VOA NEWS
June 27, 2021
| This is VOA News. Reporting by remote, I'm David Byrd. Rescue crews have found another body in the rubble of a collapsed 12-story condominium tower near Miami on Saturday, raising the death toll to five as they raced to recover any survivors while fighting back fire and smoke deep inside the concrete and metal remains. Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava announced the heightened toll at an evening news briefing, saying the identification of three bodies had dropped the number of unaccounted-for down to 156. "... and today our search and rescue teams found another body in the rubble and as well our search has revealed some human remains." Earlier, a report released by the city of Surfside said the ground floor pool deck of the oceanfront condominium was resting on a concrete slab that had major structural damage and needed to be extensively repaired. The 2018 engineering report also uncovered abundant cracking and spalling of concrete columns, beams and walls in the parking garage. Britain's Health Minister Matt Hancock quit on Saturday after he was caught breaking COVID-19 rules by kissing and embracing an aide in his office, enraging colleagues and the public who have been living under lockdown. The 42-year-old Hancock said he resigned after The Sun newspaper published photos Friday of the married minister embracing a woman whom he had appointed to a taxpayer-funded role to scrutinize the performance of his department. "... those of us who make these rules have got to stick by them and that's why I've got to resign." Britain was meant to have lifted all restrictions June 21st, but a rise in cases due to the emergence of the Delta variant first identified in India has pushed back those plans by at least four weeks. This is VOA News. Officials in Columbia say they have found two guns that were used to fire at the presidential helicopter on Friday night. We get more from Reuters Libby Hogan. The incident took place while the president's helicopter was flying through Colombia's Catatumbo region. No one was injured in the incident, a spokesman for the presidency said. The troubled Catatumbo region on Columbia's border with Venezuela is home to extensive coca crops - the main ingredient of cocaine. It is where gorillas of the leftist National Liberation Army operate. Former FARC fighters who reject a 2016 peace deal with the government along with armed criminal groups involved in drug trafficking. That's Reuters Libby Hogan. Sydney and surrounding areas have entered a hard two-week coronavirus lockdown as authorities struggled to control a fast-spreading outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant. Reuters Maha Albadrawi reports. Authorities say the city and surrounding areas have about 80 confirmed cases of the Delta variant of the virus, and it's spreading rapidly. The country also remains largely unvaccinated. Parts of Sydney, Australia's biggest city, were already under lockdown due to the outbreak. Gladys Berejiklian is the premiere of New South Wales: "If we are going to do this, we need to do it properly. There's no point doing a three-day lockdown and then having the virus continue to bubble away in the community." Under the rules in place through July 9th, people can leave home for only essential work, medical care, education, or shopping like groceries. The government says 28 percent of people aged 16 or older have received their first COVID-19 vaccine shot. That's Maha Albadrawi. Johnson & Johnson has agreed to pay $230 million to settle claims that the pharmaceutical giant helped fuel the opioid crisis. AP's Julie Walker reports. The deal announced Saturday requires Johnson & Johnson to make a series of payments over nine years that will cover the total. The drugmaker also agreed to end the manufacturing and distribution of opioids across the nation. New York Attorney General Letitia James who sued the drugmaker and was about to go to trial said in a statement the company "helped fuel this fire but today they're committing to leaving the opioid business." J&J said in a statement the settlement is "not an admission of liability or wrongdoing by the company" and its actions "relating to the marketing and promotion of importing prescription pain medications were appropriate and responsible." I'm Julie Walker. You can find more on these stories and the rest of the day's news at voanews.com. Reporting by remote, I'm David Byrd, VOA News. ------------------------------------------------------- From: Listening to VOA News |
