AUCKLAND / FLORIDA (Dispatches) – New Zealand recorded 21 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, as the current community outbreak of the highly transmissible Delta variant continues to grow, bringing infections associated with the outbreak to 72, health officials said. Of the 21 new cases, 20 are in Auckland, the largest city, and one is in the capital Wellington. Five people were in hospital. The Pacific nation of 5.1 million is under a strict lockdown until midnight on Tuesday as the outbreak has widened beyond the two key cities. The United States has also reported a record-high number of coronavirus cases as Florida recorded more than 150,000 cases in this week’s data dump and the number of deaths surged 300 percent in a single day. According to figures compiled by the widely-respected Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. reported 319,456 new COVID cases, raising the overall count of nationwide cases to more than 37.7 million, The Daily Mail reported. Nearly half of those cases were reported in Florida, which is seeing a 19.8 percent positivity rate among tested individuals. The state, which only releases COVID data once a week, reported 150,118 cases.

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TILLABERI (Al Jazeera) – At least 16 people have been killed in an attack on a village in southwestern Niger where attackers have repeatedly massacred civilians this year, a local official and a security source said. The unidentified gunmen opened fire during Friday prayers in the village of Theim in the Tillaberi region and killed 16 people, Mayor Halido Zibo told Reuters news agency on Saturday. A security source confirmed the attack and put the death toll at 17. The attack follows the killing on Monday of 37 civilians, including 14 children, in a village in the same region. Thiem is about 20km (12 miles) from three other villages where a series of attacks in May by Daesh terrorists forced more than 11,000 inhabitants to flee. Armed groups in Tillaberi and Tahoua regions bordering Mali have killed more than 420 civilians and driven tens of thousands of others from their homes in 2021, New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch said in a report this month.

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BEIJING (Reuters) – Two cities in China’s central province of Henan issued highest flood warnings on Sunday, calling for local agencies to prepare for torrential rains, state television reported. Xingyang and Changyuan in Henan, a transportation hub for China, raised their flood-control response levels to I from II, the top of China’s four-tier scale, warning of possible dam collapses and extraordinary simultaneous floods. This summer’s rains are adding pressure on the world’s second-largest economy, already struggling with sporadic cases of Delta strain of coronavirus. Record rainfall in Henan last month caused floods that killed more than 300 people and caused suspended production at factories. Xingyang and Changyuan are in some of the areas hardest-hit last month. On Sunday the province red alerts of torrential rains for multiple regions, the strongest indicator on China’s four-color scale, forecasting more than 100 mm (4 inches) within three hours.

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HELENA, Mont. (AP) – A Montana school district is dangling $4,000 bonuses and inviting people to test drive big yellow school buses in hopes of enticing them to take a job that schools are struggling to fill as kids return to in-person classes. A Delaware school district offered to pay parents $700 to take care of their own transportation, and a Pittsburgh district delayed the start of classes and said hundreds more children would have to walk to school. Schools across the U.S. are offering hiring bonuses, providing the training needed to get a commercial driver’s license and increasing hourly pay to attract more drivers. The shortage of bus drivers is complicating the start of a school year already besieged by the highly contagious delta variant of COVID-19, contentious disagreement over masking requirements, and the challenge of catching up on educational ground lost as the pandemic raged last year. The driver shortfall isn’t new, but a labor shortage across many sectors and the pandemic’s lingering effects have made it worse, since about half the workforce was over 65 and more vulnerable to the virus, said Joanna McFarland, co-founder and CEO of school ride-service company HopSkipDrive, which tracks school bus issues.

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NAYPYITAW (REUTERS) – Myanmar’s military junta has arrested two more local journalists, army-owned television reported on Saturday (Aug 21), the latest among dozens of detentions in a sweeping crackdown on the media since a Feb 1 coup. Sithu Aung Myint, and Htet Htet Khine were arrested on Aug 15, Myawaddy TV reported. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the pair were being held incommunicado. Myanmar remains fraught with instability and opposition to army rule, under which more than 1,000 people have been killed, according to an activist group that has tracked killings by security forces. The military, which has revoked the licenses of many news outlets, says it respects the role of media but will not allow news reporting it deems false or likely to create public unrest.

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PARIS (Sputnik) - Three people have been killed in a shooting in the French city of Marseille, the broadcaster BFM TV has reported. Two people died in Saturday’s shootout around midnight in the 14th arrondissement of Marseille. Another man was kidnapped and shot dead in the city’s 4th arrondissement. The police have since launched an investigation into the matter.