Hello dear readers! How are you doing today? Here are the news headlines so far on February 16, 2020

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said the government has still not received any appeal for the release of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia on parole.

A 24-year-old Thai man is thought to be the first victim of a hate crime linked to coronavirus in England, The Guardian reported today.

Hundreds of RMG workers blocked the Savar-Birulia bypass road for three hours protesting a sudden indefinite shutdown of their factory without payment of wages.

Saudi Arabia has deported another 145 Bangladeshi workers earlier today.

Legal steps will be taken over the allegation of human trafficking against Laxmipur lawmaker Quazi Shaheed Islam, Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader says.

The government has been directed by the High Court to form separate taskforce in all districts to monitor and stop unregistered and unfit vehicles.

China is giving 500 sets of what they are calling the “most advanced kits” to Bangladesh to help detect coronavirus cases.

In a video released by Jamia Co-ordination Committee yesterday, Delhi police officers can be seen beating up students in the library of Jamia Millia Islamia University on December 15 last year.

Twenty Chinese employees have resumed work at the Payra Thermal Power Plant project in Patuakhali after 14 days of being quarantined.

A government probe committee has found the negligence of five officials of National Institute of Cancer Research and Hospital (NICRH) in preserving and protecting hospital equipment, including intensive care unit ventilation.

Former State Minister and Awami League lawmaker from Gazipur-3 constituency advocate Rahmat Ali passes away. He was 74.

Multiple rockets hit near the US embassy in Iraq's capital, an American military source said, the latest in a flurry of attacks against US assets in the country.

At least 50 shanties and 'jhut' (garment factory scraps) warehouses are burned in a fire that broke out at a slum in Narayanganj city.

The number of new cases of a coronavirus in China fell slightly on Sunday, more than three weeks after the outbreak’s epicenter was locked down, and a Chinese tourist died from the virus in France, the first fatality in Europe.

The Awami League picks Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, joint general secretary of Chattogram city unit of the party, and Md Shafiul Islam Mohiuddin, former president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI), to contest the Chattogram City Corporation (CCC) mayoral election and by-polls to Dhaka-10 constituency respectively.

An assistant professor of Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University (HSTU) in Dinajpur is permanently expelled for sexually harassing a female student of his department in 2017.

One more Bangladeshi national in Singapore has been infected with the novel coronavirus, Singapore’s Ministry of Health says.

A Titumir College student is found dead at his rented house in Dhaka’s South Kamalapur area, soon after he posted what appeared to be a suicide note on his Facebook account.

Police recovered a note which they suspect was written by the husband of the woman who was murdered, along with her two children, in the capital’s Dakshinkhan area.