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BOSTON: Tenants saddled with months of back rent are facing the end of the federal eviction moratorium on Saturday (Jul 31), a move that could lead to millions being forced from their homes just as the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus is rapidly spreading. The Biden administration announced Thursday it would allow the nationwide ban to expire, saying it wanted to extend it due to rising infections but its hands were tied after the US Supreme Court signalled in June that it wouldn't be extended beyond the end of July without congressional action. House lawmakers on Friday attempted, but failed, to pass a bill to extend the moratorium even for a few months. Some Democratic lawmakers had wanted it extended until the end of the year. “August is going to be a rough month because a lot of people will be displaced from their homes,” said Jeffrey Hearne, director of litigation Legal Services of Greater Miami. “It will be at numbers we haven’t seen before. There are a …

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NEW DELHI: Top Indian and Chinese army commanders met on Saturday (Jul 31) after a gap of three months to discuss the expeditious disengagement of thousands of forces in a bid to ease the 15-month border tensions and clashes. Indian army spokesman Colonel Sudhir Chamoli said the meeting started on Saturday on the Chinese side of the border in the eastern Ladakh region but gave no other details. The meeting was expected to end later Saturday and both sides were likely to issue statements on Sunday. The 12th round of army-level talks appears to have been pushed by a meeting of the foreign ministers of India and China in Tajikistan on Jul 15. Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that the military standoff was profoundly disturbing their ties. He also warned that any unilateral change in the status quo by Beijing was unacceptable. In February, both sides pulled back front-line troops and weaponry from the Pangong Tso sector. The focus now was on disengaging troops …

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Chinese-Canadian pop idol Kris Wu has been detained on suspicion of rape, Beijing police said Saturday. Wu was accused last week by 19-year-old student Du Meizhu of date-raping her when she was 17, drawing widespread condemnation of the singer on Chinese social media and leading to luxury brands torpedoing deals with him. "Wu Yifan, 30, Canadian nationality, is now criminally detained in accordance with the law by Chaoyang branch of Beijing public security bureau on suspicion of rape," police in Beijing's Chaoyang district said in a Weibo statement, using Wu's Chinese name. Officers said they launched an investigation after Wu was reported by internet users for having "deceived young women multiple times into having sexual relations". The scandal evokes China's #MeToo movement sparked by Chinese feminists in 2018, where women were empowered to voice their experiences of sexual harassment – sometimes involving powerful public figures. Wu originally shot to fame as a member of …

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SRINAGAR, India: The mastermind behind a 2019 attack that killed 40 Indian paramilitary troops has been killed in a shootout with security forces, Indian police in Kashmir said on Saturday (Jul 31). Mohammad Ismail Alvi, the commander of militant organization Jaish-e-Mohammad was killed south of the regional capital Srinagar, Vijay Kumar, the police chief of Kashmir told Reuters. “Mohammad Ismail Alvi alias Lamboo alias Adnan was from the family of Masood Azhar. He was involved in conspiracy and planning of Lethpora Pulwama attack," Kumar said. A suicide bomber rammed a car into a bus carrying Indian paramilitary police in Kashmir on Feb 14, 2019, killing 40 of them in the deadliest attack in decades on security forces in the disputed region, raising tensions with arch foe Pakistan. The Pakistan-based Islamist militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) claimed responsibility for the attack. The Indian government accused Pakistan of letting militant groups operate from its soil …

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LONDON: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s wife, Carrie, said on Saturday (Jul 31) that she is expecting the couple’s second child. Carrie Johnson announced her pregnancy in a post on Instagram in which she also revealed that she suffered a miscarriage earlier this year. “At the beginning of the year, I had a miscarriage which left me heartbroken,’’ she wrote. “I feel incredibly blessed to be pregnant again, but I’ve also felt like a bag of nerves.” Johnson said she hoped to welcome her “rainbow baby” around Christmas. Rainbow baby is a term used to describe a child born after a miscarriage, still birth or the death of an infant. The 33-year-old environmental campaigner and former Conservative Party communications director said she wanted to share the news about her miscarriage to help others. “Fertility issues can be really hard for many people, particularly when on platforms like Instagram it can look like everything is only ever going well,’’ she said. “I found it a …

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CHILLICOTHE, Ohio: Ohio has planted a memorial grove of native trees to remember people who died of COVID-19, and governors and state lawmakers nationwide are considering their own ways to mark the toll of the virus. Temporary memorials have sprung up across the US - 250,000 white flags at RFK stadium in the nation’s capital, a garden of hand-sculpted flowers in Florida, strings of origami cranes in Los Angeles. The process of creating more lasting remembrances that honour the over 600,000 Americans who have died from the coronavirus, though, is fraught compared to past memorial drives because of the politics. Last year, a bill kickstarting a national COVID-19 memorial process died in Congress as the Trump administration sought to deemphasise the ravages of the pandemic. States are a good place to start with monuments given the complexities involved in remembering the federal government’s early handling of the disease, said James Young, founding director of the University of …

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PARIS: Thousands of people protested in Paris and other French cities on Saturday (Jul 31) against a mandatory coronavirus health pass for entry to a wide array of public venues, introduced by the government as it battles a fourth wave of infections. Protesters injured three police officers in Paris, a police spokesperson said. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Twitter that 19 demonstrators were arrested, including 10 in Paris. It was the third weekend in a row that people opposed to President Emmanuel Macron's new COVID-19 measures have taken to the streets, an unusual show of determination at a time of year when many people are focused on taking their summer break. The number of demonstrators has grown steadily since the start of the protests, echoing the "yellow vest" movement, that started in late 2018 against fuel taxes and the cost of living. An interior ministry official said 204,090 had demonstrated across France, including 14,250 in Paris alone. This is about …

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WASHINGTON: The Senate convened for a rare weekend session on Saturday (Jul 31), with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer encouraging the authors of a bipartisan infrastructure plan to finish writing their Bill so that senators can begin offering amendments. Several senators had predicted that the text of the Bill would be ready for review late Friday or early Saturday, but it was not done when the Senate opened for business late in the morning. Schumer said he understood that completing the writing of such a large bill is a difficult project, but he warned that he was prepared to keep lawmakers in Washington for as long as it took to complete votes on both the bipartisan infrastructure plan and a budget blueprint that would allow the Senate to begin work later this year on a massive, US$3.5 trillion social, health and environmental bill. ”The longer it takes to finish, the longer we will be here, but we’re going to get the job done," Schumer said. The bipartisan plan is also …

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BUDAPEST: Seven times Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton said booing from the crowd only fuelled his determination after he took pole position in qualifying for Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix. The Mercedes driver is locked in a fierce battle with Red Bull's world championship leader Max Verstappen, with passions running high after their collision at the previous race. Plenty of Verstappen fans have made their way to Hungary for Sunday's showdown, the last before the August break, and social media posts showed one orange banner hanging from a stand declaring "Sir Cheat: Karma is on its way" Hamilton was recently knighted in Britain. "I appreciate the great support I have here," said the sport's most successful driver of all time, smiling. "Honestly, I've never actually felt so great with the booing. If anything, it just fuels me. So I don't really mind." The Silverstone clash dumped Verstappen out at speed while Hamilton, deemed guilty of dangerous driving by Red Bull, …

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LONDON: "Almost perfect": that's how Jamaican sprint coach Stephen Francis described Elaine Thompson-Herah's performance as she retained her 100 metres title at the Tokyo Olympics in a scorching 10.61 seconds to become the second fastest woman ever. "Almost perfect, but we'll work on it," Francis said when he greeted Thompson-Herah in the halls of the Tokyo Olympic Stadium. Thompson-Herah led a Jamaican clean sweep of the medals, with Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce finishing second in 10.74, while Shericka Jackson claimed bronze in a career-best 10.76. When asked why the performance was not perfect, Francis told the Jamaica Gleaner: "Not the time, but the execution. "I think she was a bit hesitant at the start, but the middle part was as I had wanted it to be." Thompson-Herah's Olympic record time has been beaten only by Florence Griffith-Joyner's 1988 world record of 10.49 - though the American also ran a 10.61. The victory carried Thompson-Herah into elite company as only …

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