Pigeons are widely regarded as flying pests the world over, especially in major urban areas. But in New York, performance artist Tina Peña is trying to change that. Calling herself “Mother Pigeon”, Peña creates pigeon art installations to display in parks across the city. Through her work, she hopes to change the general perception of the birds as vermin and convince people to view them as beautiful creatures that deserve adoration.

Exiled Hong Kong activist Sunny Cheung Kwan-yang on October 19, 2021, urged US lawmakers to pass two bills that would speed up the asylum application process for and extend protections to Hongkongers. The Hong Kong People’s Freedom and Choice Act and Hong Kong Safe Harbour Act have languished in Congress for months. Testifying at a Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) hearing, Cheung called for the Department of Homeland Security to release more details about the administration’s Deferred Enforced Departure order for Hongkongers in the US. 

A suicide bomb attack tore through a packed Shia mosque in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on October 15, 2021. Explosions went off during Friday prayers, killing at least 47 people and wounding at least 68, according to a Taliban official. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Last week, Isis-K claimed responsibility for a similar attack that killed dozens of people at a Shia mosque in Kunduz city.

A suicide bombing at a packed Shia mosque in Afghanistan killed more than 70 people on October 8, 2021, local health officials told Reuters. More than 140 were injured in the explosion that detonated during the crowded Friday prayers, according to state-run Bakhtar News Agency. 

US authorities have begun deporting migrants camped in a Texas border town and blocking others from crossing from Mexico. Thousands of migrants, mostly Haitian refugees, arrived in the city of Del Rio in the past week, creating an influx that has overwhelmed city officials.

Two Afghan journalists said they were tortured by the Taliban after covering a women’s protest in Kabul on September 8, 2021. Taqi Daryabi and Nematullah Naqdi, who work for local newspaper Etilaatroz, said Taliban fighters took them to a police station, where they were kicked and beaten.

Dozens of people were killed after the remnants of Hurricane Ida hit the US northeast including New York on the night of September 1, 2021. The National Weather Service issued New York City’s first-ever flash flood emergency as rain and floodwater turned streets and subway tunnels into rivers. Many homes were also flooded. 

Afraid of being targeted by the Taliban, Nilofar Bayat, captain of Afghanistan’s female wheelchair basketball team, fled to Spain with her husband, Ramesh, on August 20, 2021. The Spanish government promised to try to evacuate the couple after a journalist shared their story on Twitter. The 28-year-old has also been selected to join the wheelchair basketball team in the northern Spanish city of Bilbao.

Thousands of people trying to flee Afghanistan have been left stranded outside Kabul’s airport. Warning shots were fired and stun grenades were used to hold back the desperate crowds as they tried to enter. The airport is now controlled by more than 5,000 US troops assisting the evacuations, but Taliban militants have set up checkpoints around the facility.

At least three people were killed and more than a dozen injured after Taliban militants opened fire during anti-Taliban protests in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, according to Reuters. Hundreds of people marched through the city’s main shopping area on August 18, 2021, reportedly rallying against the removal of Afghanistan’s flag.

The safety and livelihood of many Afghans are uncertain after Taliban forces occupied the capital city Kabul on August 15, 2021, shortly after taking over the country. Afghan-Americans in the United States worry the return of the militants will usher in another era of brutality reminiscent of the Taliban’s rule in the 1990s. They fear the rights of their families and fellow Afghan people will be suppressed.

At least seven people were killed at Kabul’s airport on August 16, 2021, US officials said. A day after the Taliban took control of the country, thousands of Afghans trying to flee rushed to the airport. The chaos also delayed US evacuations.

Thousands of Hong Kong residents are now eligible for temporary “safe haven” in the US under an order signed by President Joe Biden on August 5, 2021. The move was in response to Beijing’s crackdown on opposition lawmakers and activists after the national security law was imposed last year.

Belarusian Olympic sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya arrived in Poland on August 4, 2021, three days after refusing her team’s order to go home early from the Tokyo Games. Poland has granted the 24-year-old athlete and her husband humanitarian visas.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women, including current and former state employees, according to a report released on August 3, 2021. The five-month investigation by the state attorney general’s office also found that Cuomo and his team retaliated against at least one former employee for going public. The governor has strongly denied the allegations.

In the Ms Texas Senior America pageant, contestants are judged on their individual talent and philosophy of life. The women, 60 to 75 years old, hope to show that getting older can be a blast.

Hundreds of people gathered at the APM mall in Kwun Tong in Hong Kong, as local fencer Edgar Cheung Ka-long won the men’s individual foil gold medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games on July 26, 2021. Hong Kong’s first medal in Tokyo is only the city’s second-ever gold medal after windsurfer Lee Lai-shan’s historic victory at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

Residents of Zhengzhou city were rescued from their homes three days after heavy rains flooded China’s central Henan province. They had been trapped without electricity, water or food. The storms have killed at least 33 people and affected more than 3 million across the province, according to local authorities.

The US, Britain, the EU and Nato have accused China of sponsoring a massive cyberattack on the Microsoft Exchange email server discovered in early 2021. The US State Department said on July 19, 2021, that “cyber actors” had worked with China’s Ministry of State Security in the operation that Microsoft publicly disclosed in March after the company reportedly learned about the intrusion in January. Washington says the cyberespionage “indiscriminately compromised thousands of computers and networks, mostly belonging to private sector victims”.

Thousands of families in Afghanistan are fleeing their homes as the Taliban advances across the country. The insurgents’ territorial gains came after the recent withdrawal of US troops. The United Nations warned that Afghanistan is “on the brink of another humanitarian crisis”.

Indonesia is fighting a severe Covid-19 wave driven by the highly infectious Delta variant. The surge in cases has put a strain on the country’s health care system, and hospitals have seen shortages in beds, oxygen supplies and manpower. New coronavirus restrictions were announced in Java and Bali on July 1 to contain the outbreaks.

American forces vacated Bagram Airfield, one of its most important military bases in Afghanistan, on July 2, 2021. The departure came months ahead of President Joe Biden’s planned September 11 withdrawal. The Taliban have claimed about a quarter of Afghanistan’s districts in the past two months. Some experts said the Afghan government could fall to the Islamist militant movement after the US’ departure.

At least 11 people were confirmed dead in the Florida condominium collapse with 150 residents still unaccounted for as search and rescue efforts continue for the sixth day. The incident has sparked concerns among residents of nearby buildings and prompted calls for an investigation into the cause. Recent reports showed that the collapsed condo had shown signs of decay since 2018.

For more than a decade, the Philippines’ “river warriors” have worked to clear the glut of garbage floating or washed up along Manila’s Pasig River, one of the world’s most polluted waterways. Once flourishing with marine life, Pasig is considered by scientists to be a dead river because of rapid urbanisation and poor sewage planning.

Supporters of the Hong Kong protest movement held rallies in dozens of overseas cities, including New York and Washington, to mark the June 12, 2019, protest in Hong Kong, which was the first major clash between protesters and police that year.

Ryuji Urabe is 93 years old but he is still driving. A former taxi driver in Tokyo, Urabe became a YouTube sensation after his grandson started sharing videos of him playing racing games online.

Britain’s new aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth has begun its first operational deployment in a voyage that will cross through the South China Sea. Before heading to the Indo-Pacific, it took part in Nato’s biggest drills of the year. Commodore Steve Moorhouse, commander of the carrier group, said Britain’s presence is key in the region amid China’s rising power. He added that the group will operate with countries including the US, India, Japan, and various Asean nations.

Chef Tobias Padovano’s limited-time dish features a rarely used ingredient: cicadas. After spending 17 years underground, billions of Brood X cicadas are emerging throughout the eastern US. The insects will live above ground as adults for about three weeks to mate before dying.

At least 192 residents died of Covid-19, with more than 1,000 people infected, at Vancouver-area care homes where the declaration of coronavirus outbreaks was delayed as part of an official policy, a South China Morning Post investigation has found. Under the strategy, care home outbreaks were deliberately not declared if just one “low risk” worker became infected. 

As the Thai government locks up young pro-democracy activists, mothers of the jailed protest leaders have forged an alliance to fight for their children’s release. Observers say the women could be a “powerful force” to help revive last year’s pro-democracy movement, which stalled partly because of the Covid-19 pandemic.