PARIS Naomi Osaka, the world No. 2, withdrew from the French Open a day after she was fined $15,000 for skipping the news conference following her first-round victory. The 23-year-old, a four-time Grand Slam champion, had once said she “suffered long bouts of depression after speaking to the media”.
BEIJING China’s ruling Communist Party will ease rules to allow couples to have three children instead of two, for coping with the rapid rise in the average age of its population. Birth limits were enforced since 1980, but the number of working-age people is falling too fast, while the share over age 65 is rising, adding to strains on the economy and society.
AUSTRALIA Vast tracts of land in New South Wales are threatened by a mouse plague that the government calls “unprecedented”. Just how many millions of rodents have infested the agricultural plains is guesswork. The scourge of the introduced house mouse, or Mus musculus, is a cruel blow to farmers battered by fires, floods and the pandemic..
