>Global COVID-19 cases hit 250M
Global COVID-19 cases surpassed 250 million on Monday.
Infections are still rising in 55 out of 240 countries, with Russia, Ukraine and Greece at or near record levels of reported cases
 since the pandemic started.
The daily average number of cases has fallen by 36 percent over the past three months, but the virus is still infecting 50 million 
people worldwide every 90 days due to the highly transmissible Delta variant.
More than half of all new infections reported worldwide were from countries in Europe, with a million new infections about every
 four days.
More than half the world's population has yet to receive a single dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, a figure that drops to less than 5 
percent in low-income countries.
First pill to treat Covid gets approval in UK
The first pill designed to treat symptomatic Covid-19 has been approved by the UK medicines regulator.The tablet - molnupiravir
 - will be given twice a day to vulnerable patients recently diagnosed with the disease.
In clinical trials, the pill, originally developed to treat flu, cut the risk of hospitalization or death by about half.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the treatment was a "gamechanger" for the most frail and immuno-suppressed.
Molnupiravir, developed by the US drug companies Merck, Sharp and Dohme (MSD) and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, is the first
 antiviral medication for Covid-19, which can be taken as a pill rather than injected or given intravenously.
The UK has agreed to purchase 480,000 courses, with the first deliveries expected in November.
The drug needs to be given within five days of symptoms developing to be most effective.
>CO2 turned to rock in Iceland
At the foot of an Icelandic volcano, a newly opened plant is sucking carbon dioxide from the air and turning it to rock, locking away 
the main culprit behind global warming.
Orca, based on the Icelandic word for "energy," does its cutting-edge work at the Hellisheidi geothermal power plant in southwest 
Iceland.
Fans in front of the collector draw in ambient air and release it, largely purified of CO2, through ventilators at the back.
Dissolved in fresh water, the gas is then injected under high pressure into the basalt rock between 800 and 2,000 meters 
underground.
The solution fills the rock's cavities, and the solidification process begins -- a chemical reaction turning it to calcified white crystals
 that occurs when the gas comes in contact with the calcium, magnesium and iron in the basalt.
It takes up to two years for the CO2 to petrify.
>Library creates literacy from litter
A librarian in Indonesia's Java island is lending books to children in exchange for trash they collect in a novel way to clean up the 
environment and get the kids to read more.
Each weekday, Raden Roro Hendarti rides her three wheeler with books stacked up in the back for children in Muntang village to
 exchange for plastic cups, bags and other waste that she carries back.
She told Reuters she is helping inculcate reading in the kids as well as make them aware of the environment.
As soon as she shows up, little children, many accompanied by their mothers, surround her "Trash Library" and clamor for the
books.
She collects about 100 kg of waste each week, which is then sorted by her colleagues and sent for recycling or sold.
She has a stock of 6,000 books to lend and wants to take the mobile service to neighboring areas too.