1914 - The Panama Canal opened with the passage of the vessel Ancon, although it was not formally inaugurated until July 1920.

A major earthquake killed at least 29 people in southwestern Haiti yesterday, reducing churches, hotels and homes to rubble in the latest tragedy to hit the impoverished Caribbean nation already mired in humanitarian and political crises. 

Russia yesterday recorded its highest daily coronavirus death toll for a third day running, as the country continues to struggle with the Delta variant amid sluggish vaccination rates. 

Eight people were killed when a Russian firefighting Be-200 plane crashed in Turkey on Saturday, the Russian defence ministry was cited by Interfax news agency as saying.

A BBC journalist said on Saturday that Russia was expelling her and had told her she could never return in "devastating" treatment showing the country she reported on for years was turning inwards.

The US Department of Homeland Security issued a new terrorism threat advisory on Friday ahead of the anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks and amid a resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic.

Canada plans to resettle more than 20,000 vulnerable Afghans including women leaders, human rights workers and reporters to protect them from Taliban reprisals, Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino said on Friday.

The number of US residents who identify as “white” has fallen for the first time, according to the latest 2020 census data released Thursday.

Jude Walker, an 11-year-old boy, is on an odyssey he hopes will help save the planet: he is walking to London from northern England in a bid to garner support for a carbon tax to tackle carbon emissions.

Russia has asked a BBC journalist working in Moscow to leave the country by the end of the month when her visa expires in retaliation for what it views as British discrimination against Russian journalists, state TV reported late on Thursday.

In early July, as Taliban insurgents were seizing territory from government forces across Afghanistan, fighters from the group walked into the offices of Azizi Bank in the southern city of Kandahar and ordered nine women working there to leave. 

Britain yesterday slammed the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, warning the Taliban’s resurgence would create a breeding ground for extremists that threatened the world. 

China yesterday rejected the World Health Organization’s calls for a renewed probe into the origins of Covid-19, saying it supported “scientific” over “political” efforts to find out how the virus started.

An “unprecedented” number of migrants were intercepted illegally crossing the US-Mexico border in July, the head of America’s Homeland Security department has said.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to pull the plug on his minority Liberal government and call snap elections on Sunday despite a nationwide uptick in Covid infections that is worrying voters. 

The UN special envoy for Syria on Thursday voiced his growing concern at increased hostilities in the south of the country and warned of the alarming shortages faced by civilians.

Six people, including a child, were killed in a mass shooting in the city of Plymouth in southwest England on Thursday evening, in an incident described by the British Home Secretary as "shocking".

An asteroid known as Bennu will pass within half the distance of the Earth to the Moon in the year 2135 but the probability of an impact with our planet in the coming centuries is very slight, scientists said Wednesday.

Russia yesterday reported its highest daily coronavirus death toll since the start of the pandemic, as rising cases in parts of world fuelled by the Delta variant continued to cause havoc.

A British judge on Wednesday gave the US government extra grounds to appeal a refusal to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, after it argued the initial ruling relied on a witness who misled court.