A pilot low-floor bus service aimed at providing safe and accessible transportation for persons with disabilities and those with special needs was officially launched today (21) at the Makumbura Multimodal Transport Center.&nbsp;&nbsp; The initiative was launched under the “Clean Sri Lanka” programme, with Minister of Transport Bimal Ratnayake presiding over the event.

Low floor bus service for persons with disabilities launched at Makumbura

US President Donald Trump has made a post to Truth Social, addressing the recovery of enriched uranium from Iran. "Operation Midnight Hammer was a complete and total obliteration of the Nuclear Dust sites in Iran. Therefore, digging it out will be a long and difficult process," the president wrote. Operation Midnight Hammer is the codename for an operation carried out by the US last June, and saw 125 US military aircraft target three Iranian nuclear facilities: Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan. He went on: "Fake News CNN, and other corrupt Media Networks and Platforms, fail to give our great aviators the credit they deserve - Always trying to demean and belittle - LOSERS!!!" Source : BBC

Removing enriched uranium from Iran will be a 'long and difficult' process, says Trump

China's ambassador to Pakistan has expressed Beijing’s "full support" for Islamabad’s efforts to facilitate peace talks between the US and Iran. Pakistan's foreign ministry says that Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar - who also serves as foreign minister - met with Jiang Zaidong to discuss developments in the region. During the meeting, Zaidong expressed "appreciation of Pakistan’s continued efforts to facilitate engagement” between the US and Iran “for sustained peace and stability in the region and beyond", the foreign ministry says. Source : BBC

China expresses 'full support' for Pakistan facilitating US-Iran talks

China’s President Xi Jinping says "normal traffic" through the Strait of Hormuz "should be maintained". He made the comments during a phone call with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday. Trump and Xi president are&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c05dpr1m71go" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">expected to meet in China in May</a>, after the trip was initially delayed due to the US-Israel war with Iran. Source : BBC

Normal traffic through Strait of Hormuz should be maintained, says Xi

Apple has named John Ternus as its new chief executive to replace Tim Cook who is stepping down after 15 years of leading the technology giant. Ternus, the current head of hardware engineering who has been at Apple for 25 years, will take over on 1 September and Cook will become executive chairman. Cook has been chief executive of Apple since 2011 after co-founder Steve Jobs resigned for health reasons, shortly before his death. Cook will stay as chief executive through the summer to work with Ternus on the transition after which he will "assist with certain aspects of the company, including engaging with policymakers around the world". Cook's decision to step away from the chief executive role follows months of speculation that Apple - which has just celebrated its 50th anniversary - was looking for a successor. He described the job as "the greatest privilege of my life" and during his tenure he led the company to become one of the most valuable in the world. In 2018, Apple became the first public company to be valued at $1 trillion (£740bn). It is now worth $4 trillion. Cook described Ternus as a "visionary" executive with "the mind of an engineer, the soul of an innovator and the heart to lead with integrity and honour". "He is without question the right person to lead Apple into the future," Cook added. Ternus emerged as a favourite to replace Cook last year, after another long-time executive, chief operating officer Jeff Williams, left the company. During his quarter century at Apple, Ternus has worked on essentially every major product the company has released, including every generation of the iPad, many generations of the iPhone, and the launch of AirPods and the Apple Watch. He also oversaw the transition of Mac computer processors from Intel to Apple's own silicon. In a statement on Monday, he referred to Cook as his "mentor." "I am filled with optimism about what we can achieve in the years to come," Ternus said. 'Differentiation'Naming a leader who comes from a product and hardware background may allow Apple to emerge from a constant criticism of Cook's tenure - that it was no longer innovative enough. While Cook oversaw a four-fold increase in Apple's yearly profit, with a massive expansion in products sold around the globe, its product line has remained largely static. Dipanjan Chatterjee, a principal analyst at Forrester, praised the financial stability Cook brought to Apple, but noted he had not given the company a product like the iPhone which would give Ternus another 20 years of success. He said Apple "remains structurally dependent on the phone" as it "searches for its next growth engine". The appointment of Ternus shows Apple is looking for "differentiation" in its products, said Chatterjee, adding that the new leader "must resist the temptation of incrementalism that has plagued Apple of late and escape the iPhone's gravitational pull". Ken Segall, who was Steve Jobs' creative director for more than a decade, told the BBC: "I don't think Tim ever really shook the operations guy vibe. "I think when people talk about the difference between Steve and Tim, that was basically it - Steve the visionary, Tim the operations guy who took over." Gil Luria, managing director at DA Davidson &amp; Co, said having someone so hardware-focused at the helm now shows Apple is going to put more energy into new products, like foldable phones and wearable devices like glasses. The tech giant has also faced criticism for being slow to jump on the soaring demand for AI, and has ended up integrating Google and OpenAI's technology into its operating systems. Following Monday's announcement, OpenAI's Sam Altman wrote on X: "Tim Cook is a legend. "I am very thankful for everything he has done and I am very thankful for Apple." Cook did not come from a hardware or product background when he joined Apple. Instead, he had spent many years as a business operator at companies like IBM and Compaq. He was a tech executive focused on operations and fulfillment, logistics and sales figures, less so thinking up and launching new technological products. That was what Jobs was best-known and lauded for. One of the most significant product launches during Cook's leadership was the Apple Vision Pro, a virtual and augmented reality headset that did not catch on with buyers. Nevertheless, his skill as an operational executive will see him widely remembered as one of the most successful business leaders. Timothy Hubbard, a professor at the University of Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business, said Cook's era of Apple turned it into a company that was "the best at refining, scaling and defending an extraordinarily powerful system". "The real question now is whether that same organisation can pivot toward exploration, where success depends on speed, uncertainty and a greater willingness to experiment," he said. Apple's apparent reluctance to dive head first into AI products and services has set it apart from others like Google, Microsoft, and Meta, which are spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year to get ahead in this area. With a new boss, Apple may be showing its strategic interest in deeper integration of AI into its hardware, said Hubbard. "The very strengths that made Apple dominant - their discipline, polish, and control - could become constraints if the next era rewards openness and faster iteration," he said. "That rapid innovation is where Apple started, and maybe that's where the company needs to return." Source : BBC

New era as Apple names new boss to replace Tim Cook after 15 years

US musician D4vd has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder in the death of a teenage girl who vanished last year. The star, whose legal name is David Anthony Burke, is accused of murdering 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, whose decomposing remains were found in September in a Tesla registered to his Texas address. Burke, 21, also was charged with murder for "financial gain" and with murder of a witness to an investigation, the Los Angeles district attorney said. He did not speak during his arraignment on Monday – his first court appearance since his arrest last week. His lawyers entered his plea on his behalf. In a Los Angeles courtroom on Monday, the musician's defence team said it believed the "actual evidence will show that David did not kill Celeste" and was not the cause of her death - echoing remarks his attorneys made after his arrest last week. "We will vigorously defend David's innocence," attorneys Blair Berk, Marilyn Bednarski and Regina Peter said in a statement to BBC. After months of speculation around the case, there was a sense of tension and anticipation in the courtroom ahead of the hearing. It grew quiet when the girl's parents walked in. All eyes were then on the door Burke was meant to enter. He was barely visible to the audience in the courtroom. Burke's team asked for an open hearing after months of grand jury hearings behind closed doors. The court ordered the coroner to share the report on the teen's death, which has been barred from public release in a rare move by authorities. In a statement to the BBC's US media partner CBS News, the Rivas Hernandez family said it is "committed to ensuring that Celeste's voice is heard and her memory is honored throughout this process". Their attorney did not immediately respond on Monday to the BBC's request for comment on the charges. During an earlier press conference on Monday, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said that on 23 April 2025, Rivas Hernandez went to Burke's house in the Hollywood Hills and "she was never heard from again". Her dismembered and decomposed remains were found on 8 September 2025 - when the investigation first began - in the front trunk of a Tesla registered to Burke, court documents said. When authorities removed the bag, they discovered severed arms and legs inside, the documents said. "A parent's nightmare is a situation where your daughter goes out one night and never comes back," Hochman said. He announced three sets of charges against the singer. The first is first-degree murder with special circumstances of "lying in wait". The second is an additional special circumstances of alleged murder for "financial gain". Hochman accused Burke of murdering the 14-year-old to maintain his lucrative musical career "that Celeste was threatening on that particular night". The third charge is murdering a witness to an investigation. He said evidence shows Rivas Hernandez was a witness in an investigation of sexual acts committed by Burke. Hochman added that the charges involve numerous sexual acts with a minor and the mutilation of a body. The DA's office could eventually seek the death penalty in the case, he added. Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell responded to criticism of how police have handled the case and their decision not to provide details since the body was discovered in a Hollywood tow yard seven months ago. "I want to be clear about something. My duty is not to fuel speculation. It's to deliver justice, and that requires patience and discipline on everybody's part," McDonnell said. "This investigation was driven by a single purpose to secure justice for Celeste Rivas and for those who loved her. We had to be certain that nothing we did or said would ever jeopardise this case." He added that conditions of the teen's remains delayed determining a cause of death. Given the "substantial amount of time that passed between her death and the discovery", evidence had degraded or disappeared, he said. Asked by the BBC why it took so long to make an arrest, Hochman outlined the difficulties in interviewing multiple people, some of whom were "cooperative" and some who weren't, plus looking at all the evidence. "It's the type of case that you went to get maximum information," he said, asking anyone with information to come forward. Burke had remained in custody without bail after his arrest on Thursday. The singer is from Houston, Texas, and is best known for moody, indie-pop hits like Here With Me and Romantic Homicide. He initially made his name as a teenager, by posting videos of himself playing the video game Fortnite. After teaching himself music production, he released his debut EP, Petals To Thorns, in 2023. That same year, he landed on Variety's Young Hollywood list and opened for SZA on her SOS tour. He released his debut album in April 2025, accumulating 22 million monthly listeners on Spotify and almost four million followers on TikTok. D4vd was on tour when the remains were discovered. The singer cancelled his world tour and retreated from the spotlight shortly after. In court documents made public in February, he was named as the "target" of a grand jury investigation into the death. It is unclear how the grand jury investigation will proceed. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office on Monday told the BBC it "cannot comment on grand jury investigations". Source : BBC

US singer D4vd pleads not guilty to murder in death of missing teen girl

The Department of Meteorology has issued an ‘Amber’ advisory warning of severe lightning across multiple provinces. The advisory, issued today (21), covers Western, Sabaragamuwa, Central, North-Western, North-Central, Southern and Uva provinces, as well as Mannar, Vavuniya, Ampara and Batticaloa districts. It will remain in effect until 11.30 p.m. Authorities warned of thundershowers with severe lightning and temporary strong winds in affected areas after 1.00 p.m., urging the public to take necessary precautions.

Severe lightning advisory issued for several provinces

His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, the Archbishop of Colombo, expressed his appreciation for the current Government’s positive approach toward investigating the Easter Sunday terror attacks.&nbsp;&nbsp;He made these remarks during the main commemorative service held today at St. Anthony's Shrine in Kochchikade, Colombo.&nbsp; The event was part of a nationwide effort to remember and honor those who lost their lives, those injured, and all affected by the tragic events.&nbsp;&nbsp; Religious services were organized across numerous churches island-wide to pay tribute to the victims.&nbsp; The ceremony saw the participation of various religious leaders, including the Chief Sanghanayake of Dhakshina Sri Lanka of the Sri Lanka Ramanna Maha Nikaya, Venerable Dr. Omalpe Sobhita Thero, the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Sri Lanka, Marc-André Franche, as well as Catholic clergy, religious figures, and devotees.&nbsp;&nbsp;Ambassadors representing the countries of foreign nationals who lost their lives also attended the service, highlighting the international solidarity in remembrance.&nbsp;&nbsp; A two-minute silence was observed nationwide from 8:45 AM to 8:47 AM to honor the victims of the attack.&nbsp;&nbsp; The tragic incident occurred on 21 April, 2019, when coordinated suicide bombings targeted Catholic worshippers celebrating Easter Sunday.

Cardinal expresses optimism over current Govt’s Easter attack investigations

Former Minister Premalal Jayasekara has been arrested by the Nuwara Eliya Police. Police stated he was taken into custody over allegations of criminal intimidation and threatening individuals with a firearm during a clash between two groups. It is also reported that the firearm used had an expired licence at the time of the incident.

Low floor bus service for persons with disabilities launched ...

Removing enriched uranium from Iran will be a 'long and difficult' pro ...

Removing enriched uranium from ...

China expresses 'full support' for Pakistan facilitating US-Iran talks

China expresses 'full support' ...

Normal traffic through Strait of Hormuz should be maintained, says Xi

Normal traffic through Strait ...

New era as Apple names new boss to replace Tim Cook after 15 years

New era as Apple names new bos ...

US singer D4vd pleads not guilty to murder in death of missing teen gi ...

US singer D4vd pleads not guil ...

Severe lightning advisory issued for several provinces

Severe lightning advisory issu ...

Cardinal expresses optimism over current Govt’s Easter attack investig ...

Cardinal expresses optimism ov ...

Former Minister Premalal Jayasekara arrested

Former Minister Premalal Jayas ...

Removing enriched uranium from Iran will be a 'long and difficult' pro ...

Removing enriched uranium from ...

China expresses 'full support' for Pakistan facilitating US-Iran talks

China expresses 'full support' ...

Normal traffic through Strait of Hormuz should be maintained, says Xi

Normal traffic through Strait ...

New era as Apple names new boss to replace Tim Cook after 15 years

New era as Apple names new bos ...

US singer D4vd pleads not guilty to murder in death of missing teen gi ...

US singer D4vd pleads not guil ...

Severe lightning advisory issued for several provinces

Severe lightning advisory issu ...

Cardinal expresses optimism over current Govt’s Easter attack investig ...

Cardinal expresses optimism ov ...

Former Minister Premalal Jayasekara arrested

Former Minister Premalal Jayas ...

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