MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia said on Wednesday it was ordering U.S. embassy staff who have been in Moscow for more than three years to fly home by Jan. 31, a retaliatory move for what Moscow said was a U.S. decision to limit the terms of Russian diplomats. The step, the latest in an escalating diplomatic row, comes after Russia’s ambassador to the United States said last week that 27 Russian diplomats and their families were being expelled from the United States and would leave on Jan. 30.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and China are engaged in an arms race to develop the most lethal hypersonic weapons, the U.S. Air Force secretary said, as Beijing and Washington build and test more and more of the high-speed next-generation arms.“There is an arms race, not necessarily for increased numbers, but for increased quality,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told Reuters during an interview in his Pentagon offices. “It’s an arms race that has been going on for quite some time. The Chinese have been at it very aggressively.”

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PARIS (AFP) -An overloaded boat carrying dozens of passengers, mostly children aged eight to 15, has capsized on Bagwai River in northwest Nigeria’s Kano state, according to rescue officials. Saminu Abdullahi, the spokesman for Kano state’s fire service, said the incident took place late on Tuesday. “We have recovered 29 bodies … and rescued seven passengers. The search for the remaining 13 bodies is ongoing,” Abdullahi told the AFP news agency on Wednesday.

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WASHINGTON (Dispatches) - According to a survey from SafeWise and Cove Home Security, an estimated 210 million packages were stolen over the last 12 months in the U.S. The survey, which was published earlier this month, found that 64.1% of respondents have had at least one package stolen from their porch in the last year. Meanwhile, 53.5% of respondents have had multiple packages stolen over the same period of time, SafeWise and Cove reported. The survey also found that more than half of the stolen packages cost between $50 and $200.

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ATHENS (Dispatches) -Greece announced Tuesday that it is mandating COVID-19 vaccinations for residents over age 60 — and those who don’t comply will face a monthly fine. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said the decision was a difficult one but necessary for the more than half a million elderly Greeks who had failed to get the vaccine. “[The decision] tortured me, but I feel a heavy responsibility in standing next to those most vulnerable, even if it might fleetingly displease them,” he said. Those who don’t comply with the order by Jan. 16 will be subjected to a recurring monthly fine of 100 euros, or about $112.

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BERLIN (AFP) - A World War II bomb exploded at a construction site next to a busy railway line in Munich on Wednesday, injuring four people, one of them seriously, German authorities said. A column of smoke was seen rising from the site near the Donnersbergerbruecke station. The construction site for a new commuter train line is located on the approach to Munich’s central station, which is a bit over a kilometer (about a half-mile) to the east.