Rahul Gandhi holds press briefing at AICC headquarters | LIVE

A suspect in the killings of four University of Idaho students was arrested in eastern Pennsylvania, a law enforcement official said on Friday.

The US Coast Guard suspended their search for four people on board a helicopter that crashed into the Gulf of Mexico, while departing an oil platform, on Thursday morning.

The Kerala government on Friday ordered a departmental inquiry into the death of a man while taking part in a mock drill organised by the Disaster Management Authority in a river in Pathanamthitta. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan gave a direction to Chief Secretary V P Joy in this regard, a CMO statement said. 

Chhattisgarh on Friday reported two COVID-19 cases at a positivity rate of 0.12 per cent, taking the tally to 11,77,754, while the death toll remained unchanged at 14,146, an official said. The recovery count rose by three and touched 11,63,602, leaving the state with six active cases, he said.

Retail inflation for industrial workers eased to 5.41 per cent in November compared to 6.08 per cent in October this year mainly due lower prices of certain food items. "Year-on-year inflation for the month stood at 5.41 per cent compared to 6.08 per cent for the previous month (October 2022) and 4.84 per cent during the corresponding month (November 2021) a year before," a Labour Bureau statement said.

Benchmark BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty closed on a bearish note on the last trading day of 2022 due to fag-end selling in select banking, IT and capital goods shares. The key indices, however, posted annual gains of over 4 per cent in 2022 to emerge as the world's best-performing large market indices.

The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) has conquered one of the last frontiers of Arunachal Pradesh by constructing a road to a border post along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in remote Upper Subansiri district, an official said. The development came amidst tension in the northeastern state, after Indian and Chinese armies clashed at Yangtse, near Tawang on December 9 this year.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is said to be considering imposing some travel restrictions on China amid soaring COVID-19 infections in the country and a clampdown by other countries such as India and the US, according to UK media reports on Friday. Officially ministers have said that adopting tighter rules for people arriving from China is “under review” after a surge in cases following Beijing’s decision to end its zero-COVID policy.

Customs Zone 3 destroyed drugs weighing 140 kgs which were valued at Rs 538 cr in the international market. The drugs were destroyed at the incineration facility of Mumbai Waste Management Limited (MWML), Navi Mumbai. 

Delhi government on Friday banned construction & demolition activities to prevent air quality from worsening.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday accused the BJP of reneging on its MCD poll promise of in-situ rehabilitation of slum dwellers in the national capital. At a press conference, AAP MLA Atishi said just before the MCD polls on December 4, the prime minister had inaugurated 3,024 flats at Kalkaji and handed over the keys to eligible beneficiaries at Bhoomiheen camp.

Hitting out at the ruling BJP, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Friday said had the saffron party not "wasted time" in "Sangh appeasement" by indulging in issues such as conversion, jihad and a survey of madrasas, the delay in holding the civic polls in Uttar Pradesh could have been avoided.

A large number of tourists stranded in over 400 vehicles near South Portal of the Atal Tunnel in Rohtang Pass following snowfall have been rescued, officials said on Friday. The vehicles were stuck as slippery conditions prevailed after snowfall at the tunnel on the Manali-Leh highway and adjoining areas on Thursday.

A constable committed suicide by hanging himself while on duty in the tehsil office premises here on Friday, police said. The deceased, identified as Vishnu, was seen talking on the phone with someone.

The CBI has seized Rs 40 lakh in cash during searches conducted after the arrest of an Indian Defence Accounts Service (IDAS) officer attached to the Army's South Western Command in a Rs 10 lakh bribery case, officials said on Friday.

More than 14 years after an FIR was registered, a court here has acquitted two women of the charge of soliciting for prostitution, saying the prosecution's case had “material omissions” and “missing links" in the chain of circumstances. The court was hearing a case against accused Afsana and Seema, who were charged with section 8 (seducing or soliciting for purpose of prostitution) of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act.

The Delhi High Court has sought response of the Delhi University on a plea alleging arbitrariness in the “seat pattern allocation” adopted for admission to its law course this year. The petitioner claimed that the candidates belonging to the reserved categories, who secured more marks than the candidates figuring in the merit list of the general category, have not been moved to the general category, which is against the “basic idea of reservation” and hinders more reserved category students from taking admission.

The National Investigation Agency has filed a charge sheet against 11 people accused of being involved in organising terror training camps and recruitment of youngsters for the banned Popular Front of India in Telangana, an official said on Friday. The charge sheet against the accused -- 10 belonging to Telangana and one to Andhra Pradesh -- was filed before the NIA Special Court in Hyderabad on Thursday, a spokesperson of the federal agency said.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation on Friday issued revised Covid guidelines for passengers arriving in international flights, ahead of RT-PCR negative test report being made compulsory for travellers from six countries, including China and Thailand. From January 1, 2023, a pre-departure RT-PCR negative test report will be mandatory for passengers coming in all international flights from China, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, Thailand and Japan.

A team of government officials came under attack during an anti-encroachment drive in a floodplain area in Noida, prompting the police to take four suspects into custody, an officer said on Friday. The team of Noida Authority and Revenue Department had visited Sorkha village, under Sector 113 police station limits, on Thursday when the incident took place, the officer said.

Three people were killed and one other critically injured when two motorcycles collided with each other in this district, police said on Friday. The accident took place on Bisva-Laharpur road in Manpur police station area on Thursday night, they said.

PM Modi inaugurated the Joka-Taratala stretch of the Purple Line of the Kolkata Metro through video conferencing. West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee was also present at the event.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is virtually launching the programmes in West Bengal today following his mother Heeraben’s demise in Ahmedabad early on Friday, his office informed.

The Army on Friday launched a search operation in a forward area, a day after it noted suspicious movement along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir. Officials said the troops guarding the LoC in Khari Karmara area opened fire on picking up the movement of two-three suspected intruders around 7 pm on Thursday.

Delhi's minimum temperature rose to double digits for the first time in 15 days on Friday, but the respite is predicted to end soon. Twenty trains to Delhi were delayed and three rescheduled due to dense fog in other areas, a spokesperson of the Railways said.