(BEIJING) — China issued its top warning for coastal areas of Zhejiang province Friday ahead of a strong typhoon carrying heavy rain and winds and expected to send an intense storm surge up the mighty Yangzte River.

Heavy rain was expected in Zhejiang, Shanghai and nearby provinces on Friday before Typhoon Lekima hits land on Saturday morning, then weakens as it moves north.

Parts of northern Taiwan closed offices and suspended classes at schools on Friday as the storm passed northeast of the island. The same area was hit by a magnitude 6.0 earthquake Thursday that caused minor damage but no deaths or injuries.

The red alert China issued is the most serious in its four-tired alert system, prompting authorities to prepare evacuations, suspend train and air travel and require vessels to return to port. In Zhejiang, ferry service had been cancelled and more than 200 tourists evacuated from popular Beiji island.

The National Meteorological Center said Lekima was gusting at 209 kph (130..

(NEW DELHI) — A strict curfew keeping residents of Indian-controlled Kashmir in their homes for a fifth day was being eased for Friday prayers, the police chief said.

The mostly-Muslim region has been under an unprecedented security lockdown and near-total communications blackout to prevent unrest as India’s Hindu nationalist-led government announced it was revoking Kashmir’s special constitutional status and downgrading its statehood.

“People will be allowed to go to the area-specific mosques for the prayers in most parts of the Srinagar city,” the region’s police chief, Dilbagh Singh, told The Associated Press.

The relaxing of the curfew in Kashmir’s main city was temporary but a precise timeframe wasn’t given. Friday prayers start at 12:37 p.m. in Srinagar and last for about 20 minutes.

The Press Trust of India news agency said authorities will allow people to offer prayers in small local mosques, but there will be no Friday congregation at the historic Jama Masjid where thousan..

Prince George of Cambridge who has lost some baby teeth is here to supply everyone with some daily cuteness.

Never one to be camera-shy, the royal showed off the new gap in the front of his mouth as his parents, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, participated in their inaugural event for the King’s Cup sailing race in Cowes, England. Prince George turned six years old on July 22, so his dental situation is par for the course.

Prince George watched the regatta with his younger sister, Princess Charlotte of Cambridge, from a boat with their maternal grandfather, Michael Middleton, according to People.

He was really really captain Prince George???????????? pic.twitter.com/MEOx7FCBgt

— Isa (@isaguor) August 8, 2019

https://t.co/IOCz8TCn6Q

— Richard Palmer (@RoyalReporter) August 8, 2019

PRINCE GEORGE IS THERE WITH GRANDPA MIDDLETON!! ????❤️ pic.twitter.com/8FIh6BPCRE

— ᴅᴀʀʟɪɴɢ.????️ (@acupofanna) August 8, 2019

Babies!!!! Charlotte every time we see her look ..

The U.S. and the Taliban both say they are close to calling it peace after 18 years of war and multiple rounds of tense but cordial negotiations between dark-suited diplomats and turbaned fighters over cups of tea in plush hotels in Doha, Qatar.

On one side of the re-purposed ballroom tables, U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad is working relentlessly to close the hardest deal of his life: a peace agreement that would allow U.S. forces to withdraw fast enough to meet President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign timetable but buy the Afghan government enough time to negotiate a separate peace with the Taliban.

On the other side sit Taliban commanders who drove the last Soviet forces out of Afghanistan 30 years ago, have fought the U.S.-led coalition to a bloody stalemate, and are still battling Afghan forces while the negotiations continue. An August 7 Taliban suicide attack on a police station in Kabul, the Afghan capital, killed 14 and wounded 145.

Both Khalilzad and Taliban chief negotiator Mul..

By dramatically changing the food we eat as well as the way it is grown and produced, humans can help stop the devastating impacts of climate change according to the latest report by the United Nations body on climate science.

More than 100 scientists from 52 countries put together the report, which was published by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It takes a look at how land-use practices have impacted the planet and finds that deforestation, agriculture and other human activities threaten the world’s ability to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees celsius, the goal of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

However, the report is not all bad news and finds that if more of the world’s population shifts toward plant-based diets and reduces their meat consumption, it could significantly boost the planet’s ability to fight climate change.

“Some dietary choices require more land and water, and cause more emissions of heat-trapping gases than others,” Debr..