"Dangerous and unethical experiment": England drops restrictions despite surging COVID infections
CBSN
London — Amid a massive surge in COVID-19 cases fueled by the highly contagious Delta variant, the U.K. government dropped virtually all of its remaining coronavirus restrictions for England on Monday, declaring July 19 "Freedom Day." But as nightclubs and movie theaters reopened to full-capacity crowds, thousands of people, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson, were forced to self-isolate due to possible exposure to the virus.
"This is the right moment, but we've got to do it cautiously," Johnson said in a statement defending the reopening. His stance is that mass-vaccination has weakened the link between infections and severe illness and deaths in England, and that easing restrictions to get the economy back up and running now will help avoid a flood of cases in the fall, right as hospitals deal with seasonal flu and other winter maladies. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the other nations in the U.K., were maintaining some COVID-19 restrictions despite the move by Johnson's government, which only dictates health policy in England.
Khan Younis, Gaza Strip — Hamas on Thursday released the bodies of four Israeli hostages, said to include a mother and her two young children who have long been feared dead and had come to embody the nation's agony following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel.
Concern over a man who'd exhibited "fixated behavior" caused Emma Raducanu to approach the chair umpire in tears and take an unscheduled break in her second-round match at the Dubai Championships, the Women's Tennis Association said Wednesday. The incident unfolded three years after a man in Britain was convicted of stalking the star player at her family home.
Rio de Janeiro — Brazil's prosecutor-general on Tuesday formally charged former President Jair Bolsonaro with attempting a coup to stay in office after his 2022 election defeat, in a plot that included a plan to poison his successor and current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and kill a Supreme Court judge.
A Delta Air Lines jet crashed Monday during a fiery landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport, skidding down the tarmac before coming to a stop while flipped upside down.
New videos show the moment a Delta flight from Minneapolis crash-landed, flipped and caught fire in Toronto.
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — Senior officials from Russia and the U.S. met in Saudi Arabia Tuesday to begin talks on improving ties and negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine.
Italian archaeologists recently uncovered a "monumental necropolis" that appeared to honor an elite class of people thousands of years ago, provincial officials announced this month.
Russia has freed a U.S. citizen arrested earlier this month on drug smuggling charges, according to Russian media reports and a U.S. official who spoke with The Associated Press. The move appeared to be an effort to ease tension between Moscow and Washington ahead of talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, which are expected to focus on the war in Ukraine and the fragile ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in Gaza.
Beijing — China's Foreign Ministry took issue Monday with a revised U.S. government fact sheet that removed a line on American opposition to independence for Taiwan. The United States "gravely backpedaled" on its position on Taiwan and sent the wrong message to "separatist forces" on the island, ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said.
Israel's prime minister vowed to "open the gates of hell" if Hamas does not return all its hostages and praised President Trump's "bold vision for Gaza's future."
Irish jockey Michael O'Sullivan died on Sunday after suffering injuries in a fall during a race earlier this month, the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board said. He was 24.
A hockey match between rivals the United States and Canada descended into chaos from the moment the puck was dropped as three fights broke out in the first nine seconds.
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