"A sad Christmas is coming, with hunger, in which people will cry as they don't have anything to eat," says one Mexico City street vendor, after local authorities ordered the closure of local businesses due to a rise in Covid-19 cases. Some street vendors attempt to defy orders to keep selling, but without success, says 80-year-old Julieta Muñoz: "I haven't sold a single item, nothing in the last four days."

One of the world's biggest cities has prohibited the use of single-use plastic materials including plastic forks, straws and cups. Mexico's capital is striving to revamp its image as an eco-friendly, sustainable city.

Workers from the restaurant industry bang pots and pans in the streets of Mexico City, demanding authorities in the capital allow them to reopen, despite a rise in hospitalisations of Covid-19 patients.

Here are a few reasons to pick up a copy of The Guardian on Friday. Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Friday.

Lekki-Ikoyi link Bridge is safe, disregard fake news - CP, Lagos

Here is what we now know about the bridge being constructed to minimise traffic congestion on the old Niger Bridge and estimated to gulp a whopping ₦414 billion.⁣⁣

A bridge in the Mexican capital has collapsed. A metro train was passing over at the time. Emergency services are working to rescue victims.

Last month, a metro crash killed 26 people in Mexico City. The tragedy has highlighted the inequalities that prevail in the sprawling megalopolis. The damaged metro line was one of the few connections between poor neighbourhoods and downtown Mexico City, where jobs are located. These working-class areas are now more isolated than ever, while an overall lack of infrastructure exacerbates the gigantic social divide in the capital city of 23 million inhabitants. Our correspondents report.

Michelangelo dreamed it, Olivier Grossetête did it: the artist from Marseille has created a cardboard bridge over the Tiber River in Rome to link the gardens of the Villa Farnesina to the Farnese Palace, a splendid Renaissance building that houses the French embassy. The 18-metre structure is suspended by three helium-filled balloons measuring six metres in diameter.

Residents of several floods that disrupted Chinese villages in Henan province were evacuated with an emergency boat bridge built overnight.

Men take part in the 455th edition of the Old Bridge Diving competition in Mostar, in Bosnia. This prestigious Balkan competition was won this year by Serbian Dragan Milnovic, who won the "swallow" discipline, which consists of diving head first into the river.

The Lagos State Government has announced the diversion of traffic on Apapa-Oshodi Expressway for repair work on the Airport Flyover Bridge by the Federal Ministry of Works from August 9 to October 3, 2021. A statement signed by the Commissioner for Transportation, Dr. Frederic Oladeinde, explained that the Oshodi-bound lane would be barred from vehicular movement from midnight on 9th August 2021 and reopened partially on the midnight of 14th August 2021 for the first phase of repairs.⁣