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  WASHINGTON -- Former President Donald Trump's administration has not turned over all presidential records and the National Archives will consult with the Justice Department on whether to move to get them back, the agency has told Congress. A congressional panel on Sept. 13 sought an urgent review by the National Archives and Records Administration after agency staff members acknowledged that they did not know if all presidential records from Trump's White House had been turned over. "While there is no easy way to establish absolute accountability, we do know that we do not have custody of everything we should," acting Archivist Debra Wall said in a letter Friday to th...

Keep on reading: Trump staffers not returning White House records, National Archives says

  PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Haiti on Sunday said at least seven people have died of cholera in a surprise return of the disease that comes as the nation is paralyzed by a gang blockade that has triggered shortages of fuel and clean drinking water. The disease killed some 10,000 people through a 2010 outbreak that has been blamed on a United Nations peacekeeping force. The Pan American Health Organization in 2020 said Haiti had gone a year with no confirmed cholera cases. "According to the information we have, the number of deaths is about 7 to 8," said Health Ministry General Director Laure Adrien during a press conference, adding that officials were struggling to get informati...

Keep on reading: Cholera kills at least seven in Haiti as disease returns

  MANILA, Philippines --- The "periodic breaks" of President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. should be announced to the public, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III said on Monday after the former's trip to Singaporeover the weekend. Malacaang confirmed the president's "productive" visit to the city-state wherein he met with Singaporean Minister for Manpower Tan See Ling with the sidelines of the F1 Grand Prix race to reaffirm bilateral ties. Pimentel noted that leaders should be entitled to "periodic breaks," but it should be disclosed to the public. "Ang masasabi ko na lang siguro ay tao naman tayong lahat. Even ang US (United States) president, some...

Keep on reading: Pimentel says president’s ‘periodic breaks’ should be announced

  Joshua Garcia and Bella Racelis further fueled dating speculations after the two of them were spotted strolling together at what appears to be a mall. The actor and the beauty vlogger, both wearing face masks and dark sunglasses, were side by sideas seen in a photo uploaded by fan account @yoongi_4evs on its Twitter page yesterday, Oct. 2. While the photo was a bit blurry, the netizen pointed out that Garcia and Racelis were holding each other's hands while walking. https://twitter.com/yoongi_4evs/status/1576461368034988034   Fans seem to have confirmed that Garcia is indeed the guy in the photo after the actor showed himself in a similar outfit through his...

Keep on reading: LOOK: Joshua Garcia, Bella Racelis spotted together in public

LOS ANGELES ---New psychological horror film "Smile" has Paramount executives beaming after topping the North American box office with an estimated $22 million in weekend ticket sales, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported Sunday. The film is the disturbing tale of a therapist (Sosie Bacon, daughter of actors Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick) whose grasp on reality begins to slip after she witnesses a shocking and gruesome event involving a patient. "This is an excellent opening, the kind that launches a new horror series," said analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research. Such horror films, he noted, tend to have low budgets but loyal audiences -- two thing...

Keep on reading: Paramount’s gruesome ‘Smile’ tops North America box office

  OUAGADOUGOU -- Burkina Faso's self-declared military leader Captain Ibrahim Traore has accepted a conditional resignation offered by President Paul-Henri Damiba to avoid further violence after Friday's coup, religious and traditional leaders said on Sunday. According to the deal, announced at a press conference, Traore had agreed to seven conditions, including a guarantee of Damiba's safety and the security of soldiers who backed him, and the honoring of promises made to the West Africa regional bloc to return to constitutional rule by July 2024. Damiba could not be reached for comment. A close family member told Reuters he left the country on Sunday. Traore said e...

Keep on reading: Burkina Faso president resigns on condition coup leader guarantees his safety

MABALACAT CITY, Pampanga --- The number of active COVID-19 cases in Aurora province went down from two to only one after a patient in Dipaculao town recovered from the viral disease. Data from the provincial emergency operations center on Sunday, Oct. 2, showed that the lone active patient is a resident of the capital town of Baler. Aurora had recorded 4,338 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic started in 2020. Of these, 4,088 had recovered, while 249 had died. Baler had the most cases at 1,144, followed by Maria Aurora (907) and Casiguran (488). INQ RELATED STORIES Aurora province logs 3 COVID-19 cases | Inquirer News 3 more die of COVID-19 in Aurora province | Inquir...

Keep on reading: Active COVID-19 cases in Aurora drop to 1

  TOKYO -Japan stands ready to take "decisive" steps in the foreign exchange market if excessive yen moves persist, Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said on Monday, in a fresh warning against investors selling off the Japanese currency. "It's important for currencies to move stably, as sharp and one-sided moves are undesirable," Suzuki said in a post-cabinet meeting news conference, referring to the yen's recent sharp declines. "We intervened the other day and we have said we would take decisive steps as needed. There's no doubt this has guarded against speculative moves," he said. Japan spent up to 2.8 trillion yen ($19.34 billion) intervening in the foreign exchang...

Keep on reading: Japan ready to take ‘decisive’ steps on yen, says finance minister

  BRASILIA -- Brazil's national election authority on Sunday began reporting the initial results of the country's presidential election, in which leftist former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva aims to unseat incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. With just 0.1% of voting machines counted, Lula had 51% of valid votes, compared to 37% for Bolsonaro, the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) reported on its website. If no candidate wins over half the votes, excluding blank and spoiled ballots, the top two will face off in a second-round vote on Oct. 30. RELATED STORIES Lula remains ahead of Bolsonaro as Brazil elections looms --- poll Brazil election goes to runoff as Bolsonaro beat...

Keep on reading: Lula leads Bolsonaro in Brazil election as first votes tallied

  RIO DE JANEIRO --- Brazil's presidential election is headed for a run-off vote, electoral authorities said on Sunday, after President Jair Bolsonaro's surprising strength in a first-round vote spoiled rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's hopes of winning outright. With 95% of electronic votes counted, Lula was ahead with 47.6% of votes versus 43.9% for Bolsonaro, the national electoral authority reported. As neither got a majority of support, the race will go to a second-round vote on October 30. Several opinion surveys had shown Lula leading Bolsonaro by 10-15 percentage points ahead of Sunday's vote. The much tighter result dashed expectations of a quick resolution to ...

Keep on reading: Brazil election goes to runoff as Bolsonaro beats polls

  MANILA, Philippines --- The Mrs. Universe Philippines Foundation has crowned nine titleholders, six of whom will take part in the Mrs. Universe pageant in South Korea in December. The winners were chosen from a field of 19 married women who participated in the national pageant's coronation night staged at the grand ballroom of Okada Manila in Paraaque City on Oct. 2, and ended early morning on Oct. 3. The main title of Mrs. Universe Philippines went to Veronica Yu from Quezon City, while the Mrs. Universe Philippines FDN-North Pacific Asia crown went to Gines Angeles from Nueva Ecija, and the Mrs. Universe Philippines FDN-Northeast Asia title to Lady Chatterly Sumbeli...

Keep on reading: 6 Filipino women to compete in Mrs. Universe pageant

  SEHWAN, Pakistan --- The emergency ward at the main government hospital in Sehwan, a small town in southern Pakistan, is overwhelmed. On a recent visit, Reuters witnessed hundreds of people crammed into rooms and corridors, desperately seeking treatment for malaria and other illnesses that are spreading fast after the country's worst floods in decades. Amid the crush, Naveed Ahmed, a young doctor in the emergency response department of the Abdullah Shah Institute of Health Sciences, is surrounded by five or six people trying to get his attention. The 30-year-old keeps his cool as stretched emergency services struggle to cope with thousands of patients arriving from...

Keep on reading: Pakistani hospital overwhelmed as water-borne illnesses spread

  London, United Kingdom ---King Charles III will next month host the first state visit of his new reign when South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and his wife travel to Britain, Buckingham Palace announced Monday. "The President of the Republic of South Africa... has accepted an invitation from his majesty the king to pay a state visit to the United Kingdom from Tuesday 22nd November to Thursday 24th November 2022," the palace said. "The king and the queen consort (Camilla) will host the state visit at Buckingham Palace," it added, noting South Africa's first lady Tshepo Motsepe would accompany her husband on the visit. Charles III ascended to the throne followin...

Keep on reading: King Charles III to host South African president in first state visit of reign

MIAMI - Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro, last season's NBA Sixth Man of the Year, has signed a four-year contract extension, the team announced Sunday. Multiple reports said the deal was worth an average of $30 million per season with performance incentives over the life of the contract that could make it worth as much as $130 million. "Tyler is an impact multi-faceted player and we are excited to have him signed for the next five years," Heat president Pat Riley said. "His improvement every year since we drafted him has led to this day. We believe he will continue to get better." The 22-year-old American was taken 13th overall by Miami in the 2019 NBA Draft. The Heat rea...

Keep on reading: NBA: Miami Heat sign Herro to four-year contract extension

  MIAMI --- The death toll from Hurricane Ian climbed past 80 on Sunday as embattled residents in Florida and the Carolinas faced a recovery expected to cost tens of billions of dollars, and some officials faced criticism over their response to the storm. The death toll was expected to keep rising as floodwaters receded and search teams pushed farther into areas initially cut off from the outside world. Hundreds of people have been rescued as emergency workers sifted through homes and buildings inundated with water or completely washed away. At least 85 storm-related deaths have been confirmed since Ian crashed ashore Florida's Gulf Coast with catastrophic force on Wedn...

Keep on reading: Hurricane Ian death toll climbs to 83, officials defend response

The National Privacy Commission (NPC) is investigating data aggregators once more for their supposed part in the continued proliferation of text scams, almost three weeks after the government agency downplayed the role of these data firms in the sham. NPC Deputy Commissioner Leandro Angelo Y. Aguirre said in an interview with DZMM radio over the weekend that scammers have changed their methods to fool people into giving them sensitive personal details. "There are now sender IDs again that are, for example, pretending your bank account has been compromised, saying to click this link. SIM (subscriber identification module) cards are not used in these instances. It looks like data agg...

Keep on reading: Privacy commission sets eyes on data aggregators again amid text scams

Meta announced that it would allow US users to share non-fungible tokens on Facebook and Instagram. Also, it allowed more than 100 countries to share NFTs on the latter. People in the United States may connect their crypto wallets to their profiles. Then, they could make posts featuring the NFTs in them. Meta said NFT Instagram and Facebook sharing "automatically tags the creator and collector." Even better, activating the feature requires a few taps. How do the new NFT Instagram and Facebook feature work? Non-fungible tokens record the ownership of physical and digital objects via crypto networks like Ethereum. Now, you can share NFTs on Meta's social media apps. First, e...

Keep on reading: NFT Instagram And Facebook Sharing Now In The US

SAN FRANCISCO -Tesla CEO Elon Musk showed off on Friday a prototype of its humanoid robot 'Optimus', predicting the electric vehicle maker would be able to produce millions and sell them for under $20,000 - less than a third of the price of a Model Y. Musk said he expected Tesla would be ready to take orders for the robot in three to five years, and described an effort to develop the product over a decade or more, the most detailed vision he has provided to date on a business he has said could be bigger than Tesla's EV revenue. Tesla's push to design and build mass-market robots that would also be tested by working jobs in its factories sets it apart from other manufacturers th...

Keep on reading: Tesla’s robot waves but can’t walk, yet

Chinese automotive company Zhejiang Geely Holding Group said on Friday it bought a 7.6-percent stake in British luxury carmaker Aston Martin, but did not disclose the deal value. Based on Aston Martin's closing share price on Sept. 29, the stake is valued at 66.6 million pounds ($74 million). It was bought by Li Shufu, founder and chairman of Zhejiang Geely, Aston Martin said in a regulatory filing, making the Chinese firm one of the top shareholders in the British carmaker, according to Refinitiv Eikon. "We look forward to exploring potential opportunities to engage and collaborate with Aston Martin as it continues to execute its strategy to achieve long term, sustainable growt...

Keep on reading: China’s Zhejiang Geely buys 7.6% stake in Aston Martin

MUMBAI - Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp on Sunday said it was "disappointed" with an Indian order that froze $682 million of its assets and would continue to protect its interests. An Indian appellate authority on Friday confirmed an April order by India's federal financial crime fighting agency, the Enforcement Directorate, to seize 55.51 billion rupees, saying a probe found Xiaomi had made illegal remittances to foreign entities by passing them off as royalty payments. The Chinese smart devices firm in a statement on Sunday said that over 84 percent of 55.51 billion Indian rupees seized by the Enforcement Directorate earlier this year was the royalty payment made to U.S. ch...

Keep on reading: China’s Xiaomi says will protect business interests after assets frozen in India