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Three athletes positive for Covid inside Beijing Olympic bubble
AFP
Three athletes attending training events for the Beijing Winter Olympics have tested positive for Covid-19, Chinese officials said Thursday, with the country on high alert against the coronavirus ahead of the Games.
Beijing 2022 organisers have left nothing to chance with the games set to start in February, restricting entry to the capital and insisting on daily virus tests for thousands of athletes who will be kept within a “closed-loop” bubble.
One of the athletes, a foreign luger, tested positive at the airport when entering the country and was sent to a quarantine hotel along with another infected teammate as they had no symptoms, officials said last week.
But a third person has now tested positive — another luger and a close contact of the earlier cases, Zhao Weidong, an Olympics organising committee member, said on Thursday.
The latest patient is asymptomatic and has also been transferred to a quarantine facility for “medical observation,” Zhao said at a press conference.
Authorities are continuing to “test people, materials and the environment, as well as conducting health monitoring and disinfecting the environment,” Zhao added.
China is gearing up to tackle one of the largest challenges to its zero-Covid strategy as thousands of athletes are expected to descend on Beijing for the games, which will be held from February 4 to 20.
City authorities this week imposed strict new rules on inbound travellers, requiring all visitors to Beijing to show a negative Covid test result from the past 48 hours and cancelling flights from higher risk areas within the country.
China has kept its domestic case numbers far lower than in most countries, through mass testing, aggressive lockdowns and border controls that left some families separated and many unable to return to work from outside the country.
The Olympics will test the country’s ability to ward off the pandemic, with organisers promising nearly empty stadiums and banning spectators from outside China.
All participating athletes and venue staff must be vaccinated, while tens of thousands of workers in higher-risk industries across the city are being tested multiple times a week.
The Beijing Winter Games organisers have said the coronavirus is the biggest challenge in the lead-up.
The event is also facing boycott calls from international campaigners over human rights concerns in China’s Xinjiang region as well as in Hong Kong and Tibet.
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Trump files $15 billion defamation suit against The New York Times
U.S. President Donald Trump has filed a $15 billion defamation and libel lawsuit against The New York Times, which denounced the legal move on Tuesday as an attempt to silence the press.
In this new stage of his presidency, the 79-year-old Republican leader has escalated his long-standing hostility toward traditional media, repeatedly attacking critical journalists, limiting their access, or taking them to court.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in Florida, seeks $15 billion in damages, along with additional punitive compensation “in an amount to be determined at trial.”
The New York Times had reported last week that Trump threatened legal action over articles concerning a birthday letter allegedly sent by him to financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The letter featured a typed message inside the outline of a nude woman. Trump denies that the accompanying signature is his.
“For too long, The New York Times has been allowed to lie, defame, and slander me freely — and that ends NOW!” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social.
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Maduro warns Venezuela would enter armed struggle if attacked by foreign forces
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro stated on Friday that if his country were attacked, it would enter a phase of armed struggle, amid his claims of “threats” from the United States, which is conducting a military deployment in Caribbean waters near Venezuela’s coast under the pretext of combating drug trafficking.
Maduro emphasized that Venezuela is currently in the non-armed phase, which he described as political, communicational, and institutional, but added that if the country were somehow aggressed, it would move to a planned, organized armed struggle involving the entire population, whether the threat is local, regional, or national.
“We would enter a stage of armed struggle, in defense of peace, territorial integrity, sovereignty, and our people,” Maduro said during an event activating citizen militias, broadcast on state channel Venezolana de Televisión (VTV).
He also noted that Venezuela is currently in a phase of readiness and preparation to defend the country and will proceed to the deployment of defensive capacities, including training and retraining of the entire Venezuelan population.
Maduro described the Venezuelan people as pacifist yet warrior-like, asserting that “no one will enslave us, neither today nor ever.”
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USCIS gains law enforcement powers: Agents now authorized to investigate and arrest immigration violators
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), traditionally responsible for handling naturalizations, visas, residence permits, and work authorizations, is now expanding its role to include law enforcement powers, according to a statement released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Under the new directive, specially designated USCIS agents are now authorized to investigate, arrest, and bring to justice individuals who violate U.S. immigration laws. Previously, USCIS primarily managed administrative and bureaucratic processes, while enforcement responsibilities were handled by agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Illegal immigration has been a central issue under President Donald Trump’s administration, with DHS reporting that over 300,000 migrants have been arrested in the first six months of his presidency. However, the number of people who have crossed U.S. borders illegally in recent years remains controversial, with experts estimating between 8 to 10 million individuals.
The policy shift also comes amid heightened legal battles over immigration enforcement. Recently, a federal judge blocked the deportation of minors to Guatemala, who were moments away from boarding a flight. Trump’s aggressive measures, including large-scale raids in cities like Los Angeles, have faced multiple judicial challenges, some upheld and others overturned at various federal levels, including the Supreme Court.
According to the DHS statement, the expanded authority allows USCIS to “manage investigations from start to finish rather than referring cases to ICE,” aiming to reduce backlogs and combat fraud within the immigration system.
USCIS Director Joseph B. Edlow will have the power to appoint and train special agents under the order signed by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, ensuring that the agency can effectively execute its newly granted enforcement responsibilities.
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Panama’s president accuses U.S. Embassy official of visa threats amid China tensions
Tec de Monterrey honors one of its students for his contribution to nanotechnology in medicine
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