The United States launched a drone strike against an Islamic State attack planner in eastern Afghanistan on Friday, the military said, a day after a suicide bombing at Kabul airport killed 13 US troops and scores of Afghan civilians.

President Joe Biden vowed on Thursday that the United States would hunt down those responsible for the attack, and said he had ordered the Pentagon to come up with plans to strike at the perpetrators.

The price of 10 gm of 22-carat gold increased by Rs 400 to Rs 46,620 on Saturday. In previous trade, gold had closed at Rs 46,220 per 10 grams.

Silver was selling at Rs 63,000 per kg, down by Rs 200 from the previous trade, according to Good Returns website.

With 46,759 people testing positive for COVID-19 in a span of 24 hours, India's infection tally rose to 3,26,49,947 on Saturday, while the count of active cases registered an increase for the fourth consecutive day, according to Union Health Ministry data.

The death toll has climbed to 4,37,370 with 509 more fatalities being recorded, according to the data updated at 8 am.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was not developed as a biological weapon, the US intelligence community has concluded in a report, with President Joe Biden reiterating the allegation that China continues to reject calls for transparency and withhold information about the origins of the virus.

The Director of National Intelligence in a report, prepared at the direction of the president, on Friday said SARS-CoV-2 probably emerged and infected humans through an initial small-scale exposure that occurred no later than November 2019 with the first known cluster of COVID-19 cases arising in Wuhan, China in December 2019.

Over 1.33 lakh people, including more than 39,000 children, were affected in 11 Assam districts as the flood situation deteriorated on Friday with over 7,584 hectares crop areas having been inundated, officials said.

According to the official of the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA), the worst affected five districts are Bongaigaon (63,891 people affected), Dhemaji (31,500), Majuli (13,239), Dibrugarh (10,697) and Chirang (10,634).

India administered more than one crore COVID-19 vaccine doses on Friday, the highest ever in a day, the Union Health Ministry said.

According to the CoWIN portal, the COVID-19 vaccination coverage in the country has crossed 62,17,06,882 doses.

Amid rising cases of Covid-19 in Kerala, the Bihar government has decided that people coming from the state will now have to produce negative RT-PCR reports.

Security has been enhanced in Patna and Darbhanga airports apart from the three railway stations of Patna to deal with the situation. Medical teams have also been placed due to check on the passengers.

The Supreme Court Friday asked markets regulator Sebi not to take any coercive steps against NDTV promoters Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy till it hears their pleas on September 3 against the penalty proceedings related to alleged violation of securities norms by concealing information from shareholders on certain loan agreements.

A bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana was requested by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) that the hearing on the pleas of the NDTV promoters be adjourned till next Friday.

India witnessed a slight dip as it reported 44,658 new COVID-19 cases and 496 deaths in the last 24 hours, as per the Health Ministry data. There were 32,988 recoveries in a single day taking the overall count to 3,18,21,428. The total number of COVID-19 cases in the country now stands at 3,26,03,188 with the death toll reaching 4,36,861.

The total number of active cases has reached 3,44,899. The total number of samples tested up to August 26 is 51,49,54,309, reported ANI.

The risk of developing adverse events such as blood clots is considerably higher after infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus than after immunisation with Pfizer and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines, according to a large UK study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on Friday.

The team led by researchers at the University of Oxford in the UK conducted the study on thrombocytopenia -- a condition with low platelet counts -- and thromboembolic events or blood clots following COVID-19 vaccination with Oxford-AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech preventives.

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