A six-member central team will arrive in Telangana later on Wednesday to visit flood-affected districts.

The team led by Col Kirti Pratap Singh, Joint Secretary (Operation and Communications) in the Union Home Ministry, will meet Chief Secretary Santhi Kumari in the Secretariat.

The Chief Secretary will brief the team on the damage caused by the floods through a PowerPoint presentation.

The central team will also see a photo exhibition arranged by the Telangana government to depict the destruction caused by heavy rains and floods in various districts.

Later the team will split into two groups to visit Suryapet, Khammam, Mahabubabad, and other districts to assess the damage.

Actresses Alia Bhatt and Sharvari are prepping hard for their next physically challenging schedule of “Alpha” in Mumbai.

A source said: “The most dangerous, physically taxing schedule of Alpha awaits for Alia and Sharvari.”

The source shared that a heavily secured set has been put up for the schedule, which will take place for 15 days.

“A heavily guarded set has been put up in Mumbai and the two will need to be in the best physical fitness to be able to pull off the massive stunts that have been planned for the two.”

The Department of Telecom (DoT) on Wednesday said that its Sanchar Saathi portal has disconnected ‘one crore fraud numbers’.

DoT’s Sanchar Saathi portal is a citizen-centric web portal created to fight cyber fraud, enabling citizens to report suspicious calls and messages.

“Huge 1 crore fraud numbers disconnected via Sanchar Saathi,” DoT posted on social media platform X.

In a bid to curb the menace of spam calls, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has also directed telecom operators to disconnect and blacklist entities using bulk connections for spam calls, including robocalls and pre-recorded calls.

“In the last fortnight over 3.5 lakh such numbers have been disconnected and 50 entities have been blacklisted. In addition, around 3.5 lakh unused/ unverified SMS headers and 12 lakh content templates are blocked,” according to the Ministry of Communications.

At least nine Palestinians were killed and several others injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting a house in Jabalia town in the northern Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian sources.

The Israeli aircraft attacked the home of Dr Akram al-Najjar from Al-Quds Open University on Gaza Street in Jabalia, killing nine people, including three children and two women, and injuring others in neighbouring houses, said Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza.

Civil defence teams are still working to rescue the missing, who are potentially under the rubble of the targeted house and its adjacent buildings, news agency reported.

The deceased and injured have been taken to the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, Bassal noted on Tuesday.

Japan's weather agency on Wednesday issued a warning as Typhoon Bebinca is expected to approach the country's island chain, including Okinawa and Amami regions over the weekend, bringing severe weather conditions.

13th typhoon of the year, which formed near the Mariana Islands on Tuesday night, is moving northwest at 20 kilometres per hour, reported the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).

As of 9 a.m. local time on Wednesday, the tropical storm had a central pressure of 990 hPa and a maximum wind speed of 25 metres per second, news agency reported.

The storm's strong wind zone, with a speed of at least 15 metres per second, extends within a radius of 220 kilometres from the centre, said the JMA.

The JMA warned that the typhoon, expected to hit between Saturday and Sunday, may bring heavy rains, strong winds, and high waves to the affected regions, urging residents and visitors to take precautions.

Driven by the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, Apple has reached around $5 billion in iPhone exports from India in the April-August period this fiscal.

According to industry data, this is a growth of over 50 per cent from the same period of first five months in FY24.

With the country set to commence production of the flagship iPhone Pro and Pro Max models, the value of iPhone exports is going to jump further in the festive quarter and months ahead, according to the industry analysts.

The new iPhone 16 series will be available in the country from September 20 at attractive financing options and other offers.

Despite ongoing state and local efforts, California's homeless population grew to nearly 186,000 people, according to the latest point-in-time count data analysed by CalMatters, highlighting the persistent challenges faced by the Golden State of the United States.

In a report published by CalMatters on Tuesday, the 2024 count revealed a slight uptick from last year's tally of about 181,000 and an 8 per cent increase from 2022. However, the growth rate appeared to be slowing compared to previous years, which saw increases of 13 per cent between 2019 and 2022, and 16 per cent between 2015 and 2017.

The Israeli military released video footage showing a tunnel in the Gaza Strip, where it says the bodies of six hostages shot dead by Hamas were found.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Spokesman Daniel Hagari presented the video at a press conference after touring the tunnel on Tuesday. He said a shaft hidden in a residential home in Rafah, southern Gaza, led to the tunnel buried 20 meters underground.

The video shows a low, narrow passageway with no bathroom and poor ventilation, according to news agency.

Hagari added that the tunnel was extremely humid, saying, "There is no air to breathe."

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has once again targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the India-China border issue, alleging that the PM didn't handle the neighbouring country well and its troops have occupied 4,000 sq km of land in Ladakh.

The Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, who is on a three-day visit to the US, made the remarks on Tuesday during a media interaction at the National Press Club in Washington DC.

When asked whether India under PM Modi managed the China competition well, the Congress leader said: "If you call having Chinese troops in 4,000 square kilometres of our territory handling something well, then maybe we have got Chinese troops occupying land the size of Delhi in Ladakh. I think that's a disaster."

"How would America react if a neighbour occupied 4000 square kilometres of your territory? Would any president be able to get away with saying that he's handled that well? So I don't think PM Modi handled China well at all. I think there's no reason Chinese troops should be sitting in our territory," he added.

If you are suffering from chronic pain in your body, it may be time to actively work towards losing that belly or abdominal fat, suggests research on Wednesday.

Reducing belly fat may help reduce chronic musculoskeletal pain particularly if it’s at multiple body sites, especially in women, revealed the study, published in the open-access journal Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine.

Musculoskeletal pain, which affects about 1.71 billion people globally, affects bones, joints, ligaments, tendons or muscles.

Previously published research has shown that obesity is associated with musculoskeletal pain, but it’s unknown if excess fat tissue is linked to chronic musculoskeletal pain at multiple body sites, said researchers from the universities of Tasmania and Monash in Australia.