Breaking News, July 9

Depressed over a property issue, a 21-year-old man allegedly killed his 46-year-old mother by slitting her throat with a sharp weapon at their flat in suburban Mulund on Saturday, police said. The accused, Jayesh Panchal, later tried to kill himself by jumping in front of a local train at Mulund railway station but was saved by an alert Government Railway Police (GRP) official.

A senior Pakistani journalist was assaulted on Saturday by unidentified persons outside his office here, amidst rising cases of harassment of media persons critical of state institutions.

 Four complaints against Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra for her alleged objectionable remarks about Goddess Kali have been clubbed to form a single FIR in Madhya Pradesh's Jabalpur district, a police official said on Saturday.

A bag containing around Rs 4 lakh, which was mistakenly left behind by a passenger, was returned by the conductor and driver of a state-run bus here. A Deoli based man, identified as Ramavatar Soni, forgot his bag in a Rajasthan State Roadways Transportation Corporation (RSRTC) bus after he wrongly boarded a wrong one when he got down to attend nature’s call, conductor of Jhalawar depot bus Rehan Khan (27) told.

Strengthening the maritime capabilities of the Indian Navy, the second P17A stealth frigate built by warship maker Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE) will be launched by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on July 15, a senior official said here on Saturday.

Pakistan's law enforcement agencies have arrested six terrorists, including four from the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) who were planning to target security personnel and sensitive buildings in the country, police said on Saturday.

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has set up a three-member commission for carrying out a fresh delimitation exercise of the municipal wards in Delhi, according to a statement issued by the MCD on Saturday.

Two teachers were killed and as many injured after their car rammed into a tree when they were returning from panchayat poll duty in Madhya Pradesh's Shahdol district on Saturday, an official said.

A 65-year-old man was shot and wounded when the weapon of a government railway police official accidentally went off in a train, police said on Saturday. 

The city crime branch (CCB) police on Saturday arrested 12 students for possessing ganja and for their involvement in the supply of the narcotic substance to students and the public in the city. Police said the group was nabbed after the police conducted an investigation based on a tip-off that some students are engaged in the sale of ganja.

The Mumbai police arrested two brothers for allegedly attacking and killing a 21-year-old man within two hours of the crime in Powai here, an official said on Saturday.

Rajasthan received heavy rainfall at isolated places in the last 24 hours, Meteorological Department (MeT) said. Bhilwara recorded the highest rainfall at 8 cm, followed by Phagi in Jaipur with 5 cm of rainfall till Saturday morning. Several other places received rainfall below 5 cm during the same period.

The Union Home Ministry has set up a three-member commission for carrying out a fresh delimitation of the municipal wards in Delhi, according to a statement issued by the MCD on Saturday. The exercise will pave the way for the civic polls in Delhi, which would be the first since the reunification of three corporations recently. "Taking a step forward in the direction of holding municipal elections, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, by exercising its powers under sections 3, 3A and 5 of the DMC Act 1957, has constituted a delimitation commission to assist central government in delimitation of wards and carrying out other functions related to it," the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) said in the statement.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met his Chinese counterpart on Saturday in a new effort to try to rein in or at least manage rampant hostility that has come to define recent relations between Washington and Beijing that are now complicated by the war in Ukraine. Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held five hours of talks in the Indonesian resort of Bali, a day after they both attended a gathering of top diplomats from the Group of 20 rich and large developing countries that ended without a joint call to end Russia's war in Ukraine or plan for how to deal with its impacts on food and energy security. However, Blinken said he believed Russia had come away from G-20 meeting isolated and alone as most participants expressed opposition to the Ukraine war. However, the ministers were unable to come to a unified G-20 call for an end to the conflict.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has seized Rs 5.32 crore cash after it conducted raids at about 18 locations in Jharkhand as part of a money laundering investigation against Pankaj Mishra, the political representative of Chief Minister Hemant Soren, and those linked to him, officials said Saturday. The searches were launched on Friday in Sahibganj district and its towns like Berhait and Rajmahal and the probe pertains to alleged irregularities in the award of toll plaza tenders in the state. The search teams have seized Rs 5.32 crore in cash from the premises of a person and incriminating documents from multiple locations, officials said, adding that raids at a few locations are continuing. The money laundering case stems from a state police FIR and the ED is also looking at purported links between alleged illegal coal mining operatives and those involved in operations of toll plaza tenders in Jharkhand, official sources had said.

A significant employment growth and an average growth in employee numbers was witnessing a 108 per cent increase in the last two years in the electric vehicle space, a study by CIEL Human Resources services said on Saturday. Engineering department has dominated the EV sector, followed by operation and sales, quality assurance, business development, information technology, human resources and marketing among others. The survey 'Latest Employment Trends in EV sector 2022' was conducted among 15,200 employees over 52 companies by city-based CIEL HR services Ltd. Bengaluru topped the list accounting for 62 per cent of electric vehicle talent, followed by New Delhi 12 per cent, 9 per cent Pune, Coimbatore 6 per cent and Chennai 3 per cent, the study said.

Low-lying areas faced inundation while rivulets were in spate at several places in Telangana on Saturday following incessant rains in the last few days. Navipet in Nizamabad district received 23 cms of rain, the Met Centre of IMD here said. Rainfall led to water-logging in low-lying areas, while tanks received copious inflows in Nizamabad and Kamareddy districts. In its Daily Weather Report, the Met Centre said extremely heavy rain was recorded at isolated places in Nizamabad district. Downpour was reported at many places in Jayashankar Bhupalpally, Nizamabad and Rajanna Sircilla districts. "Southwest monsoon has been vigorous over Telangana," it said.

The 11th batch of over 6,000 Amarnath pilgrims left the Jammu city on Saturday for the twin base camps in Kashmir even as the annual pilgrimage to the cave shine in south Kashmir was halted because of the flash floods triggered by heavy rainfall that killed at least 16 people. The 43-day Yatra began on June 30 from the twin routes -- the traditional 48-km from Nunwan in Pahalgam in south Kashmir's Anantnag, and the 14-km shorter but steep Baltal route in Ganderbal district of central Kashmir. However, the pilgrimage has been suspended after the flash flood near the cave shrine on Friday evening swept away scores of people, swamping tents and community kitchens with mud and rocks hurtling down a hillside.

President of Sri Lanka Gotabaya Rajapaksa flees as protesters surrounded his residence today. 

District Board authorities here have written to the Bihar government seeking immediate shifting of a rare over a century-old steam road roller built by a British company and other antique artifacts from the Collectorate campus to the Patna Museum, even as a large portion of the Dutch-era building housing the items has been demolished. The vintage steam road roller, manufactured by John Fowler and Co, Leeds, England is currently languishing in an open area in front of the historic District Engineer's Office building situated on the banks of the Ganga river, whose elongated east wing was demolished on July 3 to make way for the new collectorate complex.

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Two farm labourers died after being struck by lightning while they were working at a farm in Amravati district of Maharashtra, police said on Saturday. The incident occurred on Friday afternoon when they were spraying insecticide on the crop near Jaamdol under Mahuli police station limits, they said. The deceased were identified as Kishor Bhagwan Patil (42) and Avinash Shyamrav Nimbhorkar (35), both residents on Karajgaon village, the police said. 

An earthquake of 4.4 magnitude on the Richter scale struck Vijayapura district on Saturday morning, Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC) said. The earthquake occurred at 06:22:14 AM, epicentred at "2.3 kms NW of Kannur GP, Vijayapura Taluk, Vijayapura district (Bordering Vijayapura and Maharashtra region)", it said in a statement. KSNDMC Director Manoj Rajan said, as per the Seismic Intensity map of the said earthquake from the epicentre, the intensity observed is moderate and the tremor might be felt up to a radial distance of 30-40 kms from the epicentre. "This type of earthquake would not create any harm to the local community as it is moderate, though there might be local vibrations felt. The epicenter falls in Seismic Zone III and the region is void of any structural discontinuities as per the tectonic map," he said, adding that the community need not panic as the intensity observed is moderate.

The man who fatally shot former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has told police that he initially planned to attack a leader of a religious group, the Japanese media reported on Saturday, quoting police sources as saying. Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, has also said he had a grudge against a "specific organisation" -- possibly the religious group -- that he believed was linked to Abe, Kyodo News reported, quoting the police. The religious leader was not identified in the report. Abe, 67, died on Friday morning after being shot from behind during an election campaign speech near a train station in the western prefecture of Nara. Yamagami was arrested at the scene where he was wielding a homemade gun.

Telangana Special Chief Secretary, Municipal Administration and Urban Development department, Arvind Kumar inspected the Formula E track in the city, which is all set to host the race event early next year. The state capital is the first Indian city to host Formula E racing and the event is scheduled for February 11, 2023. Formula E is the apex motorsport in the Electric Vehicle arena, an official release said on Friday. The site inspection conducted on Friday was to finalise the track for the main event, which is planned alongside Hussain Sagar, Lumbini Park and NTR Park.

A Maoist wanted in the 2013 killing of the then Pakur Superintendent of Police Amarjeet Balihar has been nabbed in Giridih district of Jharkhand, a police statement said. The arrested Maoist, identified as Nandlal Soren alias Hitesh alias Pavitra da alias Vijay da, was a member of the Special Area Committee of the banned CPI (Maoist) outfit and was carrying a bounty of Rs 25 lakh on his head, it said. Acting on a tip-off, a team comprising Jharkhand Police and CRPF personnel raided Kodadih village in Pirtand Police Station area and nabbed him, the statement said.

In a rare gesture, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US President Joe Biden and Australian PM Anthony Albanese issued a joint statement on Saturday paying rich tributes to Japanese leader Shinzo Abe and recalled his key role in setting up of the Quad and pushing for a free and open Indo-Pacific. Abe, the 67-year-old former Japanese prime minister, died after being shot while giving a campaign speech in the southern Japanese city of Nara on Friday morning. Modi, Biden and Albanese said Abe was a "transformative leader" for Japan and worked tirelessly to advance a shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific. The Quad comprised India, the US, Japan and Australia.

Telangana BJP MLA T Raja Singh had a miraculous escape from the flash flood triggered by a cloudburst near the holy cave shrine of Amarnath in south Kashmir, which left 13 dead. Raja Singh and his family members who reached Amarnath by a chopper decided to use ponies to descend the hills before as the weather condition began deteriorating. “We sensed that weather suddenly changed and getting deteriorated. In those circumstances chopper service would also be cancelled. So we decided to descend the hills using ponies. I could see cloudburst about one kilometer down the hills. Several tents swept away in the floods,” Raja Singh told media on Friday night.

Sri Lankan Police has lifted the curfew that was imposed in seven divisions in the country’s Western Province, including in Colombo, ahead of planned anti-government protests on Saturday, after coming under sustained pressure from top lawyers’ association, human rights groups and political parties. The curfew was imposed in seven police divisions in the Western Province, which included Negombo, Kelaniya, Nugegoda, Mount Lavinia, Colombo North, Colombo South and Colombo Central with effect from 9 pm of Friday night until further notice, police said. "People living in the areas where police curfew had been enforced should strictly limit themselves to their houses and law would be enforced severely against those violating curfew," the Inspector General of Police (IGP) C. D. Wickramaratne announced on Friday. The Bar Association of Sri Lanka protested the police curfew, terming it “illegal and a violation of fundamental rights.”

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Thane district in Maharashtra has reported 267 new coronavirus positive cases, which raised its overall infection tally to 7,30,961, a health official said on Saturday. With these cases recorded on Friday, there are now 2,791 active cases in the district, he said. As one patient succumbed to the infection during the day, the death toll went up to 11,913, while the recovery count stood at 7,15,990, the official added. 

Elon Musk's tumultuous $44 billion bid to buy Twitter is on the verge of collapse — after the Tesla CEO sent a letter to Twitter's board Friday saying he is terminating the acquisition. Twitter did not immediately respond to a message for comment. It is not entirely clear whether Twitter's board will accept the $1 billion breakup fee or if there will be a court battle over the deal. The possible unraveling of the deal is just the latest twist in a saga between the world's richest man and one of the most influential social media platforms. Much of the drama has played out on Twitter, with Musk — who has more than 95 million followers — lamenting that the company was failing to live up to its potential as a platform for free speech.

READ FULL STORY HERE

READ FULL STORY HERE

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met his Chinese counterpart on Saturday in a new effort to try to rein in or at least manage rampant hostility that has come to define recent relations between Washington and Beijing. Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi were holding talks in the Indonesian resort of Bali, a day after they both attended a gathering of top diplomats from the Group of 20 rich and large developing countries that failed to reach consensus over Russia's war in Ukraine and how to deal with its impacts. Wang and Blinken were discussing a range of contentious issues from tariffs and trade and human rights to Taiwan and disputes in the South China Sea. Just two days earlier, the two countries' top military officers had faced off over Taiwan during a virtual meeting.

A widespread network outage from Rogers Communications Inc. left many Canadian customers without mobile and internet service Friday and caused problems for police, courthouses, passport offices and other facilities. A notice on the Toronto-based telecommunications company's website said the outage is affecting both wireless and home service customers as well as phone and chat support. The outage disrupted services across retailers, courthouses, airlines, train networks, credit card processors and police forces, pushing many to delay business transactions, serve customers through analog means or even flock to coffee shops where they could find Wi-Fi.

Moody's Investors Service downgraded Mexican government debt Friday from Baa1 to Baa2, citing concerns about debt servicing costs and Mexico's support for the state-owned oil company. Baa2 is still one step above the lowest investment-grade rating, Baa3. Moody's said in a statement that “Mexico's debt affordability remains consistently weaker than that of similarly rated peers and is likely to further deteriorate given the higher interest rate environment.” Mexico's domestic inflation is current near 8%. It also said “Mexico's fiscal prospects will be adversely affected by ... increased expenditure rigidity related to recurrent support to state-owned enterprises, particularly Pemex, increased pension expenditures and earmarked capital spending to flagship projects.” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's centerpiece policy is to build oil refinery capacity and rail lines. He has also pledged to rescue state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos, which is heavily in debt.

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President Joe Biden on Friday condemned the “extreme” Supreme Court majority that ended a constitutional right to abortion and delivered an impassioned plea for Americans upset by the decision to “vote, vote, vote vote” in November. Under mounting pressure from fellow Democrats to be more forceful in response to the ruling, he signed an executive order to try to protect access to the procedure. The actions Biden outlined are intended to head off some potential penalties that women seeking abortion may face after the ruling, but his order cannot restore access to abortion in the more than a dozen states where strict limits or total bans have gone into effect. About a dozen more states are set to impose additional restrictions.

In the cloudburst-affected area at the lower Amarnath Cave site, Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) troops conducted a rescue operation early on Saturday, said ITBP.Meanwhile, the Directorate of Health Services, Kashmir cancelled all leaves of the staff (Regular/Contractual) and directed them to report to duties immediately."All leaves of the staff (Regular / Contractual) are hereby cancelled with the direction to report for duties immediately," the circular had said.The Directorate of Health Services had directed all the officers to keep their mobiles switched on, as per the Circular.Chief Medical Officers of south Kashmir i.e. Pulwama, Kulgam, Shopian & Anantnag are directed to send additional doctors and paramedical staff along with drugs, disposables and emergency aid kits to Pahalgam.Chief Medical Officers of North & Central Kashmir i.e. Srinagar, Bandipora, Baramulla & Budgam are directed to send additional doctors & paramedical staff along with drugs, disposables and emergency aid kits to Baltal.The incharge Controller of Stores (Health) is directed to coordinate with General Manager JKMSCL Srinagar for keeping emergency supplies ready to be dispatched to Baltal & Pahalgam Immediately in consultation with Yatra Officer DHSK.

A 29-year-old man was arrested for allegedly duping a woman of Rs 12 lakh after introducing himself as an assistant commandant in the Indo-Tibetan Border Police at a matrimonial website, police said on Friday. The accused has been identified as Ashish Kukreti, a resident of Pune in Maharashtra, they said. On June 4, a woman, a resident of Vasant Kunj, lodged a complaint wherein she alleged that a person had approached her through a matrimonial app on April 25 and they became friends after that, a senior police officer said.

Elon Musk's tumultuous $44 billion bid to buy Twitter is on the verge of collapse — after the Tesla CEO sent a letter to Twitter's board Friday saying he is terminating the acquisition. Twitter did not immediately respond to a message for comment. It is not entirely clear whether Twitter's board will accept the $1 billion breakup fee or if there will be a court battle over the deal. The possible unraveling of the deal is just the latest twist in a saga between the world's richest man and one of the most influential social media platforms. Much of the drama has played out on Twitter, with Musk — who has more than 95 million followers — lamenting that the company was failing to live up to its potential as a platform for free speech. On Friday, shares of Twitter fell 5% to $36.81, well below the $54.20 that Musk had offered to pay. Shares of Tesla, meanwhile, climbed 2.5% to $752.29. In a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk said Twitter has “not complied with its contractual obligations” surrounding the deal, namely giving Musk enough information to “make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter's platform.”

President Joe Biden spoke by phone Friday with the sister of Paul Whelan, an American who has been imprisoned in Russia for more than three years, according to the White House. Biden's phone call to Elizabeth Whelan came after Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris s poke earlier this week to the wife of WNBA star Brittney Griner, who has been held for more than four months in Russia. Griner pleaded guilty this week to drug charges. Biden also wrote a letter to Griner that was delivered to her when she appeared in a Russian court Thursday.