Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison tested for Covid-19 late Tuesday after coming into a casual contact. ....

The Omicron variant is spreading at an unprecedented rate, the World Health Organization has said. ....

An eastern Chinese city registered 37 locally-transmitted confirmed Covid-19 cases, local authorities have said. ....

US President Joe Biden has declared that a major disaster exists in the state Kentucky and ordered federal aid for recovery efforts in the areas affected by powerful tornadoes, severe storms, straight-line winds and flooding, according to a White House statement. ....

At least two people died and five others seriously injured after a tornado struck a nursing home in the US state of Arkansas, authorities said. ....

Two civilians were killed and three others injured as a blast targeted a mini-bus in Dasht-i-Barch area of Afghanistan's capital Kabul on Friday, Interior Ministry spokesman Qari Sayed Khosti confirmed. ....

Chinese state media has slammed a conspiracy theory over the helicopter crash that killed India's Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat and 12 others. ....

While Covid cases in South Africa driven by the super mutant Omicron variant have surged 255 per cent in the last week, the infections are showing milder symptoms than seen in the last three waves, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). ....

A newly-approved eye drop could change the lives of millions of Americans with age-related blurred near vision, a condition affecting mostly people 40 and older, CBS News reported. ....

New Zealand plans to ban young people from ever buying cigarettes in their lifetime in one of the world's toughest crackdowns on the tobacco industry, arguing that other efforts to extinguish smoking were taking too long. ....