Ali Khan

Country star Taylor Swift, who’s currently traveling the country on her 1989 world tour, helped two concertgoers make an incredibly special pregnancy announcement.

Jesse Rasmussen and his wife Lindsey, who are expecting their first child, met Swift during a media meet and greet and asked her to participate in sharing the big news, reported People Magazine.

The couple posted a picture on Twitter showing 25-year-old singer holding a sign that reads “Baby’s 1st Concert,” and the Rasmussen’s stand on either side of the singer proudly showing off their ultrasounds.

At least 141 people, including 132 alone in capital Karachi, have died due to an intense ongoing heatwave sweeping across many parts of Pakistan’s southern Sindh province.

Nine deaths were reported from Thatta and Tharparkar in the interior of the Sindh province, health officials said.

“Five people died from dehydration and heat stroke in Thatta and four in Tharparkar yesterday,” a Sindh health ministry official told PTI.

The total number of deaths in Sindh province has climbed to around 141 since the heatwave started on Friday.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas told visiting French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius that any new Palestinian unity government should not include Hamas, France’s top diplomat said.

The remarks came on the eve of a key meeting of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) to discuss forming a new cabinet after the government collapsed this week amid a deepening rift with Hamas, the de facto rulers of the Gaza Strip.

More than 500 yoga enthusiasts gathered from all over Israel to participate in the day-long International Yoga Day celebrations here, demonstrating the immense popularity enjoyed by the ancient Indian tradition in the country.

In a colourful display at the picturesque Tel Aviv port, enthusiasts practised various forms of the discipline the whole day under a massive tent erected right next to a sea with the constant breeze adding the zing to the event.

Around 3,500 yoga lovers across the Houston rolled out their orange mats before they bend and twist their bodies in complex postures to mark the first International Yoga Day.

Consulate General of India, Houston, in partnership with Patanjali Yogpeeth (USA), 30 other sponsors and supporting organisations made the event a huge success. Indian Musilms of Greater Houston Association was one of the sponsors of the International Yoga Day.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the US and NATO need to have a “strong but balanced” approach to Russia, and he questioned whether Moscow’s “backward-looking” aggressive behavior will change while President Vladimir Putin remains at the helm.

Speaking to reporters traveling with him to Europe yesterday, Carter said he can’t be certain Putin will change direction, so allies must use a two-pronged approach that works with Russia on some issues while also girding to deter and respond to Moscow’s aggression.

Poland’s LOT airline has been forced to cancel around 10 foreign and domestic flights after hackers attacked its computers.

Airline spokesman Adrian Kubicki said the hacker attack temporarily paralyzed LOT’s computers at Warsaw’s Frederic Chopin airport yesterday, disrupting the processing of passengers for the flights.

He said some 1,400 passengers, scheduled to fly to Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Copenhagen and domestic destinations, were affected by the cancellations.

The flamboyant wife of Israeli Interior Minister Silvan Shalom published an “inappropriate joke” today about US President Barack Obama on her Twitter account, only to later delete it and apologise.

“Do u know what Obama Coffee is? Black and weak,” Judy Shalom Nir-Mozes wrote to her 74,400 followers.

Online shock, condemnation and accusations of racism later led her to delete the incriminating tweet.

“I apologize, that was a stupid joke somebody told me,” she wrote on her @JudyMozes Twitter account in English.

Pope Francis today denounced what he calls the “great powers” of the world for failing to act when there was intelligence indicating Jews, Christians, homosexuals and others were being transported to death camps in Europe during World War II.

He also decried the deaths of Christians in concentration camps in Russia under the Stalin dictatorship, which followed the war.

The pope’s harsh assessments came in impromptu remarks during his visit to Turin, northern Italy, when he told young people he understands how they find it hard to trust the world.

A heatwave has killed at least 45 people in Pakistan’s largest city of Karachi, officials said today, as residents grapple with frequent power outages and water scarcity during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

The southern port city saw temperatures reach as high as 45 degrees Celsius yesterday, just short of an all-time high in the city of 47 C in June 1979.

“Thirty people were brought dead and 15 died shortly after they reached the hospital,” Dr Seemin Jamali, the head of the emergency department at state-run Jinnah Hospital, told AFP.

Emergency services in Spain’s northeastern region of Catalonia successfully rescued an injured caver from deep underground today after deploying a team of 40 experts.

The fire department of the region of Catalonia said rescuers had used special tools to chip away at sections of the cave to widen it in order to allow a stretcher to fit.

Thousands of enthusiastic people today turned up at various venues across South Africa to celebrate the first International Yoga Day, with the coastal city of Durban recording the maximum participation.

The celebrations that mostly had Indians in attendance, incorporated a variety of activities including talks on the benefits of yoga and ayurveda as well as a wide range asanas.

The biggest gathering was on the beach in the coastal city of Durban, home to more than half of South Africa’s 1.4 million citizens of Indian origin.

In a relief to lakhs of people living in Dwarka and surrounding areas, the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) has commissioned the largest command tank supplying an additional 60 million litres of water everyday.

The DJB has commissioned Command Tank C T -1 of Dwarka, providing 60 million litres additional water every day, the Jal Board said in a press release issued today.

“It was only on March 31 that the DJB had taken over water supply and sewerage services in Dwarka area from Delhi Development Authority (DDA),” it said.

Alleging misgovernment, misuse of official funds and failure to fulfil poll promises, Delhi BJP today announced that it would hold a massive demonstration next week against the ruling AAP.

The stir will be held on June 23 at Delhi Vidhan Sabha over the failures of the Arvind Kejriwal-led government, the party said.

“Delhi has never witnessed the kind of misgovernment and misuse of funds for the ruling party’s political expansion as we are watching currently.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said today any nuclear deal with Iran must be verifiable as he prepared to meet his Iranian counterpart with a deadline looming for an agreement.

“We think that we must be extremely firm and that, if an agreement is to be reached, that agreement must be robust,” Fabius told journalists at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who strongly opposes the deal currently on the table.

“That means that it must be able to be verified.”

Egypt has named a new ambassador to Israel nearly three years after it had recalled the last one at the outset of the 2012 Israeli offensive in Gaza.

A statement released today said President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi named ambassador Hazem Khairat as part of a regular reshuffle of Egypt’s diplomatic corps. Khairat replaced Atef Salem Al-Ahl, who was in his post for less than a month in late 2012.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon discussed several regional issues including Pakistan, Bangladesh and Maldives during their meeting on the eve of International Day of Yoga here.

Ban had called on Swaraj on the evening of June 20 at the Manhattan hotel where she is staying.

“The Secretary-General and the Minister then exchanged views on a number of regional issues including Nepal, Bangladesh, the Maldives and Pakistan,” according to a readout of the meeting provided by Ban’s office today.

World champions Australia went on a goal-scoring spree to hand a 10-0 drubbing to France while Belgium played a 2-2 draw with Great Britain in men’s hockey World League Semifinals at the KHD Dragons Stadium, here today.

Australia showed no signs of rustiness as Govers brothers – Kieran and Blake – scored two goals each to launch their campaign in impressive fashion against France, who yesterday gave India a tough time before conceding the match-winner in the dying minutes.

Yoga is the most easy way to save the young generation from moving towards violence, suicides and depression, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said in a video message to the UN, marking the first International Yoga Day.

“When today’s young generation moves towards violence, moves towards suicides, live in depression, I think Yoga is most easy way to save them,” Modi said in the brief video message played at the UN headquarters here.

Under-fire India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni in a sarcastic tone said that if his removal from captaincy can help Indian cricket move in right direction then he is game for it.

“I am always the one who is responsible for anything bad that happens in Indian cricket. Everything that happens is because of me. Even the Bangladesh media is smiling,” Dhoni gave a tongue-in-cheek reply to a question at the post-match press conference about how much responsibility of this series loss lies with him.

An exhibition on ‘Yoga Chakra, Tradition and Modernity’ was inaugurated here today coinciding with the International Yoga Day celebrations.

The exhibition was inaugurated by the Minister of State for Tourism and Culture, Mahesh Sharma.

“The exhibition is part of the larger endeavour of the Ministry of Culture to present Yog Parv, a festival of Yoga, in the context of performing and visual arts as well as workshops and interactive session in three interlinked segments,” an official release said here.

Indian batsmen once again struggled against young left-arm pacer Mustafizur Rahaman as his six for 43 enabled Bangladesh to skittle out the two-time World Champions for a paltry 200 in 45 overs in a rain-affected second one day international cricket match, here today.

Due to heavy downpour, the match has been reduced to 47 overs per side.

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Sunday said he would remain healthy at least for 20 years more.

“I will remain healthy at least for 20 years more and this is what doctors told me,” he said in his address on his 80th birthday at the hilltop Tsuglagkhang temple close to his official palace at McLeodganj near here.

The remark by the 80-year-old pontiff, the global face of the Tibetan exile movement, is being seen as a dig at China on not to worry about his successor.

A 40-year-old local journalist was burnt to death allegedly by three persons, suspected to be closely linked to sand mafia, who set him ablaze apparently over his refusal to withdraw a court case, police said today.

The burnt body of Sandeep Kothari, who was abducted from Katangi tehsil in Balaghat district two days back, was found lying near railway tracks at Sindi town in Wardha district of east Maharashtra last night, police said.

Former Delhi law minister Jitender Singh Tomar was today sent to Tihar jail by a court here in the alleged fake degree case after police said that it does not require his custody for now.

Tomar was produced in the court by the police on the expiry of his two day police remand. He has been in police custody since his arrest on June 9 with court extending his police remand period thrice.