Europe

LONDON (AP) — Britain deployed public health officials, supported by the army, to distribute coronavirus tests door-to-door in two northern England towns on Saturday in an effort to contain a fast-spreading variant that threatens plans to lift all lockdown restrictions next month.

MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/: European countries are mostly interested in the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline construction project. The project is still planned to be completed in 2021, Russia’s Minister of Energy Nikolay Shulginov said in an interview with Energy Policy magazine.

MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/: Nearly half of the crimes in the Russian capital are committed with the use of information technologies, Yuri Gavrilin, an associate professor of the Russian Interior Ministry’s Academy of Management, said on Friday.

"Every fourth crime in Russia is committed with the use of IT technologies, and in Moscow it is every second crime," he told the Comprehensive Security-2021 workshop.

NOVO-OGARYOVO, May 14. /TASS/: Attempts are being made to turn Ukraine into Russia’s polar opposite, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with members of the National Security Council on Friday.

"Apparently - and regrettably - attempts are being made to slowly but surely turn Ukraine into some kind of Russia’s polar opposite, an anti-Russia, from where we are likely to be getting news requiring special attention in terms of national security," the head of state pointed out.

MADRID, May 14. /TASS/: Russia and Spain have reiterated their drive towards closer cooperation in combating terrorism, the Spanish foreign ministry tweeted on Friday.

According to the ministry, the ministry’s Director General of Foreign and Security Policy Fidel Sendagorta and visiting Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov co-chaired the 11th session of the joint working group on combating terrorism in Madrid.

MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/: The US embassy in Moscow said on Friday it has been notified by the Russian authorities that the ban on hiring Russian employees has been temporarily postponed.

"The Russian government has informed U.S. Embassy Moscow of its intent to postpone the prohibition of U.S. Mission Russia’s employment of foreign nationals. Consequently, through July 16, U.S. Embassy Moscow will temporarily resume routine U.S. citizen services, including passport services, Consular Reports of Birth Abroad, and limited notarial services," it said on its website.

MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/: The Israeli army over the past few days has liquidated several hundred operatives of the movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Israel's 12th television channel quoted an anonymous security service official as saying.

According to the source, Thursday's strikes alone liquidated 20 high-ranking Hamas members. All in all, hundreds of Hamas members were neutralized in recent days. The Israeli army, according to the source, wiped out most of the Hamas facilities that made rockets and paralyzed the radicals' strategically crucial tunnel infrastructure in Gaza.

MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/: The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Russia grew by 9,462 in the past 24 hours. This is the highest number since March 20, as follows from the data published by the anti-coronavirus crisis center on Friday.

The relative growth rate stands at 0.19%. According to the crisis center, 4,922,901 people in Russia have been infected by now.

The lowest daily growth rates were recorded in the Nenets Autonomous Region (0%), the Jewish Autonomous Region (0.02%) and Tuva (0.03%).

MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/: The situation with the coronavirus infection in Moscow remains tense, and periodic increase or decrease of incidence figures are possible, Moscow Deputy Mayor for Social Development Anastasia Rakova said Friday.

"Of course, the coronavirus has not disappeared. The coronavirus situation in the city remains rather tense. The incidence numbers do no please us. But we must understand that the coronavirus will not go anywhere tomorrow, and that such periodic increases or decreases of incidence are possible," she said.

MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/: The Kremlin has no plans to interfere in the situation around Chairman of Ukraine’s Political Council of the Opposition Platform - For Life party Viktor Medvedchuk but wants to be sure that it is not about a political witch-hunt, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday.