Category: Highlights

Florida reported a record increase of more than 15,000 new cases of Covid-19 in 24 hours on Sunday, a day after Walt Disney World in Orlando reopened and anti-mask activists held a rally at a nearby restaurant. If Florida were a country, it would rank fourth in the world for the most new cases in a day behind the United States, Brazil and India, according to a Reuters analysis. Florida’s daily increases in cases have already surpassed the highest daily tally reported by any European country during the height of the pandemic.…

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China returned to growth in the second quarter after the coronavirus pandemic handed the world’s second largest economy its first contraction in decades, according to an AFP poll of analysts. The survey of analysts from 11 institutions pegged China’s growth at 1.3 percent — a far cry from the 6.1 per cent expansion posted last year but in better shape than other countries still grappling with the contagion. The coronavirus, which first emerged in China’s industrial central province of Hubei late last year, has shut businesses worldwide and destroyed hundreds of millions…

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The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) on Friday formed a committee to visit Karachi and probe complaints of “excessive” electricity load-shedding by the K-Electric (KE) in the metropolis in recent days. The decision came after the power regulator held a public hearing on the subject via video link, which was attended by public representatives, technical experts, representatives of different entities, members of the business community, journalists and consumers from Karachi. Residents of Karachi have in recent weeks complained about frequent unannounced power outages that have added to the misery of soaring…

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When exactly I began putting plastic items in a special tub for recycling I don’t remember. Probably in the 1980s when I moved to Princeton. Then my wife and I separated plastic items, tin cans and newspapers from the regular garbage and put them in a special can to be recycled. Then too certain plastic bottles were separated from all of the other plastic items and joined with aluminum cans in a large leaf bag—plastic of course—because we took those to the supermarket where they earned us a nickel a…

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Huge swarms of desert locusts are wreaking havoc in parts of East Africa, Asia and the Middle East, threatening crops, livelihoods and food supplies. It is already the worst locust infestation in decades, but the forthcoming rainy season could see numbers increase a further 20-fold in some places if swarms are not tackled. Desert locusts, like this one, typically live in the arid areas of about 30 countries between West Africa and India – a region of about 16 million sq km (6.2 million sq miles). A type of grasshopper,…

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