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Health officials in South Africa say there's been a sharp increase in the number of coronavirus infections across the country. The National Institute for Communicable Diseases said there had been an exponential increase in cases from a weekly average of 300 per day a fortnight ago to 3,500 per day. In the last 24 hours over 8,500 cases were recorded. It's believed the newly discovered Omicron variant may be fuelling the surge.

Any renewed Russian aggression in Ukraine would trigger "serious consequences," warns U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a visit to Latvia, where NATO foreign ministers assembled to discuss the recent build-up of Russian troops near the Ukrainian border. His comments come ahead of a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Stockholm.

And in his first interview since the shooting on set of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, actor Alec Baldwin says he didn't pull the trigger.