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- STEPHANIE NEBEHAY
Geneva, Switzerland
Reuters
Tracing contacts of people with coronavirus infections is the most important step in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, and countries that are failing to do so have no excuse, the World Health Organization chief said on Monday.
"Although many countries have made some progress, globally
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- WILL DUNHAM
Washington DC, US
Reuters
Up to three planets - potentially rocky like Earth - have been spotted around a star located relatively near our solar system - a planetary system offering astronomers intriguing possibilities in the search for signs of extraterrestrial life.
The planets orbit Gliese 887, a
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- RINA CHANDRAN
Bangkok, Thailand
Thomson Reuters Foundation
Chinese tech giant Tencent is creating a "smart city" that utilises technology to put people and the environment first, a model that could be applied to other urban developments after the coronavirus, the project's architect said on Wednesday.
Net City will be a
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- LAURIE GOERING
London, UK
Thomson Reuters Foundation
From creating jobs in home insulation to hiking dirty fuel taxes and expanding electric-vehicle charging, Britain's government should harness the COVID-19 pandemic to accelerate cuts in planet-heating emissions, an advisory panel said on Thursday.
With public support for low-carbon shifts growing and the
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- A CORRESPONDENT
The United Nations is marking its 75th anniversary with a scaled-down event because of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of many challenges a deeply divided world must tackle along with poverty, inequality, discrimination and unending wars.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told Friday’s virtual commemoration of the signing of
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- SARAH SHEARMAN
London, UK
Thomson Reuters Foundation
Getting groceries in the coronavirus crisis has been tricky for many people, but for Eric Jones - an 89-year-old Briton who lives alone and relies on cash - it has proved particularly perplexing.
Before lockdown, a volunteer drove Jones to a supermarket near
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- EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS
Jackson, Mississippi, US
AP
Mississippi will surrender the Confederate battle emblem from its state flag, more than a century after white supremacist legislators embedded it there a generation after the South lost the Civil War.
Mississippi's House and Senate voted in succession Sunday afternoon to retire the flag,
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- A CORRESPONDENT
Jerusalem, Israel
AP
Israeli regulators on Sunday announced they ordered a US-based evangelical broadcaster taken off the air, saying the channel hid its missionary agenda when it applied for a license.
In his decision, Asher Biton, the chairman of the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Council, said he had
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- JANE WARDELL and CATE CADELL
Sydney, Australia/Beijing, China
Reuters
The death toll from COVID-19 reached half a million people on Sunday, according to a Reuters tally, a grim milestone for the global pandemic that seems to be resurgent in some countries even as other regions are still grappling with the first wave.
The
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- EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS
Jackson, Mississippi, US
AP
Spectators at the Mississippi Capitol broke into cheers and applause Saturday as lawmakers took a big step toward erasing the Confederate battle emblem from the state flag, a symbol that has come under intensifying criticism in recent weeks amid nationwide protests against racial injustice.
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- A CORRESPONDENT
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
AP
An Ethiopian Orthodox monk whose family says he is 114-years-old has survived the coronavirus.
Tilahun Woldemichael was discharged from a hospital on Thursday after almost three weeks. He received oxygen and dexamethasone, a cheap and widely available steroid that researchers in England have said
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- FOO YUN CHEE
Brussels, Belgium
Reuters
A global fundraising meeting on Saturday raised €6.15 billion from the United States, the European Commission and numerous countries to fight COVID-19, with many participants stressing that an eventual vaccine should be available to anyone who needs it.
The pledging summit, part of a
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- KAREN MATTHEWS
New York City, US
AP
A federal judge on Friday blocked New York state from enforcing coronavirus restrictions limiting indoor religious gatherings to 25 per cent capacity when other types of gatherings are limited to 50 per cent.
Judge Gary Sharpe enjoined Governor Andrew Cuomo, New York City
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- SAMUEL PETREQUIN
Brussels, Belgium
AP
Five mixed-race women born in Congo when the country was under Belgian rule who were taken away from their Black mothers have filed a lawsuit for crimes against humanity targeting the Belgian state.
With their claim, they hope Belgium will finally recognise its responsibility in
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- THIN LEI WIN
Rome, Italy
Thomson Reuters Foundation
Swarms of locusts have stripped thousands of hectares of pasture and cropland in Sardinia, devastating farmers already struggling from the coronavirus pandemic, farming groups said.
Their numbers fuelled by rising temperatures, the pests have damaged nearly 15,000 hectares of grazing land in the
