JAMAICA: Public employees have gained the right to take paternity and adoptive leave, Prime Minister Andrew Holness has announced.

Paid maternity leave has also increased from 40 days to three months.

The changes took effect on January 1.
 

UNITED STATES: Officials in California ordered evacuations from a high-risk coastal area where mudslides killed 23 people in 2018 as a huge storm hit the state on Wednesday, bringing high winds and rain that knocked out electricity supplies and threatened to flood roads.

California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency to allow for a quick response and to aid the clean-up from a previous powerful storm just days earlier. 

SOMALIA: A double car bomb attack claimed by radical Islamist group al-Shabab killed 19 people on Wednesday in the centre of the country, according to local militia commander Mohamed Moalim Adan.

“Nineteen people, including members of the security forces and civilians, died in the explosions,” he said. “The terrorists blew up two cars near a military base in Mahas.”

A police spokesman said that the vehicles had exploded in a district filled with civilians just after the dawn Muslim prayer.

UNITED STATES: The House of Representatives failed on Wednesday for an unprecedented second day to elect a speaker.

California Republican Kevin McCarthy was unable to secure enough support from his own party to win the post.

Far-right Republicans who support ex-president Donald Trump are refusing to back Mr McCarthy unless he agrees to support their agenda.