It was on World Press Freedom Day when Monorom Polok had to see his photojournalist father handcuffed and jailed.

China yesterday ordered the United States to close its consulate in the city of Chengdu, responding to a US demand for China to close its Houston consulate, as relations between the world’s two largest economies deteriorate.

Five alleged drug peddlers, including a Union Parishad member, were killed in “gunfights” in Dhaka, Cox’s Bazar and Feni early yesterday.

Though it meant an extra Tk 700 per month, Mahmuda Khatun had to get broadband connection at her house for her child, a second grader of Monipur School and College.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan called his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday. In not so common a conversation, they exchanged greetings and discussed the flood and coronavirus situations in both countries.

The number of people who have recovered from novel coronavirus has surpassed that of active Covid-19 cases in the country, shows DGHS data.

Although government efforts to contain Covid-19 are plagued by various scams and sheer mismanagement, Health Minister Zahid Maleque thinks his ministry has performed well in handling the crisis.

Dr Abul Bashar Mohammad Khurshid Alam, a professor of Dhaka Medical College (DMC), has been appointed as the new and 27th director general of the Directorate General of Health Services.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said the government would arrange housing for those losing their homes in flood and riverbank erosion alongside rehabilitating the landless and homeless people across the country.

As the government brings changes at the DGHS top end to improve the image of the health sector, tension among officials is apparently causing sluggishness in Covid-19 response and hampering daily activities of the directorate.

The waterborne diseases are spreading in some areas while river erosion taking devastating turn in few other in the country’s flood-hit northern region.

The education ministry is yet to make any decision on reopening schools, which has remained closed since March due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Student admission in the summer semester at most of the private universities has dropped by a staggering 50 to 80 percent, putting these higher education institutions on a razor edge.

With the government’s efforts to contain Covid-19 already marred by scams and mismanagement, the health ministry appears to have finally woken up and started taking some steps to avert further controversies.

At least seven people were killed and several others injured in a head-on collision of a human haulier and lorry on Chattogram-Cox’s Bazar road in Chakariya area amid heavy rains yesterday evening.

A government move to transport cattle to Dhaka and other big cities by train ahead of Eid-ul-Azha has so far failed to draw any response from farmers and traders.

With the lifting of the shutdown, food relief and cash charity have almost come to a standstill, though incomes of many poor families saw no recovery.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina exchanged greetings with her Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan yesterday afternoon when the latter called her.

Some government-approved laboratories are using a single kit for RT-PCR testing of two samples for the novel coronavirus -- a novelty practice that several experts termed not only unscientific and unethical but also something that risks producing faulty results.

The High Court yesterday observed that the authorities concerned of the government should remain cautious so that private hospitals cannot go beyond control.