Three security force personnel were injured in an encounter with militants in Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday, police said.

A police official said that a militant was believed to have been killed during the encounter as he was shot at when he tried to jump from a house. However, the body of the militant is yet to be retrieved.

On a tip off about presence of militants in Goosu village of Pulwama, security forces launched a cordon and search operation, the official said.

He said the search operation turned into an encounter after militants opened fire towards security forces positions.

Three security force personnel sustained injuries in the initial firefight. They have been evacuated to a hospital here, the official said.

The operation was going on till last reports came in.PTI

Delhi recorded 2,442 fresh coronavirus cases on Wednesday, taking the infection tally in the city to over 89,000, while the death toll from the disease mounted to 2,803, the authorities said.

Recently, Delhi had eclipsed Mumbai as the city worst-hit by the pandemic in the country.

Sixty-one fatalities were recorded in the past 24 hours, the Delhi health department bulletin said on Wednesday.

The death toll from COVID-19 in Delhi stood at 2,742 on Tuesday.

The bulletin said the death toll due to the infection has risen to 2,803 and the total number of cases mounted to 89,802.

Besides, Mahesh Verma, the head of a Delhi government committee tasked with strengthening the preparedness of hospitals to battle coronavirus, has said the city’s COVID-19 tally may not reach 5.5 lakh cases by July-end as estimated earlier, but one needs to see how the virus behaves during the monsoon.

Meanwhile, a Delhi government panel has recommended roping in postgraduate students, pooling of resources and cash incentives to address the problem of staff shortage in hospitals amid a surge in coronavirus cases, sources said.

The two-member committee, comprising Verma and Dr BL Sherwal, director, Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital (RGSSH), was formed last week.

According to the bulletin, 59,992 patients have recovered, been discharged or migrated so far, while the number of active cases stood at 27,007, adding that 5,51,708 tests have been conducted.

The number of containment zones in the city on Wednesday stood at 437.PTI

The world surpassed two sobering coronavirus milestones Sunday — 500,000 confirmed deaths, 10 million confirmed cases — and hit another high mark for daily new infections as governments that attempted reopenings continued to backtrack and warn that worse news could be yet to come.
COVID-19 has taken a very swift and very dangerous turn in Texas over just the past few weeks, said Gov. Greg Abbott, who allowed businesses to start reopening in early May but on Friday shut down bars and limited restaurant dining amid a spike in cases.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom rolled back reopenings of bars in seven counties, including Los Angeles. He ordered them to close immediately and urged eight other counties to issue local health orders mandating the same.

More Florida beaches will be closing again to avoid further spread of the new coronavirus as officials try to tamp down on large gatherings amid a spike in COVID-19 cases. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said interactions among young people are driving the surge.

Caution was thrown to the wind and so we are where we are,” DeSantis said.

South Africa’s health minister warned that the country’s current surge of cases is expected to rapidly increase in the coming weeks and push hospitals to the limit. Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize said the current rise in infections has come from people who moved back into the workplace.

New clusters of cases at a Swiss nightclub and in the central English city of Leicester showed that the virus was still circulating widely in Europe, though not with the rapidly growing infection rate seen in parts of the U.S., Latin America and India.

Poland and France, meanwhile, attempted a step toward normalcy as they held elections that had been delayed by the virus.

Wearing mandatory masks, social distancing in lines and carrying their own pens to sign voting registers, French voters cast ballots in a second round of municipal elections. Poles also wore masks and used hand sanitizer, and some in virus-hit areas were told to mail in their ballots.

I didn’t go and vote the first time around because I am elderly and I got scared, said Fanny Barouh as she voted in a Paris school.

In Texas, Abbott appeared with Vice President Mike Pence, who cut campaign events from upcoming visits to Florida and Arizona because of rising virus cases in those states.

Pence praised Abbott for both his decision to reopen the state, and to roll back the reopening plans.

You flattened the curve here in Texas … but about two weeks ago something changed, Pence said.

Pence urged people to wear masks when unable to practice social distancing. He and Abbott wore face masks as they entered and left the room, taking them off while speaking to reporters.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, meanwhile, defended the fact that President Donald Trump has rarely worn a mask in public, saying he doesn’t have to follow his own administration’s guidance because as a leader of the free world he’s tested regularly and is in very different circumstances than the rest of us.

Addressing spikes in reported coronavirus cases in some states, Azar said on NBC’s Meet the Press that people have to take ownership of their own behaviors by social distancing and wearing masks if possible.

A reported tally Sunday from Johns Hopkins University researchers said the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic had topped 500,00.

About 1 in 4 of those deaths more than 125,000 have been reported in the U.S. The country with the next highest death toll is Brazil, with more than 57,000, or about 1 in 9.

The true death toll from the virus, which first emerged in China late last year, is widely believed to be significantly higher. Experts say that especially early on, many victims died of COVID-19 without being tested for it.

To date, more than 10 million confirmed cases have been reported globally. About a quarter of them have been reported in the U.S.

The World Health Organisation announced another daily record in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases across the world – topping over 189,000 in a single 24-hour period. The tally eclipses the previous record a week earlier at over 183,000 cases, showing case counts continue to progress worldwide.

Overall the U.S. still has far and away the most total cases. At more than 2,450,000 – roughly twice that of Brazil. The number of actual cases worldwide is much higher.

New York, once the nation’s pandemic epicenter, is now on the exact opposite end, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in an interview with Meet the Press. The state reported five new virus deaths Saturday, its lowest reported daily death toll since March 15.

During the state’s peak pandemic in April, nearly 800 people were dying every day. New York still leads the nation in COVID-19 deaths with nearly 25,000.

In the state of Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee put a hold on plans to move counties to the fourth phase of his reopening plan as cases continue to increase. But in Hawaii, the city of Honolulu announced that campgrounds will reopen for the first time in three months with limited permits to ensure social distancing.

Britain’s government, meanwhile, is considering whether a local lockdown is needed for the central English city of Leicester amid reports about a spike in COVID-19 among its Asian community. It would be Britain’s first local lockdown.PTI

Three unidentified militants were killed in an encounter with the security forces in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag district on Monday, police said.
The security forces launched a cordon and search operation at Khul Chohar in the south Kashmir district following information about the presence of militants in the area, a police official said.

The operation turned into an encounter after the militants fired upon a search party of the forces, who retaliated, the official said.

Three militants have been killed in the encounter so far, he said, adding that the identity and group affiliation were being ascertained.PTI

Cyclone Nisarga made landfall near Mumbai on Wednesday but spared the city already reeling under the COVID-19 pandemic, even as it uprooted trees in nearby Raigad and Palghar districts.

A 58-year-old man died after a power transformer fell on him while he was rushing home to escape the cyclone fury at Umate village in Raigad district, police said.

Two people died and three were injured in two separate cyclone-related incidents in Pune district, an official said.

The cyclone slammed Maharashtra coast with wind speeds of up to 120 kmph, making landfall at 12.30 PM at Alibaug in Raigad district near Mumbai. The process was completed by 2.30 PM, a senior IMD official said.

Cyclone Nisarga is expected to weaken into a deep depression within the next six hours and currently it lays centered over Pune in Maharashtra, the official said.

Mumbaikars and people in neighbouring areas, including those in coastal Gujarat districts had braced for the cyclone but heaved a sigh of relief as Nisarga’s damage appeared limited to uprooting of trees in affected areas.

Ahead of Nisarga’s landfall, thousands of people in its path were evacuated, trains rescheduled, flights cancelled, fishermen ordered out of the seas and rescue workers were put on standby.

Already down on its knees from the raging COVID-19 pandemic, this was the first major cyclone Mumbai would have faced in 72 years, according to Adam Sobel, a professor of atmospheric science at Columbia University in New York.

Nisarga blew in from the Arabian Sea, making landfall at the coastal town Alibaug.

Steeped in colonial history, Alibaug is a quaint little town located about 110 km from Mumbai, and is dotted with sandy beaches, several forts and temples. A speedboat from Mumbai to Mandwa jetty near Alibaug takes 20 minutes.

Nisarga came a week after Cyclone Amphan wreaked havoc in West Bengal.

The IMD had said kuccha houses, trees, electric poles may fall as they may not be able to withstand the speed of the storm. However, as the cyclone weakened into a depression, it was clear that the extent of damage was far lesser than anticipated.

Pune-based Sucheta Nadkarny, 81, who lived in suburban Vile Parle during the last major cyclone to hit Mumbai in 1948 said, “I remember huge trees in our area were uprooted and plants in our garden destroyed.

“I was 10 years old then and remember this because my mother was heartbroken as the plants she had lovingly nurtured were destroyed,” Nadkarny told PTI.

Ahead of Nisarga’s landfall, the state government authorities had asked people in vulnerable areas to shift to safer places.

The Central Railway (CR) rescheduled special trains and many airlines also cancelled their Mumbai operations.

Flight operations at the Mumbai airport, suspended at 2.30 pm, resumed in the evening, a spokesperson of GVK said.

Maharashtra and Gujarat had activated their disaster response mechanism, deploying NDRF teams and evacuating people from areas in the cyclone’s path.

Authorities in Gujarat had shifted over 63,700 people living close to the coast in eight districts to safer places as a precautionary measure, an official said.

All fishing boats which were out in the sea off Palghar coast in Maharashtra returned before the landfall, an official said.

As many as 577 fishing boats from Palghar had gone out in the sea and till Monday evening, 564 came back. Later, help was sought from the Coast Guard, Navy and the fisheries department and the remaining 13 boats also returned to the shore late Tuesday evening.

The threat posed by Nisarga to Mumbai has lessened, but the next few hours will be crucial, Maharashtra Revenue Minister Balasaheb Thorat said.

Authorities in Pune, Nashik and Ahmednagar are on alert considering the trajectory of the cyclone, he said.

“Though the threat posed to Mumbai by the cyclone has reduced, the next few hours will be quite crucial. The cyclone can have influence over an average of 200 km from its eye,” the minister tweeted.

Ahead of the cyclone landfall, carnivorous animals in Mumbai zoo were shifted to holding areas in their enclosures to keep them safe from rain and strong winds, an official said.

Since the city has been experiencing rain, authorities at the Veermata Jijabai Udyan, also popularly known as Byculla Zoo which is spread over an area of 50 acres, took all steps to protect the animals against the rough weather, he said.

Tigers, leopards and hyenas were shifted to holding areas, an official from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets in New York to demonstrate against the killing of African-American George Floyd by a white police officer, setting police vehicles on fire in some areas and several people being arrested through the day.

Videos and photos posted on social media on Saturday showed huge crowds gathering in parts of Manhattan, some even outside the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, in Times Square, Columbus Circle, Queens and areas in Brooklyn and Bronx to protest the killing of Floyd, who died this week after a white police officer kneeled on his neck while he was handcuffed and pinned to the ground.

In his last moments, Floyd can be heard saying “I can’t breathe”, which the demonstrators used as a clarion call demanding action against brutality by the police.

Social media posts showed a couple of police vehicles being set on fire. A report in NBC News said the protesters shouted the slogans “No justice, no peace” and “Hands up, don’t shoot” as they walked the streets. A large vehicle was also set ablaze near the Union Square.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, referring to the protest in Brooklyn, said there were people who came to peacefully protest but there were others “who came there obviously to try and incite acts of violence”.

“There were elected officials at this protest, some of whom were pepper sprayed. What a horrible, horrible situation that the people who represent us, who are there on behalf of their community peacefully observing, trying to help keep the peace, that they ended up being victims of pepper spraying. That’s unacceptable and we need to understand exactly why that happened. There needs to be accountability,” he said.

The Mayor added that he has seen some protest videos that do not reflect the philosophy of this city, the values of this city, the values of this administration, do not reflect the values of the NYPD (New York Police Department)”.

“We’ve seen some videos where protestors were handled very violently and very roughly, and that is not neighbourhood policing and we will not accept that kind of behaviour from any police officer,” he said.

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said the protest in Brooklyn had about 3,000 people, who splintered into several smaller protests. He said over 200 people were arrested and multiple officers injured.

Shea said the police recovered firearm, brass knuckles and a person was arrested for attempted murder of four police officers by throwing a Molotov cocktail into an occupied marked police van.

He said countless bricks and other items were thrown at police officers. “Again, this was a volatile…dangerous situation and any and all violence we denounce. We can do better than this and we must.”

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said there is an injustice in the criminal justice system that is abhorrent.

“And it is not just George Floyd – you look back even in modern history in my life time…We suffered in this city through Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo and Sean Bell and Eric Garner. How many times have we seen the same situation? Yes, the names change, but the color doesn’t. And that is the painful reality of this situation,” he said.

The Governor said America’s history of discrimination and racism dates back hundreds of years.

“That is the honest truth and that’s what is behind this anger and frustration and I share the outrage at this fundamental injustice. I do. And that’s why I say I figuratively stand with the protestors, but violence is not the answer. It never is the answer.

“As a matter of fact, it is counterproductive because the violence then obscures the righteousness of the message and the mission. And you lose the point by the violence in response…Yes, outrage. Yes, anger. Yes, frustration. But not violence.” he said.

Cuomo said he has asked New York Attorney General Letitia James to conduct an independent review of police procedures and crowd actions during the protests.

“Peaceful protest is a basic civil right. That right should be protected and guarded. We take the designation to investigate last night’s actions very seriously. We will act independently to seek answers, ensure that the truth is laid bare, and that there is accountability for any wrongdoing. We will be transparent in our findings as we seek accountability for those who did wrong,” James said.