News in pictures: 70kg laddu for Modi, Sally hits US, buildings sealed in Mumbai, 'WhatsApp insecure', Kerala nurse dies, Air India Express crash report...

HURRICANE SALLY HITS US GULF COAST: Hurricane Sally barreled into the US Gulf Coast early Wednesday, with forecasts of drenching rains that could provoke "historic" and potentially deadly flash floods. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the Category 2 storm hit Gulf Shores, Alabama at about 4:45 am (0945 GMT), bringing maximum sustained winds of about 105 miles (165 kilometers) per hour. https://bit.ly/3c7qU3Q

ALITALIA TO BEGIN CORONAVIRUS-TESTED FLIGHTS: Italian airline Alitalia was set on Wednesday to fly its first flights from Rome's Fiumicino Airport reserved for passengers who have tested negative for coronavirus. In a pilot project which the airline hopes will attract more passengers, Alitalia is scheduled to operate two flights from Rome to Milan's Linate Airport that it has billed as 'COVID-tested'. https://bit.ly/3kjMrZV

BUILDINGS TO BE SEALED IN MUMBAI: The Indian city of Mumbai, in a bid to curb the spread of COVID-19, has decided to seal an entire building if 10 or more coronavirus infection cases are found there. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporations health department issued the revised protocols after civic chief Iqbal Singh Chahal held a meeting to review the COVID-19 situation. https://bit.ly/3krmuYv

'WHATSAPP, TELEGRAM MESSENGERS INSECURE': Messengers like WhatsApp expose personal data via discovery services that allow users to find contacts based on phone numbers from their address book, say researchers. When installing a mobile messenger like WhatsApp, new users can instantly start texting existing contacts based on the phone numbers stored on their device. For this to happen, users must grant the app permission to access and regularly upload their address book to company servers in a process called mobile contact discovery. The study from the Technical University of Darmstadt and the University of Würzburg in Germany shows that currently deployed contact discovery services severely threaten the privacy of billions of users. Utilizing very few resources, the researchers were able to perform practical crawling attacks on the popular messengers WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram. https://bit.ly/33CEOqR

KERALA NURSE DIES OF COVID IN OMAN: An India expatriate nurse from Kerala succumbed to COVID-19 at the Royal hospital in Oman, registering the first coronavirus-related death among MoH health workers in Oman, the Ministry of Health said in a statement on Wednesday. "With great sadness and sorrow, the Ministry of Health of the Sultanate of Oman mourns the passing away of nurse Blessy Thomas at the Royal Hospital ICU on Monday due to Covid-19," the statement said. Blessy is survived by her husband and two young children. https://gn24.ae/a7b9ef334ef3000

'COVID-IMPACTED INDIAN ECONOMY MAY SEE GRADUAL RECOVERY': The recovery of the Indian economy reeling from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will be gradual, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Wednesday. Addressing the FICCI National Executive Committee Meeting, the central bank chief said that the country is still reeling under the impact of COVID-19 and will gradually come back on normal growth path.

THAILAND SEALS BORDER WITH MYANMAR: Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan said on Wednesday that the border checkpoints between Thailand and Myanmar are temporarily sealed in an attempt to curb possible COVID-19 infections and drug trafficking.

BRITISH AIRWAYS TAKING DRASTIC ACTION: British Airways is having to take every measure possible to make it through the winter because a fear of flying during the pandemic has destroyed any hope of a rapid return to normality, its boss said on Wednesday. BA CEO Alex Cruz told a parliamentary select committee that the airline was running at 25 to 30% of its normal flight schedule, prompting it to cut thousands of jobs because "fewer flights means fewer people required to actually service them". "This is the worst crisis that British Airways has gone through in its 100 years of history," he said.

MYANMAR RACES TO BUILD FIELD HOSPITAL: Myanmar authorities are racing to build a field hospital in the commercial capital of Yangon to cope with a surge of coronavirus infections that doctors fear threatens to overwhelm the country's fragile health system. The Southeast Asian nation reported 307 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, its highest daily toll since the start of the pandemic in March, and another 134 on Wednesday morning, taking the total to 3,636 cases and 39 deaths. Myanmar had gone weeks without a case of local transmission before an outbreak in mid-August in the western region of Rakhine that has spread across the country. https://bit.ly/2RtmBpS

GERMAN STARTUP SENNDER ACQUIRES UBER'S EUROPEAN FREIGHT BUSINESS: German freight startup sennder said on Wednesday it had acquired Uber's European freight business in an all-stock deal that will see the US ride hailing company become a minority shareholder. The deal marks the second acquisition this year by Berlin-based sennder, a digital freight forwarder founded in 2015 that specialises in full-truck loads, handling 50,000 cargoes a month.

BANK OF SPAIN SEES RECOVERY: The recovery of Spain's economy from its worst recession ever will be slower than expected as a resurgence of coronavirus infection has weighed on activity in the third quarter, the Bank of Spain warned on Wednesday. The central bank expects the country's gross domestic product to rebound between 13% and 16.6% in the third quarter after it shrank a record 18.5% in the preceding three months, but it was still likely to be 9.5%-12.3% below year-ago levels. The new forecast range is based on a scenario of smaller localised outbreaks and another one of a wider lockdown, with the economy expected to contract 10.5%-12.6% this year, which compares to its previous central forecast of 11.6% contraction in June. https://bit.ly/2RvRlXd

70 KG LADDU TO MARK MODI'S 70TH BIRTHDAY: Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 70th birthday on September 17, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers in Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore have offered a 70-kilogram laddu to Lord Shiva at Sivan Kamatchi Amman Temple, and distributed it amongst the people. BJP workers had carried out a procession outside the temple and then offered prayers following which the laddu was distributed. As part of the celebration, for the past one week, BJP workers have engaged themselves in different events, including ration distribution amongst the needy, organising blood donation camps and eye check-up camps.

REPORT ON AIR INDIA EXPRESS CRASH: Indian Minister of Civil Aviation Hardeep Singh Puri on Wednesday informed that the investigator-in-charge Captain S S Chahar, who is probing Air India Express crash, will "submit the report to Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) preferably within five months from the date of order." Chahar was appointed by the Director-General of AAIB on August 13, 2020, for probing this case. https://bit.ly/3cfrDQB

HITACHI SCRAPS UK NUCLEAR POWER PLANT PROJECT: Hitachi said Wednesday it is pulling out of a multi-billion-pound nuclear power plant project in Wales, citing a worsening investment environment, in a blow to Britain's low-carbon energy policy. The project in Anglesey had already been suspended for 20 months "and the investment environment has become increasingly severe due to the impacts of Covid-19," the Japanese firm said in a statement.

EU CUTTING EMISSIONS: The European Commission will propose cutting emissions in Europe by 55 percent by 2030 in response to the climate emergency, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday.