Biden warns Putin of sanctions, support for Ukraine if Russia invades
US President Joe Biden warned Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday the West would impose "strong economic and other measures" on Russia if it invades Ukraine, while Putin demanded guarantees Nato would not expand further eastwards.
The two leaders held two hours of virtual talks on Ukraine and other disputes in a video call about US-Russian relations, which have sunk to their lowest point since the end of the Cold War more than three decades ago.
The Kremlin, which said before Tuesday's meeting that it did not expect any breakthrough, has denied harbouring any intention to attack Ukraine and has said its troop posture is defensive.
US officials said before the video conference that Biden would tell Putin that Russia and its banks could be hit with the toughest sanctions yet if it attacks Ukraine.
All VTL, Langkawi bubble travellers to undergo daily Covid-19 tests
Malaysia's Health Ministry has announced that all incoming travellers via the Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) and those travelling to Langkawi under its travel bubble must undergo daily Covid-19 tests after arrival.
It is a preemptive measure taken in light of the new highly infectious Omicron coronavirus variant, said Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.
"Travellers from the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, France and Norway on home quarantine will need to wear a digital tracking device (throughout the entire home quarantine period)," he said in a tweet, on Tuesday.
German man kills family over fake Covid-19 health pass
A German man killed his wife and three children before taking his own life, leaving behind a note that said he feared being jailed for faking a Covid-19 health pass, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
All five bodies were found in the family's home in Koenigs Wusterhausen outside Berlin on Saturday, Brandenburg state prosecutors said.
The 40-year-old father said in the note that he had secured a fake coronavirus vaccine pass for his wife.
Maxwell accuser says she became 'too old' for Epstein at 18
An alleged victim testifying in Ghislaine Maxwell's sex-trafficking trial said Jeffrey Epstein started sexually abusing her at age 14 but asked if she had "younger friends" after she turned 18.
"That's when I realised I was too old," said Carolyn, who is testifying in Manhattan federal court only under her first name to protect her privacy.
Carolyn is the third of at least four women who are expected to testify about their experiences with Maxwell, who is accused of luring underage girls and then grooming them for sexual abuse by Epstein, her former boyfriend and employer.
Amazon cloud outage hits major websites, streaming apps
A major outage disrupted Amazon's cloud services on Tuesday (Dec 7), knocking out streaming platforms Netflix and Disney+, Robinhood, a wide range of apps and Amazon.com's e-commerce website as consumers shopped ahead of Christmas.
Amazon said it was working to resolve the issue and was making progress, but did not give an estimate when services would be fully restored.
Amazon's Ring security cameras, mobile banking app Chime and robot vacuum cleaner maker iRobot, that use Amazon Web Services (AWS), reported issues according to their social media pages.
