ISLAMABAD: Special representative of the Prime Minister on Religious Harmony and Middle East Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi has said that there is no concept of forced marriage and forced conversion in Islam, and it is the responsibility of the state to protect the rights of religious minorities. He was speaking at Inter-Faith Conference for Young Women organised by the Inter-Faith Harmony …

QUETTA: Five members of the Frontier Corps were martyred and two others injured in two attacks in different areas of the province. In one incident, which took place in the western bypass area of the provincial capital on Thursday, an FC soldier was martyred and two others were injured when a remote-controlled bomb fixed to a motorcycle parked at the …

ISLAMABAD: As 2.8 million doses of Oxford AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine will be received on March 2, the government has decided to start vaccination of people over 65 years of age in the first week of next month. Registration and inoculation of healthcare workers (HCWs), other than frontline workers, will start from February 22. As Covid-19 cases seem to be under …

ISLAMABAD: Two technocrats each from Punjab and Balochistan are set to be elected unopposed as the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday completed the process of scrutiny of nomination papers filed by candidates from all over the country to contest for 48 seats of the Senate, for which polling would be held on March 3. The statistical data shows …

LAHORE: India stopped on Thursday 720 Sikh pilgrims from attending the Saka festival being held in Pakistan from Feb 18 to 25, citing Covid-19 and “safety” reasons. Pakistan criticised the Indian government decision, calling it a grave human rights violation. “Sikh pilgrims were scheduled to enter Lahore via Wagah border and we all were there to welcome them, when we …

As the temperatures plunged early Tuesday, Marleny Almendarez held her son, Aaron, an 11-year-old on the autism spectrum, to keep him warm. Their Pleasant Grove home had lost power a day earlier. Matthew, her 14-year-old, also slept in her bedroom. They shut the door to preserve heat and covered themselves with blankets. When the sun started to rise behind cloudy …

Texas’ electrical system was “seconds or minutes” from collapsing and plunging the state into the dark for months, the power grid’s operators said Thursday while defending their decision to initiate controlled outages. “Our frequency went to a level that, if operators had not acted very rapidly … it could have very quickly changed,” said Bill Magness, CEO of the Electric …

Hurst police arrested a man Thursday after he was suspected of making bombs inside his apartment. Police said they learned Wednesday that 37-year-old Nicholas Lloyd Nelson had been reportedly manufacturing explosive devices at the Valley Oaks Apartment complex in the 100 block of East Pipeline Road. After obtaining a search warrant for Nelson’s apartment, police said detectives began surveillance and …

Dallas County reported 266 new coronavirus cases Thursday, as well as 50 more deaths from COVID-19. The deaths were the most the county has reported on a single day; it also reported 50 on Feb. 3. The latest victims were mostly in their 50s and older, but two — both Dallas men — were in their 20s. Three of the …

A principal dialed Olga Hickman’s number Wednesday morning with a last-ditch call for help to feed a family of five. After a few calls to the staff of Hickman’s nonprofit, Bachman Lake Together, the group arranged for a grocery delivery to be made. Most North Texas school districts canceled class and food distributions through the end of the week, leaving vulnerable …