Briefly

UNITED STATES

FBI conducts search at Trump's estate

The Federal Bureau of Investigation searched Donald Trump's Mara-Lago estate as part of an investigation into whether he took classified records from the White House to his Florida residence, people familiar with the matter said on Monday, a move that represents a dramatic and unprecedented escalation of law enforcement scrutiny of the former president. Trump, disclosing the search in a lengthy statement, asserted that agents had opened up a safe at his home and described their work as an "unannounced raid" that he likened to "prosecutorial misconduct". The search intensifies the monthslong probe into how classified documents ended up in more than a dozen boxes located at Mar-a-Lago earlier this year.

AUSTRALIA

Researchers name over 100 new species

Australia's national science agency has revealed that it named and described more than 100 new species over the last year in a "win for biodiversity". Researchers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, or CSIRO, in Canberra, identified 139 new species and described them in scientific journals over the last 12 months. The tally consists of 131 insects and invertebrates, four fish, three plants and one frog species. Among the newly discovered insects is an ant species that can protect one of Australia's rarest butterfly species. The CSIRO said approximately 25 percent of Australia's species are known to science. David Yeates, a CSIRO entomologist, said officially describing species was key to protecting Australia's biodiversity.

ITALY

Monkeypox vaccination campaign kicks off

Italy on Monday began vaccinating people against monkeypox. Spallanzani Hospital, Rome's main infectious disease hospital, said 10 people were vaccinated on Monday. The hospital said it is using the two-dose Jynneos vaccine, which was created to combat the spread of smallpox but is believed to be effective also against monkeypox, since smallpox and monkeypox viruses are closely related. The vaccine can only be administered to adults. Though the Jynneos vaccine is not new, there are no large stockpiles of the serum in Italy. Media reports also indicated that the number of vaccination requests by late Monday surpassed 600.

Agencies - Xinhua