workers from having jobs in the country. The organizations contend undoing employment authorization for spouses would cause financial havoc for families, because most made life choices such as having children or buying homes based on the expectation of two incomes. A federal judge in Washington is expected to decide in the coming months on the lawsuit challenging the work permits tied to H-4 visas, which are issued to spouses of H-1B…