World

Ireland is to shut down all nonessential retail and extend school holidays in bid to curb a surge in a new strain of COVID19 that is spreading faster than all forecasts, Prime Minister Micheal Martin announced on Wednesday.

Inside the shrine of Chao Mae Thap Thim in Bangkok, a figurine of the sea goddess Mazu sits in the centre of a goldframed altar of deities in a room festooned with lanterns and Chinese scriptures.

A tenured professor at the University of Mississippi filed a lawsuit Wednesday saying that state auditor defamed him by saying the professor should be fired for participating in a twoday scholar strike."

Ticketmaster agreed on Wednesday to pay a $10 million fine to escape prosecution over criminal charges accusing the company of hacking into the computer system of a startup rival.

Taiwan has agreed to buy almost 20 million doses of COVID19 vaccine, including 10 million from AstraZeneca Plc, the government said on Wednesday, adding that it had confirmed the island's first case of the new British variant of the disease.

A former U.S. Navy analyst who served 30 years in prison for spying for Israel arrived in the country early on Wednesday after parole restrictions on his travel expired and was welcomed with a prayer and passport by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Massachusetts Senate on Tuesday voted to override the Republican governor's veto of legislation that expands access to abortion in the state, making the measure law.

Moscow will extend the school holiday by one week until Jan. 17 in hopes of stabilising the situation regarding new coronavirus infections and avoid new COVID19related restrictions, the Russian capital's mayor said on Tuesday.

Russia said late on Sunday it had sent more military police to an area in northern Syria where fighters backed by Turkey have clashed with Kurdish forces near a strategic highway patrolled by Russian and Turkish troops.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday played a trick on the media, pretending he was going to end the daily news conferences that he has used to pillory critics and dominate the national news cycle.

With the passage of time, Americans are less familiar with two fatal Boeing 737 MAX crashes, but if they are made aware of those disasters, more than half say they would probably avoid the aircraft, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll.

Security was tight on Monday as 10 people from Hong Kong faced charges in a mainland Chinese court that include illegal border crossing after a boat they were travelling in was intercepted en route to the democratic island of Taiwan.

The following is what we know about the race to deliver vaccines to help end the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 1.7 million people worldwide.

Turkey said on Sunday its military killed 15 militants from the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which it said was preparing to carry out an attack in a region of northeast Syria controlled by Turkey and its Syrian rebel allies.

Thailand confirmed 121 new infections of the novel coronavirus, a senior official said on Sunday, up from the 103 cases reported earlier in the day.

The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, confirmed a large fire had broken out in a camp in the Miniyeh region and said some injured had been taken to hospital, but did not provide an exact number.