A powerful winter storm packing heavy snow and high winds pummeled the US East Coast yesterday, forcing the cancellation of thousands of flights as severe weather alerts were sounded across a region of around 70 million people.

The search committee, which will suggests names for the appointments of the chief election commissioner and other commissioners, is likely to be formed by the president today, sources said. 

As Omicron pushes Western countries towards reopening, Asia is hunkering down, sharpening an East-West divide on the balance between public health, the economy and basic rights and freedoms.

Japan will contribute $2 million in emergency grant aid for supporting the Rohingyas living on Bhasan Char.

The forest department recovered a tiger’s carcass from a Sundarbans canal yesterday afternoon.

The United Nations yesterday urged the world to ramp up the pressure on Myanmar’s junta to cease violence against the country’s own people and quickly restore civilian rule.

Some 550 Bangladeshi expatriate workers, including 200 UAE-bound ones, are forced to cancel their flights every day at the last moment, said sources at Dhaka airport.

Election Commissioner Mahbub Talukdar yesterday hit back at Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda saying that the latter criticised him “out of vengeance” as they had differing positions on different election issues.

The protesting students of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology thanked Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday for bearing all medical expenses of those who were injured in police attack and became sick in hunger strike.

Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron that the West had ignored Moscow’s security concerns over Nato expansion and Ukraine, the Kremlin said.

The BNP yesterday said the law on Election Commission formation would not protect the ruling Awami League, and people would not accept the law.   

The BA.2 subvariant of the Omicron coronavirus variant, which is dominant in Denmark, appears more contagious than the more common BA.1 sub-lineage, Danish Health Minister Magnus Heunicke said in a national address.

India’s capital yesterday announced the end of a weekend curfew and eased other stringent coronavirus restrictions yesterday, with government data suggesting the country’s recent Omicron variant outbreak had slowed.

China has returned an Indian citizen who “illegally” entered into Chinese territory at the disputed border between the two Asian giants, a military official said yesterday.

The students of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology have resumed their protest with an open discussion.

The main structure of the country’s first metro rail project was completed yesterday with the installation of the last segment of the viaduct, which now connects two ends of the capital -- Uttara and Motijheel.

At least eight people were injured in a clash between the followers of two rival chairman candidates at Khagaria Union Parishad polls in Chattogram’s Satkania upazila yesterday.

A woman in Patuakhali’s Baufal upazila has been sued for becoming a voter for the second time using a fake name and age.

A Kushtia court sent a female office assistant of Kushtia’s Daulatpur upazila sub-registrar (land) office to jail yesterday.

Police arrested a union parishad member and his two cohorts on Wednesday for their alleged involvement in beating up three youths on theft charge in Mymensingh’s Phulbaria upazila.