BRUSSELS: British and EU negotiators embarked on probably their final two-day scramble to secure a post-Brexit trade deal yesterday, after failing for eight months to reach agreement. 

KUWAIT: Kuwait recorded 205 new coronavirus cases and two deaths yesterday, raising the total number of cases to 144,369 and deaths to 891, respectively. 

SAN FRANCISCO: More than 1,400 Google employees on Friday demanded that the tech giant explain why it dismissed a Black artificial intelligence ethics researcher. 

KOTA BHARU, Malaysia: In a backroom workshop in Malaysia, goldsmiths with blowtorches and chisels sit at wooden desks as they melt and mold the precious metal into glittery jewelry. 

WASHINGTON: The US economy showed more signs that its recovery is stalling as hiring slowed amid a surge in Covid-19 cases, ramping up pressure on politicians to agree on a new relief package to help struggling businesses and families.

MOSUL: Mountains of kitchen supplies, back-to-back butchers: the historic wholesale market in Iraq’s Mosul is battling the odds-from extremists to epidemic-to revive the city’s reputation as a trading hub. The northern city was a commercial hub for centuries, strategically located along transport routes linking Baghdad to the south, Syria to the west, Turkey further north and Iran in the east.

PETROSANI, Romania: In the large, dark locker room of southern Romania’s Lonea coal mine, 20-year-old Liviu dons his uniform and helmet before embarking on a six-hour shift in a vanishing industry. 

TULSA, US: Will this plane land safely?
That question was very much on the minds of the 87 passengers on the revamped Boeing 737 MAX’s first public flight Wednesday following a 20-month grounding after two fatal crashes. 

WASHINGTON: President-elect Joe Biden undoubtedly has plans to roll back many of President Donald Trump’s policies when he takes charge of the White House next month, but when it comes to trade, he has signaled little may change-at least at first. In an interview with The New York Times published Wednesday, Biden, who defeated Trump in last month’s presidential election, made it clear his first job will be reviving the beaten-down US economy, not radically shifting trade policy.