(Reuters) -A sixth-grade girl pulled a handgun from a backpack at her eastern Idaho school on Thursday and opened fire, hitting two fellow students and a member of school staff and inflicting non-life-threatening injuries on them, officials said.

Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who was seen as a possible running mate for Joe Biden in last year's U.S. presidential election, said on Thursday she will not seek a second term in office.

Sureerat Chiwarak sat with calm resolve in front of a Bangkok court as her head was shaved in a protest to support her activist son, jailed for weeks without bail on criminal charges of insulting Thailand's powerful king.

MALE (Reuters) -The speaker of parliament in Maldives, former President Mohamed Nasheed, was being treated for shrapnel wounds and in stable condition after a blast outside his family home on Thursday, a spokesman for his governing Maldivian Democratic Party said.

Unused COVID-19 vaccines in Japan are set to reach tens of millions of doses, as the country is poised to approve two more shots in coming weeks and the pace of its inoculation campaign remains slow due to manpower and logistical bottlenecks.

Most debris from a Chinese rocket will be burned up on reentry and is highly unlikely to cause any harm, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Friday.

BENGALURU (Reuters) -India's opposition leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday demanded the government rapidly vaccinate the entire country and scientifically track the coronavirus in an effort to curb a deadly second wave which saw 1.5 million new cases in a week.

India's Biological E. Ltd will soon start Phase III trials of its COVID-19 vaccine and plans producing 75 million to 80 million doses a month from August, its managing director told Reuters on Friday.

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain's ruling Conservative Party won a new seat in parliament on Friday, sweeping aside the incumbent Labour Party with a victory in the northern English town of Hartlepool that tightens its grip on traditional Labour-voting areas.

New Zealand wants a more mature relationship with China that goes beyond trade ties and gives room for disagreement, particularly on issues of human rights, the Pacific nation's foreign minister said on Friday.