Millions of households in Manchester and nearby parts of northern England woke up to new lockdown rules Friday, hastily imposed following concerns over a spike in regional coronavirus infections. Under the measures, people from different households in the affected areas are banned from...

 Egypt’s president has approved new legal amendments that further exclude any serious competitors from elections and give the military greater control over civilian affairs, a leading rights group said Thursday. The amendments, published earlier this week in the country’s official...

Organising this year's scaled-down hajj required "double efforts" by Saudi authorities amid the coronavirus pandemic, King Salman said Friday after being discharged from hospital following gall bladder surgery. Only up to 10,000 people already residing in the kingdom are participating in...

Saudi Arabia’s 84-year-old ruler, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, tweeted Eid al-Adha greetings early on Friday, shortly after leaving hospital. The Saudi King, custodian of Islam’s holiest sites, left King Faisal hospital on Thursday after undergoing surgery to remove his gallbladder earlier in...

India's coronavirus death toll passed 35,000 on Friday, overtaking that of Italy, as floods affecting millions and killing almost 350 hampered the battle against the pandemic. With 779 new deaths in 24 hours, the health ministry put total fatalities at 35,747, giving India the world's...

When Amir Hussein was finally allowed to leave the horrific migrant camp of Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos, it was supposed to be the end of a year-long odyssey. "After (experiencing) hell in Moria, we had not expected to find ourselves on the street in Athens," says the 14-year-old...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday gave his clearest indication yet that the United States would seek to force UN sanctions on Iran if an arms embargo lapses. Russia and China, two of the Permanent Five nations that enjoy veto power on the Security Council, want the UN embargo on...

Florida registered a record 253 coronavirus deaths on Thursday, setting a grim new high for the third day in a row as the state closes down some COVID-19 test centers due to a looming tropical storm. The state's daily toll has leapt over the last week, bringing the overall deaths to 6,586,...

Lewis Hamilton plans to stay in Formula One, chase championships and act as symbol in the fight against racism for at least three more years, the six-time world champion said on Thursday. Speaking during an official video news conference ahead of this weekend's British Grand Prix, the world...

Libya's internationally recognized government in Tripoli will impose a full lockdown in areas of the country it controls, it said Thursday, after a sharp rise in coronavirus cases. Libya, split since 2014 between areas held by the Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli and a rival...

Israeli security officials announced Thursday they have caught a Hamas militant who fled the Gaza Strip and swam into Israeli waters, confirming weeks of rumors that a Hamas figure had "defected" to Israel. Israel's Shin Bet security agency said that Izz el-Din Hussein, 24, fled Gaza on...

 Russia demanded an explanation from Belarus Thursday, after Minsk arrested a group of alleged Russian mercenaries and said they were suspected of plotting "acts of terrorism" before a presidential election. Belarusian state television broadcast footage Wednesday of more than 30...

The US economy shrank at a dizzying 33% annual rate in the April-June quarter - by far the worst quarterly plunge ever - when the viral outbreak shut down businesses, throwing tens of millions out of work and sending unemployment surging to 14.7%, the government said Thursday. The Commerce...

Hopes that this year's Italian Grand Prix would be held in front of a controlled number of spectators were quashed on Thursday. Officials announced in a statement that the event to be staged from September 4-6 at Monza will be run behind closed doors due to the coronavirus pandemic....

President Donald Trump is for the first time floating a "delay" to November’s presidential election, as he makes unsubstantiated allegations that increased mail-in voting will result in fraud. The dates of federal elections are set by Congress, and the Constitution makes no provisions for a...

Nearly 2,000 Yazidi children freed from the grips of the Islamic State group in recent years are still trapped by psychological and physical trauma, Amnesty International warned on Thursday.  In a new report based on dozens of interviews in northern Iraq, the rights group found that...

Up to 800 million children around the world are being poisoned by lead from water and air pollution, the United Nations warned Thursday in a special report on the "massive and previously unknown" health crisis. One out of every three children is estimated to have levels of lead -- a potent...

Tradition dictates that Muslims donate cuts of mutton during Friday's Eid al-Adha festival, which would spell brisk business for butcher Abdulrazak Darwish but Lebanon's economic crisis has cast a pall over his trade. "This year has been the worst for us because of soaring inflation," said...

Global coronavirus cases exceeded 17 million mark on Thursday, according to a running tally by US-based Johns Hopkins University. The number of deaths from the virus has reached 667,084, with recoveries topping 9.95 million. The US remains the worst-hit country with over 4.4 million...

In Brazil, health care workers are on the front line of the coronavirus pandemic in more ways than one, treating patients but also volunteering to test some of the most promising experimental vaccines. Brazil is the country with the second-highest number of infections and deaths in the...