| |  |  | The Reuters Daily Briefing | Thursday, July 22, 2021 by Linda Noakes | Hello Here's what you need to know. China evacuates tens of thousands as storms spread north, 'pingdemic' grips Britain as fears of food shortages grow, and Pennsylvania decertifies a county's voting machines | | | | | Today's biggest stories  Japan's aerobatics team, the Blue Impulse, during a practice run for the opening ceremony at the Olympic Stadium, Tokyo, July 21, 2021 REUTERS/Issei Kato WORLD Tokyo Olympics organizers have fired the opening ceremony director on the eve of the event after reports emerged of a past joke he had made about the Holocaust, while media said former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a strong advocate of the Games, would also not attend.
Tens of thousands of people are being evacuated from flood-hit regions of central China as officials raise the death toll from heavy rains that have deluged Henan province for almost a week to 33 people. We look at how, from China to Germany, floods are exposing climate vulnerability.
Britain's supermarkets, wholesalers and hauliers are struggling to ensure stable food and fuel supplies after an official health app told hundreds of thousands of workers to isolate after contact with someone with COVID-19.
Taliban insurgents control about half of Afghanistan's district centers, the senior U.S. general said, indicating a rapidly deteriorating security situation.
Israel's parliamentary review panel may recommend changes to defence export policy over high-profile allegations that spyware sold by Israeli cyber firm NSO Group has been abused in several countries, a senior lawmaker said.
Peruvian police say they have dismantled an alleged criminal ring that charged as much $21,000 per bed for seriously ill COVID-19 patients in a state-run hospital, aggravating care in a country hit by one of the world's deadliest outbreaks of the virus.
|  President Joe Biden listens to a presentation during a tour of an IBEW/NECA union electrician training center in Cincinnati, Ohio, July 21, 2021. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst U.S.
U.S. Senate Republicans blocked a move to open debate on a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure measure that is a top priority for President Joe Biden, but the chamber is poised to take it up again as early as Monday.
The top Republican in the House of Representatives withdrew his five nominees to serve on the special committee probing the deadly January 6 attack on the Capitol after Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two of them.
Pennsylvania's top election official has decertified the voting equipment of a rural county that participated in an audit of the 2020 election requested by a Republican state lawmaker and staunch ally of former President Donald Trump.
A federal judge barred the state of Arkansas, at least for now, from enforcing a first-in-the-nation law that would ban doctors from providing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or gender transition surgeries to minors.
A destructive Oregon wildfire that ranks as the largest among dozens raging across the drought-parched Western United States in recent weeks was ignited by lightning but smoldered for days before it was detected, forest officials said.
| | | | | | | | | Quote of the day "I don't care if you think I'm Satan reincarnated, the fact is you can't look at that television and say nothing happened on the 6th" President Joe Biden Biden speaks at Trump-area town hall | | | | Video of the day  Swiss hiker defies Parkinson’s disease Yves Auberson, who hiked more than 1,100 km across the Alps to raise awareness of the debilitating neurological disease, is gearing up for his next challenge after undergoing an operation to implant electrodes in his brain. | | | Thanks for spending part of your day with us. | | | | | |
