Apple iOS 16.2 News LIVE Updates: India’s Apple users will now be able to avail 5G services from Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel with iOS 16.2 update

Air quality in Delhi in moderate category

Delhi’s air quality improves to the ‘Moderate’ category, with the Air Quality Index (AQI) recorded at 133 this morning.

Messi confirms Qatar final will be his last World Cup game

Lionel Messi has confirmed he will play his last World Cup game when Argentina take on France or Morocco in Sunday’s final in Qatar. Messi lead Argentina to a 3-0 win over Croatia in their semi-final on Tuesday and will earn his 172nd cap at the weekend when he tries to bring the country its first World Cup title since 1986.

Covid Update

India saw a single day rise of 152 new Covid cases, while active cases have increased fom 3,845 to 3,846: Union health ministry

Udhayanidhi Stalin sworn in as Minister by Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi

Sensex climbs 250.14 points to 62,783.44 in early trade

Nifty advances 75.5 points to 18,683.50

Rupee slips 4 paise to 82.64 against US dollar in early trade

Former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan briefly joins Bharat Jodo Yatra

MP cabinet approves amendment bill to ban hookah lounges

The Madhya Pradesh cabinet has approved a bill banning hookah lounges in the state, a minister said. “The cabinet has approved the State Amendment Bill-2022 of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003 to ban hookah lounges in Madhya Pradesh,” state Home Minister and government spokesperson Narottam Mishra said on Tuesday after the cabinet meeting.

KL Rahul wins toss, opts to bat against Bangladesh in first Test

India skipper KL Rahul won the toss and elected to bat against against Bangladesh in the first Test here on Wednesday. India need to win both matches of the series to stay alive in the race for the World Test Championship final. India have opted to play with three spinners and two pacers. India have never lost a Test match to Bangladesh.

Hong Kong leader to press China anthem request with Google

Hong Kong’s leader said Tuesday he will push Google to display China’s national anthem as the top result in searches for the city’s anthem instead of a protest song. The comments by John Lee, Hong Kong’s chief executive, followed several big sporting events — including a rugby tournament in South Korea and powerlifting event in Dubai — where the pro-democracy protest song “Glory to Hong Kong” was played as the city’s anthem instead of the Chinese national anthem, “March of the Volunteers”.

US on India-China border tension

Department of Defense continues to watch developments along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) at the India-China border, We have seen the People’s Republic of China (PRC) continues to amass forces & build military infrastructure along the so-called LAC: Pentagon press secretary Pat Ryder

UN chief Guterres calls for de-escalation in tensions along India-China border

Oil prices slip on surprise build in U.S. crude stocks

Oil prices fell in early trade on Wednesday after industry data showed a big build in U.S. crude inventories, rather than the decline forecast by analysts, reinforcing fears about weakening demand even as supply tightens. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell 30 cents, or 0.4%, to $75.09 at 0128 GMT, paring a 3% gain from the previous session.

Australian pro-Putin activist arrested at Ukraine rally

A prominent Australian pro-Putin commentator has been arrested after what police on Wednesday said was an alleged assault at a rally for Ukraine in Sydney. Simeon Boikov, known by his moniker “Aussie Cossack”, posted a video of himself attending the protest on his Telegram channel. The video shows a brief scuffle, after which an elderly man can be seen falling to the ground.

Morocco stand in way of France at World Cup

France face World Cup history-makers Morocco in the World Cup semi-finals on Wednesday, with Lionel Messi’s Argentina lying in wait after another dazzling performance from the diminutive magician.

Jack Dorsey says he will give $1 mln per year to Signal app

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey said in a blog post on Tuesday that he will give a grant of $1 million per year to encrypted messaging app Signal, the first in a series of grants he plans to make to support “open internet development.” Social media should not be “owned by a single company or group of companies,” and needs to be “resilient to corporate and government influence,” Dorsey wrote in a post on Revue, a newsletter service owned by Twitter.

China stops publishing asymptomatic COVID cases, reports no deaths

China’s National Health Commission will stop from Wednesday reporting new asymptomatic COVID-19 infections as many no longer participate in testing, making it hard to accurately tally the total count, it said. The health authority reported 2,291 new symptomatic COVID-19 infections on Dec. 13.

Scientists declare 2 Hawaii volcanoes have stopped erupting

U.S. scientists have declared that two active Hawaii volcanoes — one where lava destroyed hundreds of homes in 2018 and another where lava recently stalled before reaching a crucial Big Island highway — have stopped erupting. “Kilauea is no longer erupting,” the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said in a statement Tuesday, followed by a separate one saying, “Mauna Loa is no longer erupting.”

ADB cuts developing Asia growth projection on China slowdown

US poised to approve Patriot missile battery for Ukraine

The U.S. is poised to approve sending a Patriot missile battery to Ukraine, finally agreeing to an urgent request from Ukrainian leaders desperate for more robust weapons to shoot down incoming Russian attacks, U.S. officials said Tuesday. The approval is likely to come later this week and could be announced as early as Thursday, said three officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision is not final and has not been made public.

Massive US storm brings tornadoes to South, blizzard threat

A massive storm blowing across the country spawned tornadoes that wrecked homes and injured a handful of people in parts of Oklahoma and Texas, including the Dallas-Fort Worth area, as much of the central United States from the Rocky Mountains to the Midwest braced Tuesday for blizzard-like conditions. An area stretching from Montana into western Nebraska and Colorado was under blizzard warnings, and the National Weather Service said that as much as 2 feet (61 centimeters) of snow was possible in some areas of western South Dakota and northwestern Nebraska. Ice and sleet were expected in the eastern Great Plains.

New FTX CEO says lax oversight, bad decisions caused failure

Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and former CEO of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, helped 1,500 Bahamian investors remove $100 million from their accounts while other customers around the world were locked out of the exchange, according to the company’s new CEO, who testified before a House committee Tuesday. FTX CEO John Ray III, who has guided dozens of companies, including Enron, through bankruptcy restructuring, called FTX’s collapse one of the worst business failures he has seen — a “paperless bankruptcy,” fueled by an “unprecedented lack of documentation.”

Biden signs gay marriage law, calls it ‘a blow against hate’

A celebratory crowd of thousands bundled up on a raw Tuesday afternoon to watch President Joe Biden sign gay marriage legislation into law, a joyful ceremony that was tempered by the backdrop of an ongoing conservative backlash over gender issues. “This law and the love it defends strike a blow against hate in all its forms,” Biden said on the South Lawn of the White House. “And that’s why this law matters to every single American.”