More than 1,000 people have been arrested in Russia after attending unauthorized protests in support of the jailed Putin critic Alexei Navalny.

Demonstrations took place across Russia on Wednesday with rallies in the major cities of Moscow and St Petersburg attracting the highest number of attendees, despite a current ban on protests in Russia.

OVD-Info, an independent NGO that monitors protests in Russia, said on Twitter the protests had taken place in more than 90 cities across Russia and had led to more than 1,600 arrests, although the number is hard to verify. The monitoring group also said there were reports that police had used tear gas and stun guns on protesters, but these are unverified.

Figures on the number of people that attended protests differ wildly. Navalny’s team have claimed 60,000 people attended the protest in Moscow, while Open Media estimated 25,000 were on Moscow’s central Tverskaya street alone, according to the Moscow Times. Russia’s Interior Ministry played down the figures, however, estimating a turnout of around 6,000 in Moscow and 4,500 in St. Petersburg, with hundreds of demonstrators at other locations across Russia, according to its Facebook page.

Demonstrations in support of Navalny were called by his team as the opposition leader was moved to a prison hospital earlier this week after becoming ill while carrying out a hunger strike in prison.

There were reports of several arrests of members of Navalny’s team ahead of the unsanctioned rallies with Lyubov Sobol, who features regularly on Navalny’s popular YouTube channel, and Kira Yarmysh, his spokeswoman, both detained in Moscow, their lawyers said, according to Reuters.

The U.S. administration has warned the Russian government to not let Navalny die in custody, adding that there will be “consequences.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin made no mention of Navalny in his “state of the union” address on Wednesday, as protests took place. However, he warned the West against any provocations of Russia and crossing its “red lines.”

Last summer, Navalny was medically evacuated to Germany from a Russian hospital after he was poisoned by a chemical nerve agent.

The German government said toxicology reports showed “unequivocal evidence” that Navalny was exposed to a nerve agent in the Novichok family, which was developed by the Soviet Union. Toxicology tests conducted in France and Sweden also came to the same conclusion.

Navalny has accused Putin of ordering the poison attack, although Putin and the Kremlin have repeatedly denied having a role in the poisoning.

SHANGHAI – Flying cars may have made headlines at this year’s Shanghai Auto Show, but China’s BYD — which is backed by Warren Buffett — is sticking to ground vehicles for now.

This week, Chinese electric car start-up Xpeng debuted its second prototype for a flying vehicle the company claims has already undergone eight years of development. The new model resembles a flying car more than the initial version revealed in Beijing in September, which looked more like a human-carrying drone.

Xpeng isn’t the only one looking to the skies.

Companies including Hyundai, German start-up Lilium, and China-based Ehang are developing flying vehicles that can carry individuals.

Hangzhou, China-based Geely, which owns Volvo, showed off in Shanghai an “air taxi” developed by its joint venture partner Volocopter.

Backed by investing guru Buffett, BYD sold more than 100,000 cars in the first quarter, more than half of which were new energy vehicles, a category which includes pure electric and hybrid cars.

The company announced at the auto show a new version of its electric car operating system that comes with its internally developed “Blade” battery. BYD plans to sell this battery system to third-party automakers and already counts state-owned high-end Chinese car maker Hongqi as customer for the Blade battery, Li said.

Last summer, BYD’s luxury Han sedan became the company’s first car to use the Blade battery. The vehicle has become one of the most popular in the new energy category, ranking third in sales nationwide during the first quarter. Only the Hongguang Mini EV and Tesla‘s Model 3 outsold it, according to the China Passenger Car Association’s sales rankings.

Li said 70% of Han vehicles sold are pure-electric battery-powered models. Beginning this month, BYD said it plans to use the “Blade” battery in all of its pure-electric cars.

India reported a record number of daily Covid-19 cases on Thursday as the country’s second wave of coronavirus shows no signs of slowing down.

There were 314,835 new cases and 2,104 deaths over a 24-hour period, according to government data. That surpassed the word’s previous highest single-day increase in cases held by the United States.

India’s first wave of infection peaked around September following last year’s national lockdown between late-March and May, which had significant economic consequences.

Cases began rising again in February and in the subsequent months large crowds, mostly without masks, gathered for religious festivals and political rallies.

So far in April, India has reported more than 3.78 million new cases and over 22,000 deaths.

While the reported death toll is rising, some media reports suggest that the official number may be under-reported.

The picture on the ground is grim. Even as officials insist the situation is under control, hospitals are overwhelmed, turning away patients due to a shortage of beds — including those who are critically ill. In some instances, non-related patients are being forced to share beds, according to media reports.

Health-care facilities are also low on oxygen supply and the government is reportedly diverting oxygen intended for industrial use to medical facilities instead.

India’s Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said in a tweet that the federal government is monitoring supply and demand for oxygen and increased the quota for several states and regions including Maharashtra, the epicenter of the country’s second wave.

There is also growing concern about the double mutation of a Covid-19 variant that was discovered in India, which could make the virus more contagious.

Most states have stepped up social restrictions such as introducing night curfews and some have entered partial lockdowns.

India has so far administered more than 132 million vaccine doses as worries mount over supply shortages. The number of people who have completed their inoculation is still small compared to the country’s 1.3 billion population. Starting May 1, anyone above 18 years old will be eligible for inoculation.

The government recently approved around $610 million in grant funding for Covid-19 vaccine-makers Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech to boost production capacity, according to media reports. 

Serum Institute, the world’s largest vaccine maker by volume, said in a statement this week that it will scale up vaccine production over the next two months. It said 50% of capacity would be used to serve the government’s vaccine program and the rest would be for state governments and private hospitals to roll out shots.

Serum Institute is producing AstraZeneca’s vaccine, which is known locally as Covishield.