PAULO, (Reuters) - Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has retained his strong lead over incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro ahead of the country’s October election, a Genial/Quaest poll released on Wednesday showed. Lula is seen winning 44% support in a first-round vote against Bolsonaro’s 32%, the poll said. They had 45% and 33%, respectively, two weeks ago. Center-left candidate Ciro Gomes saw his support rise to 8%, from 6% in the previous survey. In an expected run-off, Lula slightly widened his lead to a 14 percentage point gap - taking 51% of the votes against Bolsonaro’s 37%. In the previous poll, Lula had a 13-point lead.

 

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NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. life expectancy dropped for the second consecutive year in 2021, falling by nearly a year from 2020, according to a government report being released Wednesday. In the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the estimated American lifespan has shortened by nearly three years. The last comparable decrease happened in the early 1940s, during the height of World War II. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials blamed COVID-19 for about half the decline in 2021, a year when vaccinations became widely available but new coronavirus variants caused waves of hospitalizations and deaths. Other contributors to the decline are longstanding problems: drug overdoses, heart disease, suicide and chronic liver disease.

 

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PARIS (AFP) - Madagascar police confirmed Tuesday that officers killed 19 people and injured 21 others after opening fire on what was described as a lynch mob angered over the kidnapping of an albino child. “Nineteen people lost their lives and 21 are injured and are still being treated” at Ikongo hospital in the country’s southeast, the national police said in a statement. The hospital’s chief physician, Tango Oscar Toky, confirmed the death toll speaking to AFP by phone on Tuesday. A previous report from police Monday said 11 people had died.

 

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SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Fires in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest surged in August to the highest for the month since 2010, government data showed on Wednesday, surpassing the blazes in August 2019 that drew global attention soon after President Jair Bolsonaro took office. National space research agency INPE registered 31,513 fire alerts in the Amazon via satellite in the first 30 days of the month, making it the worst August since 2010, when fires totaled 45,018 for the full month. Most of INPE’s Amazon fire alerts in an average year come in August and September – considered the burning season in the region, when rains often subside to let ranchers and farmers often set fire to deforested areas. 

 

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BENI, DR of Congo (Reuters) - Suspected militants killed at least 14 civilians and kidnapped more than a dozen others in an attack in the east of Democratic Republic of Congo, a witness and a local human rights group said on Wednesday. Democratic Republic of Congo, a witness and a local human rights group said on Wednesday. An army spokesman confirmed the attack, which took place in Ituri province on Tuesday evening, and blamed it on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan militia active in eastern Congo since the 1990s, which has pledged allegiance to the terrorist group of Deash.