High rise blocks in variant virus alert lockdown

Mettmann: Health officials have quarantined the residents of two highrise buildings in a

German town after several people tested positive for a coronavirus variant first detected in India.

Officials from the county of Mettmann said “there are currently several infections with the Indian virus variant” in the western town of Velbert.

They said several families who were in close touch with each other were affected and that everyone was being tested.

Local broadcaster

WDR reported that about 200 people in the two buildings were affected.

They have been quarantined, are getting tested and the Red Cross is providing food and other help.

So far, the Covid-19 variant that was first detected in India has not been found much in Germany, but is said to be more contagious than other variants currently more prevalent in the country.

Sydney: A surfer has been killed by a shark off the Australian east coast.

The man, in his 50s, had been surfing off Forster, 137 miles north of Sydney, when he was attacked late in the morning, a police statement said.

Onlookers pulled the man from the water suffering critical injuries to his upper right thigh, police said.

The Ambulance Service said the man could not be resuscitated despite the best efforts of paramedics and bystanders at the scene.

Forster’s beaches have been closed.

It was the first fatal shark attack in Australia since November when a 55-year-old surfer was mauled near the northwest town of Broome.

Hong Kong: Leader Carrie Lam has defended the freezing of pro-democracy publisher Jimmy Lai’s assets as a necessary move under the city’s new national security law to protect the safety of all Chinese people.

Ms Lam told reporters the move was authorised under the sweeping law that was imposed on the city by Beijing last year and empowered authorities to “freeze suspicious assets involved that would undermine national security”.

“It means the Hong Kong government is very serious and rigorous when dealing with national security matters, because it involves something that endangers national security, not just the safety of Hong Kong society, but also the safety of 1.4 billion Chinese people,” Ms Lam said.

Critics say the national security law is meant to snuff out dissent.

Mr Lai was among 10 people who pleaded guilty on Monday to taking part in another unlawful assembly in 2019.

North Carolina: Three litters of American red wolves, which are critically endangered and number less than two dozen in the wild, have been born at the North Carolina Zoo.

The zoo said the litters, which total 12 pups, were born over three days at the end of April.

All the pups and their mothers are healthy and doing well, the zoo added.

The newest pups bring the total number of red wolves currently in the Asheboro zoo’s breeding programme to 36.

Zoo officials said only around 15 to 20 red wolves remain in the wild, all in eastern North Carolina.