US First Lady Jill Biden pranked reporters and staff flying back from a trip with her on Thursday, disguising herself as a flight attendant to pass out ice cream bars for April Fool’s.

Officials from Tehran and Washington will travel to Vienna next week as part of efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and global powers, although they will not hold direct talks, diplomats said yesterday.

At least 51 people were killed in Taiwan yesterday when a packed train collided with a vehicle on the tracks and then derailed inside a tunnel, in the island’s worst railway accident in decades.

A prominent Muslim organisation in India has released new guidelines, asking the community to shun dowries and extravagant marriages after a woman recently died by suicide due to “dowry harassment”.

Eleven people have died from drinking bootleg alcohol in India’s poorest state Bihar, officials said yesterday, with their families blaming authorities for their alleged failure to crack down on illegal liquor makers.

Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will hold face-to-face talks with Joe Biden in Washington on April 16, as the first foreign leader hosted by the US president, the Japanese government said yesterday.

About 15 million doses of the single-shot coronavirus vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson were ruined in a factory error in the United States, The New York Times reported.

A 14-year-old Rohingya girl has been taken to a border town in northeastern India for deportation to Myanmar, police officials said yesterday, as the UN refugee agency and rights groups pressed New Delhi to halt the process.

US President Joe Biden’s administration said Wednesday that Israel’s control of the West Bank is indeed “occupation,” clarifying its stance after the release of a report that seemed to downplay the term, adopting language used by Donald Trump’s government.

Countries have gone back to reimposing lockdowns to curb the spread of coronavirus as cases and deaths surge around the world owing to the new strains of virus.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday hit back at West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress criticism of his visit to temples in Satkhira and Orakandi in Bangladesh trip as “unethical and violative” of the election model code of conduct and defended his trips to the shrines.

Myanmar’s deposed leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been charged with breaking a colonial-era official secrets law, her lawyer said yesterday, the most serious charge against the veteran opponent of military rule.

International tourist arrivals fell by 87 percent year-on-year in January due to the coronavirus pandemic, the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) said yesterday.

China yesterday slammed “unethical” critics as it faced mounting pressure over origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, after the World Health Organization chief revived the theory that the coronavirus may have leaked from a Chinese lab.

Racism persists in Britain but the country is not “institutionally racist”, according to a much-anticipated study to be published yesterday by a government commission, which drew immediate pushback from racial equality campaigners.

Two Capitol Police officers sued former US president Donald Trump Tuesday for inciting the January 6 insurrection that left dozens of their fellow officers injured and one dead.

Russia yesterday announced it had registered what it said was the world’s first coronavirus vaccine for animals, describing the step as important to disrupting mutations.

Oscar is 12 years old and has just crossed the Rio Grande river from Mexico to Texas in a small, inflatable boat piloted by human traffickers. He is tearful, hungry and afraid after a dangerous month-long journey from Guatemala.

Tropical forest losses hit their third-highest level in almost two decades last year, despite improved conservation in parts of Southeast Asia, researchers said yesterday, warning of rising deforestation risks as nations restart pandemic-hit economies.

A critical component of the immune system known as T cells that respond to fight infection from the original version of the novel coronavirus appear to also protect against three of the most concerning new virus variants, according to a US laboratory study released on Tuesday. Several recent studies have shown that certain variants of the novel coronavirus can undermine immune protection from antibodies and vaccines.