Los Angeles, Nov 18: Four people were shot dead and six others wounded while watching a football game in the backyard of a central California home on Sunday, police said.
"Three people died on scene," deputy Fresno police chief Michael Reed told reporters.
"One was critical and... succumbed to his injuries" after being rushed to a hospital, he added.
Washington, Mar 26: Indian-American hoteliers have come forward to rescue the stranded Indian students in the US following implementation of lockdown measures in the country in response to the rapidly-spreading coronavirus pandemic, offering them free accommodation and free meals.
With the students scrambling for a roof over their heads after being asked to vacate their hostels and India banning international flights for a week from March 22 due to the coronavirus pandemic, more than 6,000 rooms in nearly 700 hotels were offered to them by Wednesday following a call from the Indian Embassy.
The Indian Embassy have been running a round-the-clock helpline since last week for the students in the US, who number over 2,50,000.
Most of these hotels offered are in and around universities and colleges, but the hotel owners from across the country have come up in large numbers to the call given by community leaders, who have roped in Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) for the purpose.
India's Ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu said in a tweet, "It is heartening to see that Indian; Indian-American and other hotel owners are coming forward to help people with accommodation in these testing times. Together we can overcome the fight against COVID19!"
"The Indian community has come together to help the student and many hotel owners have offered their rooms free of cost to them. Many of them are also offering free meals to these students," Chicago-based community leader Nirav Patel told PTI.
Indian-American hotelier couple K K Mehta and Chandra Mehta have offered more than 100 rooms to Indian students at their two prime properties each near the Times Square and Barclays Center in New York City, said Jaipur Foot USA chairman Prem Bhandari on behalf of the hotels.
The Indian Consulate in New York had contacted them about this 10 days ago, he said.
"These students are the future of both India and the United States. All the top Indian-American CEOs, scientists and doctors came to this country as a student. It's our moral duty to help them with our resources," Bhandari said.
Regional director of AAHOA Upper Midwest Kalpesh Joshi said they had created a master list of the availability hotel rooms, which was being constantly updated.
Free accommodation would be allocated in coordination with the Indian Embassy and its consulates, he said.
"The Indian Embassy and its consulates are working tirelessly to get these students rooms," he added.
Joshi has also sent out a video message to his hotelier colleagues: "Because of the coronavirus outbreak, our Indian students in the US are out of shelter. Let's work together. As a hotelier, I would like to request all my hotelier friends to come forward... let's provide some rooms to the students."
Boston-based Computer Society of India (North America) has collaborated with AAHOA to help students and Indian IT professionals searching for emergency accommodation due to the COVID-19 lockdown.
Anyone who is having financial hardship will be given hotel accommodation either free of cost or the rates will not be more than USD 50, said the Computer Society of India (North America).
Minesh Patel, the chairman of Virginia Asian American Store Association, said between Richmond, Norfolk, and Virginia Beach, Indian-American hotel owners can help in arranging accommodation for over 500 Indian students.
Florida-based Vipul Patel, the national president of Asian American Store Owners Association, said support for the Indian students have been pouring in from the Indian-American hoteliers.
"I have not come across any hotel owner who said no to us," Patel said.
Rooms would be allocated to students on the recommendation of the Indian Embassy and its consulates in Houston, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco and New York.
The Indian Consulate in New York was the first to take a lead in this regard. It has worked with Hammock Worldwide Hotels and Resorts to provide temporary accommodation for the students at a flat rate of USD 50 per night.
Joshi said that initially there was a suggestion to charge a convenience fee of USD 20-25 per day from the students.
"But when a few of them offered free rooms and free meals, everyone agreed to it," he said.
According to Johns Hopkins University coronavirus tracker, the number of deaths caused by the novel coronavirus in the US rose to 1,031 with 68,572 confirmed cases. The US has the third highest number of confirmed cases behind China and Italy.
As Peru begins to ease its strict coronavirus lockdown, the country's biggest LGBTQ nightclub opened its doors on Tuesday, but there will be no nighttime revellers; its dance floor will instead be filled with shelves stocked with groceries.
Instead of slinging cocktails at the bar or dancing on stage, ValeTodo Downtown's famed staff of drag queens will sell customers daily household products as the space reopens as a market while nightclubs are ordered to remain closed.
The Peruvian government will lift the lockdown in most regions of the country at the beginning of July but will keep borders closed, as well as nightclubs and bars.
The lockdown has been a struggle for the club's 120 employees like drag queen Belaluh McQueen. Her life completely changed when the government announced the quarantine. Her nights were spent at home, rather than performing as a dancer at the club in vivid-coloured costumes.
"I was very depressed because I have been doing this art for years, but you have to adapt to new challenges for the future," said McQueen, who is identified by her stage name.
Now McQueen is back to work as a grocery store employee, wearing a sequined suit, high heels and a mask. A DJ will play club music as patrons shop. "We have a new job opportunity," McQueen added.
Renamed as Downtown Market, the club, which has been a mainstay hallmark of the local LGBTQ community, ushered in its reopening with an inauguration ceremony.
"Before, I used to come here to dance and have a good time, but now we come to buy," said Alexandra Herrera, a regular attendee of the club. "The thing is to reinvent yourself."
The club's general manager, Claudia Achuy, said that the pandemic impacted the heart of Lima nightlife, but she chose to reopen as a market rather than risk cutting staff. "If we had just stayed as a nightclub we did not have a close horizon or a way of working," Achuy said.
Peru's confirmed coronavirus cases rose to 282,364 with 9,504 associated deaths on Monday, according to government data. It has the second-highest outbreak in Latin America after Brazil, according to a Reuters tally.
Kabul, Jan 27: A passenger plane crashed on Monday in a Taliban-held area of Afghanistan's Ghazni province, local officials said.
Arif Noori, spokesman for the provincial governor, said the plane went down around 1:10 p.m. local time in Deh Yak district, which is held by the Taliban. Two provincial council members also confirmed the crash.
The number of people on board and their fate was not immediately known, nor was the cause of the crash.
Ariana Airlines, Afghanistan's national carrier, dismissed the claim that one of their planes had crashed in a statement on their website, saying all their aircraft were operational and safe.
The mountainous Ghazni province sits in the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains and is bitterly cold in winter.
The last major commercial air crash in Afghanistan occurred in 2005 when a Kam Air flight from western Herat to the capital Kabul crashed into the mountains as it tried to land in snowy weather.
The war however has seen a number of deadly crashes of military aircraft. One of the most spectacular occurred in 2013 when an American Boeing 747 cargo jet crashed shortly after takeoff from Bagram air base north of Kabul en route to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. All seven crew member were killed.
Afghanistan's aviation industry suffered desperately during the rule of the Taliban when its only airline Ariana was subject to punishing sanctions and allowed to fly only to Saudi Arabia for Hajj flights.
Since the overthrow of the religious regime smaller private airlines have emerged but the industry is still a nascent one.
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