Filippine

MANILA, Philippines --- Metro Manila and other parts of the country will experience rains or thunderstorms on Wednesday due to the tail-end of a frontal system and a low pressure area, the weather bureau said. In its daily weather bulletin, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) said the LPA was last located 100 kilometers east of Borongan City in Eastern Samar. It added that the tail-end of a frontal system will affect the eastern section of southern Luzon, while the northeast monsoon will affect the rest of Luzon. The LPA and the tail-end of a frontal system will bring cloudy skies and scattered rains and thunderstorms over M...

Keep on reading: Tail-end of frontal system, LPA to dampen Metro Manila, parts of PH

NEW YORK --- A panel of advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday voted 13 to 1 to recommend that healthcare workers and residents of long-term care facilities should be first in line to receive the first doses of COVID-19 vaccines when they become available. The CDC said at a meeting of its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices that it expects only 5 million to 10 million doses will be available per week once U.S. regulators authorize vaccines. That may require state and local officials tasked with distributing the vaccines to designate sub-groups within those categories who are at highest risk of complications from COVID-19. ...

Keep on reading: Scarce early vaccine supply should go to health workers, nursing homes: US health advisers

LOS ANGELES--- The Oscar-nominated star of "Juno" and "The Umbrella Academy," formerly known as Ellen Page, on Tuesday said he was a transgender person and had changed his first name to Elliot. "I can't begin to express how remarkable it feels to finally love who I am enough to pursue my authentic self," Page wrote on Instagram. "I love that I am trans. And I love that I am queer." Page, 33, was nominated for an Academy Award for playing a pregnant teenager in 2007 film "Juno" and starred in other movies including 2010 sci-fi thriller "Inception." The actor currently appears in Netflix superhero series "Umbrella Academy." In the Instagram post, Page said he would use he/...

Keep on reading: ‘Juno’ actor Page comes out as transgender, changes name to Elliot

BERLIN --- Five people including a nine-month-old baby were killed and up to 15 injured on Tuesday when a speeding car ploughed into a pedestrian area in the western German city of Trier in what authorities said appeared to be a deliberate act. Witnesses said people screamed in panic and some were thrown into the air by the car as it crashed through the shopping zone. "We have arrested one person, one vehicle has been secured," police said, adding that a 51-year-old German suspect from the Trier area had been overpowered within minutes of the incident and was now being questioned. Prosecutor Peter Fritzen later told a news conference the suspect had drunk a significant amoun...

Keep on reading: Five killed, including baby, as car ploughs into pedestrian zone in Germany

MANILA, Philippines --- Metro Manila mayors will consult medical experts first before deciding whether to allow minors to leave home during the general community quarantine, San Juan Mayor Francis Zamora said Tuesday. Zamora said this the decision made on Tuesday evening in a meeting of the Metro Manila Council (MMC), which is composed of the 17 mayors of the region. "It's important for our decision or recommendation to have a medical basis because the safety of our citizens is at stake here," he said in Filipino. "We will meet as soon as we get the opinions of the doctors." Earlier, Interior Secretary Eduardo Ao said Metro Manila mayors should first come out with a resolution t...

Keep on reading: Metro Manila mayors to consult experts before allowing minors out

MANILA, Philippines --- "The burden of proof is on you," Sen. Panfilo Lacson told alleged former rebels presented by the security sector in a Senate hearing as witnesses linking some lawmakers to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). These lawmakers being linked to the CPP are members of the Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives. "You're saying they are members of the CPP. Your contention is they are members of the CPP, and they don't want to admit it? Ang burden of proof is on you. How will you prove that they are members of the CPP," Lacson, speaking partly in Filipino, told Noel "Ka Efren" Legaspi, a former deputy regional secretary of the CPP in Mindana...

Keep on reading: ‘Burden of proof is on you,’ Lacson tells witnesses linking solons to CPP

NEW YORK --- A lawyer for Donald Trump on Tuesday urged a federal appeals court to halt a lawsuit accusing the U.S. president of exploiting his family name to promote a marketing scam targeting poor and working-class people. The lawyer, Thomas McCarthy, told the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan the plaintiffs were "done in by the allegations of their own complaint," and that their proposed class action concerning the multi-level marketing company American Communications Network belonged in arbitration. Four plaintiffs, including a hospice worker, accused Trump, his adult children Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka and an affiliate of their family company of promoting ACN...

Keep on reading: Trump family urges US appeals court to move marketing scam lawsuit to arbitration

SEOUL --- China's efforts to win an international certification for "pao cai," a pickled vegetable dish from Sichuan, is turning into a social media showdown between Chinese and South Korean netizens over the origin of "kimchi," a staple Korean cuisine made of cabbage. Beijing recently won a certification from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for pao cai, an achievement the state-run Global Times reported as "an international standard for the kimchi industry led by China." South Korean media was fast to dispute such a claim and accused the bigger neighbor of trying to make kimchi a type of China-made pao cai. The episode triggered anger on South Korea...

Keep on reading: Korea, China feud: ‘kimchi’ or ‘pao cai’?

LONDON --- A type of COVID-19 test that can be taken without the need for a nose or throat swab has been found to be highly effective in identifying infectious cases, including for people not showing symptoms, the British government said on Tuesday. The RT-LAMP tests, made by privately held British company OptiGene, have been studied in a pilot program in the southern English city of Southampton, where they were used to test some health service staff, as well as 55,000 people connected to the local university. "We've shown through carefully conducted studies that the OptiGene LAMP test is fast, reliable and easy to use, and dependent on testing format can work directly with saliva ...

Keep on reading: ‘No-swab’ Covid-19 test from OptiGene highly sensitive, UK says

Very few teams get too high or too low with the result of Game 1 of a seven-game championship series---unless that game deals a double blow. That's exactly what happened to TNT, which dropped a 100-94 overtime loss to Barangay Ginebra in the opener of the PBA Philippine Cup Finals on Sunday, and then announcing the following day that it could be without its top gun for Game 2. Ray Parks Jr., TNT's top scorer and now the leading tournament most valuable player candidate, is highly doubtful for Game 2 after apparently aggravating a calf strain that kept him out of the team's opening game in the bubble. The team's physical therapist, Dex Aseron, confirmed the development to the...

Keep on reading: Double trouble

Eumir Felix Marcial has been training so hard in Los Angeles the past month that he feels he's ready to launch his professional career anytime soon. "I can do it this week," the 25-year-old boxer, who arrived in Los Angeles last Oct. 12 to gear up for his pro debut and the anticipated Tokyo Olympics stint in July, said in Filipino. He made it clear, though, that he is focusing on getting the first gold medal for the Philippines in the Summer Games. Marcial graced the online Philippine Sportswriters Association Forum on Tuesday together with Manny Pacquiao Promotions chief Sean Gibbons. He said moving to Los Angeles to train under Freddie Roach, Justin Fortune and Marvin S...

Keep on reading: Eyeing first pro bout, Eumir still lists Games gold as top priority

Lawmakers belonging to the leftist Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives on Tuesday slammed President Duterte's “incoherent rants” against them and denied that they were communist rebels out to destabilize the government.

Nurses are planning another protest on Friday to call for the timely payment of salaries and benefits of government health workers, after last week’s demonstration by workers of the Philippine General Hospital (PGH).

The House of Representatives will continue to operate under strict health and safety protocols after almost a hundred people tested positive for COVID-19 during the first-ever mass testing it conducted since the start of the pandemic, said House Secretary General Mark Llandro Mendoza.

President Rodrigo Duterte, pissed off over poor internet service, warned telecommunication providers that they had until this December to improve their services or face the risk of “closure” or “expropriation,” Malacanang said Tuesday.

BEIJING --- China successfully landed a spacecraft on the moon's surface on Tuesday in a historic mission to retrieve lunar surface samples, Chinese state media reported. China launched its Chang'e-5 probe on Nov. 24. The uncrewed mission, named after the mythical Chinese goddess of the moon, aims to collect lunar material to help scientists learn more about the moon's origins. The mission will attempt to collect 2 kg (4-1/2 lbs) of samples in a previously unvisited area in a massive lava plain known as Oceanus Procellarum, or "Ocean of Storms". If the mission is completed as planned, it would make China the third nation to have retrieved lunar samples after the United State...

Keep on reading: China lands spacecraft on moon to retrieve lunar rocks

More than 300 cases have been filed against local officials over alleged anomalies in the distribution of the government's Social Amelioration Program (SAP) funds during the coronavirus pandemic.

Two legislators have filed a resolution seeking a congressional inquiry into the implementation of existing laws pertaining to the filing of statements of assets, liabilities and net worth by government officials and employees.

The bicameral conference committee on the proposed P4.506-trillion 2021 national budget got off to a good start Tuesday as members from the House of Representatives and the Senate agreed to come up with a reconciled final version of the spending plan before Congress adjourns on Dec. 19, a House official said on Tuesday.

The House of Representatives on Tuesday approved on third and final reading a bill raising the age to determine statutory rape from below 12 to below 16, regardless of sexual orientation of the offenders and victims.