Bywire News

- Britain's men's and women's rugby sevens teams will host an Olympic preparation tournament later this month as they gear up for the Tokyo Games. The tournament will take place behind closed doors at St George's Park between May 15-17. Britain's men's team will be joined by the United States and Ireland, while the women's side will compete against France and Ireland. "It's a great chance for sides to compete in the run up to Tokyo," team leader Charlie Hayter said on Friday. "For our squads to pull on a Great Britain shirt for the first time in ...

GENEVA - China's Sinopharm state company has offered substantial support for the COVAX programme to provide COVID-19 vaccines mainly to poor countries, a WHO official said on Friday after the global health body gave emergency approval to Sinopharm's vaccine. Senior WHO adviser Bruce Aylward said it would be up to Sinopharm to say how many doses of its vaccine it can provide to the programme, but added: "They are looking at trying to provide substantial support, make substantial doses available while at the same time of course trying to serve China's population." ...

By Alan Baldwin -Seven times world champion Lewis Hamilton was fastest in Spanish Grand Prix practice on Friday as the Mercedes driver prepared for a weekend that could bring him a record-stretching 100th Formula One pole position and boost his overall lead. The Briton, who is eight points clear of Red Bull's Max Verstappen and has won the last four races at the Circuit de Catalunya, led a team one-two with Valtteri Bottas in the afternoon. Verstappen had been second fastest in the morning but dropped to ninth, 0.615 off the pace, in the second hour-l...

By Nathan Frandino - Live concerts are on the menu for home delivery, as musicians and audiences seek to satisfy their appetite for human interaction. As the sun set in Piedmont, California, about 20 masked revelers gathered on the back porch of a home. Lit up by a few stage lights, a nearby fire and hanging garden bulbs, singer-songwriter Steve Poltz strolled in, guitar in hand, happy to be performing live again. "Just being able to interact with folks feels so good again, because I know I needed it and I know other people needed it after being q...

Britain will allow people in England to resume international travel from May 17 but is limiting the number of destinations open for quarantine-free holidays to just a handful of countries as it cautiously emerges from lockdown restrictions.

By Herbert Lash and Ritvik Carvalho NEW YORK/LONDON - The dollar slid to a two-month low, commodity prices jumped and major global equity indexes scaled new peaks on Friday after weak U.S. jobs data for April tamped down fears that a booming economy would ignite inflation and higher interest rates. The data eased worries the Federal Reserve would reduce its massive stimulus program anytime soon, while a top White House economic adviser said the report does not mean the Biden administration needs to change its policy course. The yield on the benchm...

By Marco Aquino LIMA - Peruvian right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori has shrunk the gap on socialist rival Pedro Castillo in the country's presidential election race, according to a poll released on Friday, signally a closer contest in the June 6 vote. The Datum poll showed former teacher Castillo, the surprise front-runner, only 5 percentage points ahead of Fujimori, the scion of a powerful political family whose father is an ex-president now in prison for corruption and human rights abuses. Castillo had at one point appeared to be out of reach of...

By Sarah White PARIS - L'Oreal's make-up sales are set to bounce back to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels, the French group's new chief executive said on Friday, with women opting for brighter colours in their post-crisis makeovers. Cosmetics groups were hit by shop closures and consumers shunning make-up during pandemic lockdowns, with many people spending online instead on items including premium skincare. Nicolas Hieronimus, a L'Oreal veteran has become CEO just as vaccinations alter the landscape again, prompting not only a return of products lik...

By Yingzhi Yang and Tony Munroe BEIJING -Shares of Chinese gaming giant Tencent-backed online insurance technology firm Waterdrop Inc tumbled 14.5% in their New York debut on Friday. American depositary shares of the company opened at $10.25, before recovering to $11.50. The shares were priced at $12 apiece in the IPO, raising $360 million through the stock sale. Waterdrop's founder and chief executive, in an interview with earlier in the day, said the company would focus more on user growth than on profit in the short term. The compan...

-Senior health official Nancy Messonnier has resigned from her position at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency's Director Rochelle Walensky said on Friday. Messonnier, who warned the United States about the COVID-19 pandemic last year, has been the director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases since 2016. "She has made significant contributions to public health and leaves behind a legacy of strong leadership and courage," Walensky said in an emailed statement. Walensky said she had recei...

MADRID - Rafa Nadal was knocked out of the Madrid Open quarter-finals stage 6-4 6-4 by German Alex Zverev on Friday. Nadal, a five-time winner in the Spanish capital, was the favourite and top seed having lifted the Barcelona Open trophy last month but played below par on a sweltering spring day. Zverev struggled in the opening exchanges, finding himself 4-2 down before breaking Nadal twice to turn the match on its head and take the first set. The fifth-seeded German then powered ahead in the second, breaking Nadal's serve again and holding out t...

LONDON - Britain will allow international travel to resume from May 17 but is limiting the number of destinations open for quarantine-free holidays to just 12 countries as it cautiously emerges from lockdown restrictions. Countries including Portugal and Israel made a green list of countries for low risk travel for people from England, transport minister Grant Shapps said on Friday. The most popular destinations such as France, Spain and Greece did not make the list. (Reporting by Sarah Young; editing by Kate Holton)...

PARIS - Pressure on the French hospital system from the COVID-19 epidemic eased for the fourth day in row and the number of virus deaths in hospitals was down again compared to a week ago. The health ministry reported that the number of people in hospital with the virus fell by 654 to 26,331 and the number of people in intensive care by 125 to 5,106. France also reported 226 new coronavirus deaths in hospitals, from 219 on Thursday and 270 a week ago. (Reporting by Geert De Clercq, Editing Dominique Vidalon)...

By Shivani Kumaresan and Devik Jain -Britain’s mid-cap index closed at a record high on Friday as hopes of a stronger economic recovery lifted industrial and consumer discretionary stocks, while Meggitt shares soared on a takeover report. The domestically focused mid-cap FTSE 250 index advanced 1.2%, with industrial stocks, including Easyjet Plc, IMI Plc and Pagegroup Plc, rising between 2.7% and 5.1%. The blue-chip index rose 0.7%, clocking its best week since April with Melrose Industries adding 1.8% after Morgan Stanley raised its price target on...

By Sruthi Shankar and Ambar Warrick - European stocks closed at a record high on Friday, marking strong weekly gains as positive economic data and upbeat earnings underpinned hopes of a swift economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.9%% to a record high of 444.93 points. It added 1.7% this week- its best performance since mid-March. Global stocks rallied to record highs as investors scaled back expectations of policy tapering by the U.S. Federal Reserve, after data showed the U.S. labour market had a lo...

By Gabriela Baczynska BRUSSELS -Lobbying by Poland and Hungary has led to the removal of the phrase "gender equality" from a Friday declaration on advancing social cohesion in the European Union as it strives to rebuild from the COVID-19 pandemic. Poland's nationalist ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) and eurosceptic ally Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban promote what they call traditional social values at home and have repeatedly clashed with their more liberal Western peers over the rights of women, gay people and migrants. The two countries op...

MEXICO CITY - Production of Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine will likely begin in Mexico during the final week of June, as the government reviews its emergency use authorization this week, the Mexican health ministry said on Friday. (Reporting by Adriana Barrera; Editing by David Alire Garcia)...

BEIJING - Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing, which is backed by SoftBank, Alibaba and Tencent, said on Friday that 3.1% of passenger fees for rides will go towards its profit last year. Drivers can on average get 79.1% of what customers pay for a ride, Didi posted on WeChat. This is the first time it offers details of its income structure from ride-hailing services in 2020. It added that it would adjust its pricing strategy after receiving driver's advises. Didi also operates other businesses including sharing bikes, grocery and logistics services. ...

Amnesty International said on Friday Yemen's Houthi authorities must halt plans for forced virginity testing and release an actor and model the human rights group says has been detained on "spurious grounds."

MILAN - Italy reported 207 coronavirus-related deaths on Friday against 258 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections fell to 10,554 from 11,807. Italy has registered 122,470 deaths linked to COVID-19 since its outbreak emerged in February last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the seventh-highest in the world. The country has reported 4.09 million cases to date. Patients in hospital with COVID-19 - not including those in intensive care - stood at 16,331 on Friday, down from 16,867 a day earlier. ...