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 New Zealand has expanded a lockout in its most populated city as the nation is fighting a fresh outbreak of coronavirus in the population that comes after months without any cases being transmitted locally. New Zealand just five days ago marked an enviable landmark — 100 days without any transmission from the world. But this week has shown how easily things can change, even in a country like New Zealand that has been holding up as a global leader for managing the virus. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern revealed on Friday that Auckland — the town of around 1.5 million residents at the center of the latest outbreak — will remain under a level three lockout for another 12 days, while the majority of the country remains under level two limits, meaning that gatherings are restricted to no more than 100 citizens. The rules expand restrictions which entered into force earlier this week. In Tokoroa Under level three limitations, people will be advised to stay away from home for vital personal ac

 We are talking about the Art of the Deal now! Although defining anything as a monumental achievement in political circles isn't uncommon, it's uncommon when the word is justified. Yet that's the best way to characterize the three-way deal Trump White House, Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced Thursday. You may also call this one an earthquake, based on the immediate effects alone. Regional fault lines are redrawn in an instant, and the door is thrown open to normalize Israel's relations with other Arab states. The agreement is also turning the pressure on the Palestinians to make a settlement drastically, lest they find themselves more trapped in their standoff with Israel. "This means they have to either actually come to the negotiation table or continue to go where they've been," said Jared Kushner, the top American official involved in developing the terms. Indeed, the deal targeting the Palestinians is a sweetener. Israel's decision to d

 With Congress and the White House at an impasse, President Trump recently requested an additional $400 a week for people seeking unemployment benefits. The extra funds would be a relief for the more than 15 million jobless Americans who saw a weekly $600 benefit expire at the end of July. Yet the extra money is far from a done deal in the midst of the continuing coronavirus epidemic. For one thing, this week California Gov. Gavin Gavin Newsom pushed back on the aspect of the program that allowed states to contribute $100 of the gain, claiming that this would result in the state facing "huge" budget cuts. And what sort of unemployment compensation Californians will see — and, crucially, when? With Congress and the White House at an impasse, President Trump recently requested an additional $400 a week for people seeking unemployment benefits. The extra funds will be a consolation for the more than 15 million jobless Americans who saw a weekly $600 aid expire at the end of July

 Radio host Jason Rantz told Fox News Radio "Guy Benson Show" Thursday that Seattle's definition of embracing the Black Lives Matter campaign entails laying off Black police officers and forcing the city's Black Police chief to resign. "Welcome to Seattle, where Black Lives Matter means firing all of these Black officers and then throwing out the Black Female Chief of Police in a place typically dominated by White Men," he said. OUTGOING SEATTLE CHIEF SAYS IT'S NOT ABOUT MONEY, Or 'LACK OF RESPECT' Carmen Best, Seattle Police Commissioner, announced her resignation Tuesday saying she can no longer do it and admitting, "I 'm done." "The [city] council has offered us $1.6 million to make sure we recruit the strongest, the brightest and the most diverse to put them on," Strongest said. "And less than a year later, we 're probably going to turn them all away. It looks quite duplicate. My convictions are with me. I rea

President Trump launched a series of personal attacks on influential female lawmakers and an MSNBC host on Thursday, criticizing the language and intellect of Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and others in only a few hours' time.  The president has called out Harris, Ocasio-Cortez, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski in tweets and in an interview with Fox Business Network. Trump chastised each in personal terms and launched days of assaults on Harris after she was named the running mate of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. "Here you have a kind of crazy woman I name her because she was so furious and despised Justice [Brett] Kavanaugh," Trump told Fox Business Network's Maria Bartiromo, complaining for the third straight day about his 2018 Supreme Court pick being challenged by the senator. "She was the group's most anguished and they were all mad." 

 Matthew McConaughey interviewed Dr. Anthony Fauci with the fast-talking, Oscar-winning actor on Instagram Thursday getting a chance to quiz the nation's top infectious disease specialist on COVID-19 for 40 minutes.  McConaughey immediately raised questions to the 79-year-old doctor about how worried people should be about catching the virus by touching a door knob (not as much as sharing near physical space with anyone infected, Fauci says) to whether Advil aggravates (it doesn't). "Well, true-false: Will Sunlight destroy the virus?" asked McConaughey.  "It does," responded Fauci, supporting a theory promoted by President Donald Trump. "That really is the truth."  His suggestion of disinfectant 'injection' could be deadly after a backlash, Trump says he was being 'sarcastic'  How about letting us get sick so that we're all safe and the epidemic is dying out?  Fauci said, "No way. That would cause major problems, particular

President Donald Trump demanded a mail-in ballot to vote in Florida's upcoming primary the day before publicly refusing support to meet an anticipated increase in Americans voting by mail at this year's presidential election.  The election website for Palm Beach County, Fla., where Trump is eligible to vote, reveals on Wednesday that the president and first lady Melania Trump were being asked for mail-in ballots. USA Today first published the story. According to the election supervisor of the district, the ballots will need to be picked up in person because the deadline for them to be mailed has already passed. In other states where ballots will be post-marked by election day for counting, the Trumps will return theirs by the primary date of next Tuesday.  Trump railed Thursday against voting-by-mail, claiming he opposes vital U.S. funding. Postal Service is part of a November campaign to deter People from voting by mail. The president has consistently demonized mail-in voting

 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's campaign has raised $48 million in the 48 hours after it called the United States. Senator Kamala Harris the Democratic vice presidential candidate, a spokeswoman for the campaign told Reuters late Thursday.  Biden, himself a former vice president, selected Harris as his nominee for VP on Tuesday, making her the first Black woman on a US presidential major party ticket. With civil protests over racial inequality rocking the nation for months after an African-American man's death in custody, George Floyd was under pressure to pick a Black woman as his running mate after a police officer knelt on his back for about nine minutes.  Harris, a 55-year-old California senator who has made her own bid for the White House, is also the first Asian-American on a big ticket to the presidency. Her parents were immigrants, her Indian mother and her Jamaican father. When elected in 2016, she became only the second Black female U.S. senator in hist

WASHINGTON: There may not be a big trade deal, he won’t be able to buy Taj Mahal, and perhaps only five lakhs, rather than five mil may turn up to greet him in Ahmedabad. US president Donald Trump arrives in India next week at a time when Indians’ opinion of him has never been better. While he feels he hasn’t been “treated very well by India,” up to 56% of Indians are confident about his foreign policy, a Pew Research Center survey shows. In 2016, this figure stood at only 16%. The US think tank’s Global Attitudes Survey was conducted between June 24 and Oct. 2, 2019, through face-to-face interactions with 2,476 people. “Those who associate more with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are more likely than supporters of the Indian National Congress opposition party to voice confidence in Trump,” the research said. Those closer to the BJP are also more likely to offer an opinion, it said. This aligns with Trump’s recent statement

The Glasgow Commonwealth Games proved to be much more than just 'Friendly' as Scottish culture, sport and six-times Olympic champion Usain Bolt combined to create a memorable 11-day event. The success of the Games was assured with the golden seal of approval from Bolt, the world's most recognisable athlete, whose cameo in Jamaica's sprint relay triumph lit up Scotland's biggest city. Inevitably, Bolt stole the show, providing one of the images of the "Friendly Games" as he returned home with a gold medal from his maiden Commonwealth appearance. The Games provided few truly jaw-dropping sporting moments, but they will be remembered for the spirit in which athletes and visitors from the 71 Commonwealth nations and territories were greeted by crowds determined to enjoy the party. "In my view, they are the standout Games in the history of the movement," Commonwealth Games Federation chief executive Mike Hooper said. "The way in whic

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "may never know" how a fairly harmless form of bird flu was cross-contaminated with a dangerous bird flu strain before it was sent to a laboratory outside of the CDC, an agency spokesman said on Monday. That's because most of the materials used in the experiment to culture the virus were discarded shortly after they were used by the scientists performing the work, which occurred in March, CDC spokesman Tom Skinner told Reuters. The CDC disclosed the bird flu incident as part of an internal investigation into the agency's mishandling of live anthrax in June, potentially exposing dozens of its own lab workers to the pathogen. While no humans fell ill as a result of the bird flu breach, CDC Director Dr Thomas Frieden has called it “the most distressing" in a series of safety breaches at the agency because of the public risk posed by the virus. Researchers at a high-security CDC influenza lab learned of their

Two security experts who a year ago exposed methods for hacking the Toyota Prius and Ford Escape say they have developed technology that would keep automobiles safe from cyber attacks. At last summer's Def Con hacking conference in Las Vegas, the two researchers, Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller, described ways to launch dangerous attacks, including manipulating the brakes of the moving Prius and the Ford Escape. Valasek, director of vehicle security research at the consulting firm IOActive, told Reuters on Tuesday that he and Miller will show off a prototype vehicle "intrusion prevention device" at next month's Black Hat hacking conference in Las Vegas. They built the device with about $150 in electronics parts, though the real "secret sauce" is a set of computer algorithms that listen to traffic in a car's network to understand how things are supposed to work. When an attack occurs, the device identifies traffic anomalies and blocks rogue activity,

A series of explosions set off by a team of scientists is expected to rattle the Mount St. Helens in Washington State on Wednesday as researchers map the volcano's interior, whose 1980 eruption was the worst in American history. Mount St. Helens, approximately 150 km (95 miles) south of Seattle and 50 miles (80 km) north of Portland, exploded in a hot ash eruption in May 1980, scattering debris over a large area, killing 57 people and causing more than $1 billion in damage. Scientists throughout the United States are seeking to get a better handle on the 8,300-foot (2,530-meter) volcano's magma stores and internal workings to strengthen alert systems before eruption. "Mount St. Helens and other Cascade Range volcanoes challenge metropolitan centers from Vancouver to Portland," said lead scientist Alan Levander of the University of Rice in Houston in a statement.  "We would like to understand better their inner workings to help predict when they could erupt and ho

Paracetamol, a painkiller universally recommended to treat people with acute low back pain, does not speed recovery or reduce pain from the condition, according to the results of a large trial published on Thursday. A study published in The Lancet medical journal found that the popular pain medicine was no better than placebo, or dummy pills, for hastening recovery from acute bouts of low back pain or easing pain levels, function, sleep or quality of life. Researchers said the findings challenge the universal endorsement of paracetamol as the first choice painkiller for lower back pain. "We need to reconsider the universal recommendation to provide paracetamol as a first-line treatment," said Christopher Williams, who led the study at the University of Sydney in Australia. Lower back pain is the leading cause of disability worldwide. In the United States alone, costs relating to the condition are estimated to be more than $100 billion a year. Currently, every back pain

Dogs are a man's best friend, and research released on Wednesday says canines want to keep it that way. Dogs are capable of feeling a basic form of jealousy, according to a study published in the PLOS ONE scientific journal. The research, said to be the first experiment on canine jealousy, could redefine the view that the complex emotion of envy is a human construct, said Christine Harris, University of California, San Diego psychologist and an author of the study. The owners of 36 small dogs were asked to do three things in the test - shower affection on a plush animatronic dog, shower affection on a plastic jack-o-lantern pail and read a children's book aloud - while ignoring their pet. Researchers then watched how the dogs reacted. Roughly 80 percent of the dogs pushed or touched their owner when they were coddling the toy, almost twice as often as when the owner played with the pail and about four times as often as when the owner was reading. A quarter of the dogs e

Paracetamol, a painkiller universally recommended to treat people with acute low back pain, does not speed recovery or reduce pain from the condition, according to the results of a large trial published on Thursday. A study published in The Lancet medical journal found that the popular pain medicine was no better than placebo, or dummy, pills for hastening recovery from acute bouts of low back pain or easing pain levels, function, sleep or quality of life. Researchers said the findings challenge the universal endorsement of paracetamol as the first choice painkiller for lower back pain. "We need to reconsider the universal recommendation to provide paracetamol as a first-line treatment," said Christopher Williams, who led the study at the University of Sydney in Australia. Lower back pain is the leading cause of disability worldwide. In the United States alone, costs relating to the condition are estimated to be more than $100 billion a year. Currently, every back pain

For the past four months, a team of researchers have been living in a mockup Mars habitat on a Hawaiian volcano practicing isolated living on the Red Planet. For the most part, expedition leader Casey Stedman and his five crewmates have stayed inside their 1,000-square foot (93-square meter) solar-powered dome, venturing out only for simulated spacewalks and doing so only when fully attired in mock spacesuits. "I haven’t seen a tree, smelled the rain, heard a bird, or felt wind on my skin in four months,” Stedman wrote in a blog on Instagram. Stedman is a U.S. Air Force Reserve officer, graduate student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Worldwide. “We are simulating a long-duration mission on Mars, with a focus on crew psychology in isolation,” the crew said during an online interview with Reddit on Sunday. Crewmembers, who include a NASA chemical engineer and a neuropsychologist at the Fort Wayne Neurological Center in Indiana, have been isolated from direct human

A pivotal trial of Keryx Biopharmaceuticals Inc's experimental drug Zerenex showed that it improved levels of serum phosphorus and iron in patients on kidney dialysis, according to results published on Thursday. _0"> The trial involved 441 patients, according to the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, which published the results. Over the four-week efficacy assessment period, mean serum phosphorus for Zerenex patients dropped by 2.2 milligrams per deciliter compared with placebo patients, the trial showed. Most patients with kidney disease that requires dialysis need chronic treatment with phosphate-binding agents to lower and maintain serum phosphorus at acceptable levels. The study found that, if approved, Zerenex would be the only phosphate binder that also increases iron stores, reducing the need for other drugs to treat anemia. Side effects experienced by patients treated with Zerenex included diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and constipation. Serious adver

Scientists will begin excavation early next week of an ancient Wyoming sinkhole containing a rare bounty of fossil remains of prehistoric animals, such as mammoths and dire wolves, preserved in unusually good condition, researchers said on Thursday.    The two-week dig, set to begin next Monday under the direction of Des Moines University paleontologist Julie Meachen, marks the first exploration of Natural Trap Cave in north-central Wyoming since its initial discovery in the 1970s. At that time, scientists found that the 85-foot-deep cavern formed a natural repository for a rich fossil record that may date back as far as 100,000 years, but a full-scale expedition into the sinkhole has not previously been attempted.   The cave, formed by the collapse of limestone bedrock at the base of the Bighorn Mountains, became a tomb for thousands of ancient mammals that stumbled into the 15-foot-wide mouth of the sinkhole, then concealed by vegetation, and plunged to their deaths.  

German drugmaker Bayer said a Phase III trial of cancer drug Nexavar in patients with advanced breast cancer did not meet its primary endpoint of delaying the progression of the disease. _0"> The study, called Resilience, evaluated Nexavar in combination with chemotherapeutic agent capecitabine, in women with HER2-negative breast cancer. Oral drug Nexavar, which Bayer is developing jointly with Amgen, is approved for use against certain types of liver, kidney and thyroid cancer. Study details are expected to be presented at an upcoming scientific conference. (Reporting by Ludwig Burger ; Editing by Kirsti Knolle)

Babies in the womb show evidence of learning by their 34th week, three weeks earlier than previously thought, new research has found. "It really pushed the envelope" in terms of how early babies begin to learn, lead researcher Charlene Krueger, associate professor at the University of Florida's College of Nursing, said on Thursday. The study, published in the journal Infant Behavior and Development, followed 32 women from their 28th through 38th weeks of pregnancy in an investigation to pinpoint when the ability to learn emerges. Krueger had the women repeat three times out loud a set 15-second nursery rhyme, and do it twice a day for six weeks. The selected rhyme was previously unknown to the mothers. The fetuses’ heart rates were monitored at 32, 33 and 34 weeks as they listened to a recording of a female stranger recite the rhyme. By the 34th week, Krueger said, the heart rates of the tested fetuses showed an overall slight decline while listening to the recordi

For the past four months, a team of researchers have been living in a mockup Mars habitat on a Hawaiian volcano practicing isolated living on the Red Planet. For the most part, expedition leader Casey Stedman and his five crewmates have stayed inside their 1,000-square foot (93-square meter) solar-powered dome, venturing out only for simulated spacewalks and doing so only when fully attired in mock spacesuits. "I haven’t seen a tree, smelled the rain, heard a bird, or felt wind on my skin in four months,” Stedman wrote in a blog on Instagram. Stedman is a U.S. Air Force Reserve officer, graduate student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Worldwide. “We are simulating a long-duration mission on Mars, with a focus on crew psychology in isolation,” the crew said during an online interview with Reddit on Sunday. Crewmembers, who include a NASA chemical engineer and a neuropsychologist at the Fort Wayne Neurological Center in Indiana, have been isolated from direct human

An unmanned Delta 4 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Monday with a pair of U.S. military satellites designed to keep watch on other countries’ spacecraft. The 206-foot (63-meter) tall rocket, built by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, lifted off at 7:28 p.m. EDT and blazed through partly cloudy skies as it headed into orbit, a United Launch Alliance live webcast showed. Launch of two satellites for the U.S. Air Force’s recently declassified Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program, or GSSAP, had been slated for July 23, but was delayed one day to resolve a technical issue with ground support equipment and then three more times by poor weather. Once in orbit, the GSSAP satellites, built by Orbital Sciences Corp, will drift above and below a 22,300-mile (35,970-km) high zone that houses most of the world's communications satellites and other spacecraft. General William Shelton, head of Air Force

NASA's decade-old Mars rover Opportunity has set a new off-Earth, off-road distance record, logging just over 25 miles (40 km) on the surface of the Red Planet to surpass the benchmark set in 1973 by a Russian probe on the moon. Opportunity, which arrived on Mars in January 2004, a few weeks after its now-defunct rover twin Spirit, was built to drive only about a single kilometer but has continued to operate far beyond its design capabilities. Earlier this year, the aging but intrepid rover, a six-wheeled vehicle about the size of a golf cart, found evidence that fresh water once pooled on the surface of Mars, reinforcing similar discoveries made by a newer, larger probe Curiosity, on the other side of the planet. On Sunday, the robot rover advanced another 157 feet (48 meters) as it continued along the rim of a Martian crater, putting Opportunity's total odometer at 25.01 miles (40.25 km), according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Pasadena, California. By co

If someone were to create an award for "mother of the year" in the animal kingdom, a remarkably dedicated eight-limbed mom from the dark and frigid depths of the Pacific Ocean might be a strong contender. Scientists on Wednesday described how the female of an octopus species that dwells almost a mile below the sea surface spends about 4-1/2 years brooding her eggs, protecting them vigilantly until they hatch while forgoing any food for herself. It is the longest known egg-brooding period for any animal, they wrote in the scientific journal PLOS ONE. The scientists used a remote-controlled submarine to monitor the deep-sea species, called Graneledone boreopacifica, off the coast of central California. They tracked one female, recognizable by its distinctive scars, that clung to a vertical rock face near the floor of a canyon about 4,600 feet (1,400 meters) under the surface, keeping the roughly 160 translucent eggs free of debris and silt and chasing off predators. This

The lead in human teeth holds clues about where a person grew up and can help criminal investigators and archaeologists working with old or decomposed corpses, according to a University of Florida researcher. Because lead ore deposits around the world differ, and as young people's teeth absorb traces of the metal in the environment, the region where a person grew up can be distinguished through lead analysis of a tooth, said geologist George Kamenov. His study on the topic will appear in the August issue of Science of The Total Environment, a peer-reviewed journal. "If you were born in Europe and then came to the U.S., yes, I will be able to see that," Kamenov said. "I was born in Bulgaria so I have the European ... signal." Kamenov said he has worked with law enforcement officers on cold cases, with lead analysis helping investigators narrow their focus. In addition to aiding authorities in identifying bodies, the analysis can help archaeologists locate

A Texas company is offering a unique send off for beloved pets by placing a portion of their cremated remains in a capsule and blasting them off into space. Celestis Inc, which has provided memorial space flights for human remains since 1997, will launch its first commercial pet memorial spaceflight in October 2014 with the remains of a blue merle Australian shepherd, named Apollo, the company said. The pet services, such as one dubbed Earth Rise, start at $995 and include having the pet’s remains into flown into space on a commercial flight and returned to the owner. The space send-off options go up to $12,500, which allows the pet’s remains to be launched into deep space or to visit the moon. Memorial service are available before blast off and families can witness most of the launches, depending on location, the company said. "Our pet service flights are an idea that’s been a long time coming," Celestis Chief Executive Charles Chafer said. (Reporting by Jon Hersko

Large flesh-eating dinosaurs evolved into small flying birds, but it did not happen overnight. An international team of scientists on Thursday described an extraordinary evolutionary process that unfolded over a period of 50 million years in which a lineage of carnivorous dinosaurs shrank steadily and acquired numerous traits that led to the first appearance of birds. The researchers, using techniques developed by molecular biologists to reconstruct virus evolution, examined 1,500 anatomical traits in 120 different dinosaurs from the theropod group. These bipedal meat-eaters included giants like Tyrannosaurus rex and Giganotosaurus as well as the lineage that produced birds. "Our study measured the rate of evolution of different groups of theropod dinosaurs," said lead researcher Michael Lee, a paleontologist at the University of Adelaide and the South Australian Museum. "The fastest-evolving group also happened to be ancestral to birds. So, ultimately, the most ad

This fall, when Representative Michael Grimm asks New York voters to send him to Washington for a third term in Congress he may be splitting his time between the campaign trail and a courtroom where he is due to face tax evasion charges. Grimm, a Republican and former FBI agent who represents parts of the city's Staten Island and Brooklyn boroughs, was indicted in April on charges of fraud, perjury and conspiracy tied to his restaurant, Healthalicious. Last week, prosecutors asked a federal judge to start his trial in October, weeks ahead of the Nov. 4 election. But a flurry of headlines about his business dealings is just one of the problems facing Grimm, who hails from one of New York City's rare Republican-leaning districts. He was caught on camera in January threatening to throw a reporter off a balcony in the U.S. Capitol, saying: "I'll break you in half. Like a boy." Grimm is far from the first U.S. politician to seek re-election under a legal cloud.