World

Opponents of a pipeline project that crosses three states have asked a federal court to halt construction in Minnesota on allegations that U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to address several environmental issues when it approved a water quality permit.

Federal, state and local law enforcement officers on Monday were searching for the motive behind a bombing that rocked Nashville on Christmas morning, with evidence pointing to the 63yearold suspect on a suicide mission that took only his life.

Lebanon has secured about 2 million doses of PfizerBioNTech's COVID19 vaccine, which will cover 20% of the country's nationals, the health minister said on Monday.

The distribution of an initial 200 million doses of the COVID19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech across the European Union will be completed by September, a spokesman for the EU Commission said on Monday.

South Korea said on Sunday it will extend social distancing measures introduced to try to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic for another six days, to Jan. 3, even as it continues to report nearrecord numbers of new cases each day.

Europe launches a crossborder vaccination programme of unprecedented scale on Sunday as part of efforts to end a COVID19 pandemic that has crippled economies and claimed more than 1.7 million lives around the world.

The Nordic country has reportedly received more 5,300 applications in a month for the 90-Day Finn scheme that offers foreign tech workers and their families the chance to relocate to it for three months.

The notice was issued after a preliminary hearing at the five-member Constitutional bench headed by Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher Rana on the writ petitions filed against the government's decision to dissolve the House of Representatives.

Russia expects to support an increase in oil production by the group, known as OPEC+, of another 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) from February at next month's summit of the leading global oil producers, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said.

A Japanese health ministry panel said on Friday that people aged 65 or older should get priority for vaccination against COVID19 as the government sets guidelines that will also prioritise frontline healthcare workers and those with medical conditions.

Hong Kong extended a compulsory quarantine by an extra seven days to 21 days for all visitors outside China, effective Friday, in steppedup efforts to prevent a new variant of the novel coronavirus from spreading.

Josette Boyeldieu and Guylene Lehmann are pensioners, one of the groups most at risk from COVID19, but that did not discourage them from spending part of the Christmas holiday with their children and grandchildren near Paris.

A new variant of the pandemic SARSCoV2 coronavirus that has been spreading rapidly in Britain has been found in Germany for the first time, the German state of BadenWuerttemberg said on Thursday.

South Korea's Prime Minister Chung Syekyun said on Friday 1,241 new coronavirus cases were reported the day before, the highest daily count recorded, with a large outbreak at a prison in Seoul.

Andrew Yang, an entrepreneur and former 2020 U.S. presidential contender, has filed papers to run for mayor of New York City as a Democrat in next year's elections, according to the city's Campaign Finance Board.

The episode prompted alarm after social media reports at the time indicated that the man’s wife had told emergency medical workers that her husband had tested positive for the coronavirus.