A power outage struck large swaths of Brazil on Wednesday, affecting tens of millions of people, especially in the country's northern and northeastern regions where the system remains "practically collapsed," according to an official.

The outage began at about 3:40 p.m. (1940 GMT) and had not been resolved by late evening, according to the country's state grid operator.

The blackout was due to the failure of a transmission line near the massive Belo Monte hydroelectric station, authorities said. Some 22.5 percent of the grid's total output, or 18,000 megawatts, have been affected.

"That line was inaugurated recently and was not yet operating at full capacity," the country's mining and energy minister, Fernando Coelho Filho, told journalists in Brasilia. "There was a surge in power ... and the line fell out of operation."

The transmission line that failed is the responsibility of state-run utility Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras SA, commonly known as Eletrobras, and China State Grid Corp Ltd. Neither company responded to requests for comment.

In the country's poor north and northeast, the system had "practically collapsed," Luiz Eduardo Barata, head of national grid operator ONS, told journalists.

Elsewhere in the country the impact was less severe, he said, and service had been resumed in the country's southern and southeastern region's shortly after 4 p.m., where spotty outages were reported.

The government of Hong Kong has announced its decision to share the city's record $18 billion surplus with more than one-third of its residents.

"[We are] trying to cover more people who may not directly benefit from the budget," said Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po at a press conference on Friday.

According to him, the handout was meant for Hong Kong residents who are 18 years old and over; who do not own a property; do not receive any government allowances; and will not pay income tax for the financial year ending next week.

Those who meet the above criteria but have to pay income tax can still get some cash, he said. If the tax concession they receive is under $500, they will receive the difference between the two amounts.

More than 10 percent of people who don't use drugs may still have traces of banned drugs on their fingers, new research suggests. The astonishing figures are a stark reminder of the prevalence of cocaine and heroin in society.

Scientists from the University of Surrey in the UK collected samples from the hands of 50 people who claimed not to use drugs and from 15 confirmed cocaine or heroin users. Traces of cocaine were found on around 13 percent of fingertips of those who said they have never used drugs. A metabolite of heroin was found on one percent of non-drug users.

"We were quite surprised. We thought there might well be cocaine knocking around in the environment, but we did not expect to pick up these drugs at the fingerprint level," lead author Melanie Bailey, a lecturer in forensic analysis, told the Guardian.

The United States has never been a rich market for terrorists' international tobacco trafficking. A new FDA policy will make it one
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the head of the Food and Drug Administration, has announced plans to reduce to non-addictive levels the level of nicotine in cigarettes sold in the United States. The hope is that without the chemical that produces the pleasure of smoking, these cigarettes will appeal to fewer people, and therefore fewer people will smoke.

It is a terrible idea for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it deprives adults of the choice to use tobacco as they see fit. But there are other unintended consequences to this policy that must be seriously considered, perhaps most importantly the effect on cigarette smuggling in the United Sates.

By making all sales of effective cigarettes with normal nicotine levels illegal, the FDA will be opening a huge illegal cigarette market in this country that has barely existed before. Among the prominent groups profiting off global illicit cigarette trade are Islamic terror organizations.

Last week, Pankaj Mishra @nybooks offered his opinions about my life and my work in the New York Review of Books. He also touched upon my affiliation with Kwakwaka'wakw artist Charles Joseph (www.charlesjoseph.ca). Other journalists have since jumped on the bandwagon, so I thought I better set the story straight, insofar as I am capable of doing so.

Mishra's essay is by no means laudatory, but that's beside the point. Like everyone else, he has the right to his opinion. Furthermore, I have been criticized continually for the last two years by people who regard themselves as my enemies and, while I haven't precisely become accustomed to that, a single addition to the large stack of such commentaries is not in and of itself notable. It wasn't even his assertion that I am a fascist-a term that should used judiciously, given its history-that was bothersome. But it is in the interest of idiot radicals everywhere to insist that every person who thinks that their policies and ideologies are reprehensible must be an extremist. After all, if reasonable people arise to object, perhaps something unreasonable is actually occurring....

Here's a conundrum for the radical types, unmitigated egalitarians included: obviously, things can be taken too far on the right. It is equally obvious (although stubbornly unacknowledged) that things can be taken equally too far on the left. Aren't the totalitarian horrors of the twentieth century sufficient indication of that? So, exactly when has the left gone too far? It's not so easy to say, and this is a big problem. On the right, you can point to claims of racial superiority, or to the desire for racial segregation, say without hesitation "you've gone too far" and separate yourself from those making the claim, even if you're a conservative. What do you use for a similar marker on the left? I've suggested DIE: Diversity, Inclusivity and Equity, with "equity" (the demand for equality of outcome) as the most reliable red flag. I'm open to other suggestions, but I don't see them pouring in from the unreasonable or even the reasonable left. This is part and parcel of the leftist ideologues' refusal to deal directly with the mayhem and bloodshed of the communist era and the indisputable relationship between that mayhem and the ideology itself.

Austrian MPs on Thursday scrapped a smoking ban in bars and restaurants that was due to come into force in May, despite a petition in its favour collecting 545,000 signatures.

The overturning of the ban, introduced by the previous government, was approved by lawmakers from the ruling coalition of the conservatives and the far-right.

In an attempt to assuage critics, they also voted to extend the minimum age for smoking to 18 as well as to ban smoking in vehicles if a minor is on board, effective from 2019.

Scrapping the ban was a key campaign pledge last year by the cigarette-loving leader of the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), Heinz-Christian Strache, 48.

A woman says she was forced to take off her clothes and sexually assaulted before being told to jump into the frigid waters of the Anacostia River Tuesday night.

According to a D.C. police report, a woman told police she was in her car in the 3200 block of Buena Vista Terrace SE at around 10 p.m., just blocks away from D.C. police Seventh District Station.

Police say a man with a gun opened the rear passenger door, got inside and forced the woman to drive to the rear of that area, where she was sexually assaulted and raped.

According to the U.S. Park Police, the woman said she actually kept her cell phone after being told to disrobe and jump into the river. Authorities say the temperature of the water was about 40 degrees Tuesday night.

A man who taught his girlfriend's pet pug to give Nazi salutes and then posted the footage on YouTube, has been found guilty of a hate crime.

Mark Meechan, of Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, will be sentenced in April after a Scottish court found him guilty of communicating a "grossly offensive" video.

The 30-year-old taught his girlfriend's pug to react to the words "gas the Jews", which he repeated 23 times in the short video that he uploaded to his YouTube channel last year.

Hundreds of militants and their families have begun leaving the town of Harasta in East Ghouta on Thursday, under a special, Russian-brokered agreement with the Syrian government, which will see them transported to Idlib province.

Two videos of Thursday's mass evacuation have been obtained by RT's Ruptly video agency. The drone footage shows a caravan of busses patiently waiting for the rebels and their families. Smoke is seen rising in the background of the town they leave behind.


The second video shows rebels loading bags onto waiting busses, as military personnel and tanks circle in the background.

Owners of a giant bauxite processing plant in Brazil have admitted untreated water leaked into the Pará River, contaminating local drinking supplies. It's feared the discharge may have caused people in the region to become ill.

Norwegian energy company Norsk Hydro has apologized for the unauthorized drainage from parts of its Alunorte refinery, which sits in a forested outpost between the Pará River and the cities of Barcarena and Belém. However, the company says there is currently no evidence of dangerous bauxite residue spilling into the 40 mile (64km) river.

The company has published information online explaining how torrential downpours in Para State in February led to the discovery of unauthorized discharges of water - one from the roof of a coal storage shed and other releases of surface water that mixed with caustic soda and entered the Canal Velho channel. The Evandro Chagas Instituto (ECI), a non-profit health organization in Brazil investigating the incident, has also reported traces of aluminum in water outside the refinery.

Images taken in February and distributed by the ECI show red-hued floodwater surrounding parts of the refinery, something which Norsk Hydro has put down to large parts of Barcarena not being asphalted and water mixing with soil.