Tens of thousands of people in northern China have been placed under strict lockdown as officials seek to keep a lid on a growing COVID outbreak ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

An official Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic venue held a test ice hockey match on Monday (November 8), with the Games just months away. The match, which was held without spectators and featured local teams Beijing Arcfox and Beijing Shougang, comes amid uncertainty over the participation status of China's men's national hockey team in next year's Games. China is guaranteed a spot in the ice hockey tournament due to its status as host nation, but International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) president Luc Tardif said in September that the men's team could be prevented from playing due to its "insufficient sporting standard".

Israeli startup AIR unveiled its first "easy-to-operate" electric, vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft that it aims to sell directly to consumers predominantly in the United States starting in 2024. AIR has been working with the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) for two years and expects to obtain certification by the end of 2023 for the AIR ONE, a two-seater, 970 kg (2,138 lb) eVTOL, which will have a flight range of 110 miles (177 km), Co-Founder and Chief Executive Rani Plaut told Reuters.

A video distributed by the International Olympic Committee is not enough to reassure the tennis world. The Women's Tennis Association is suspending all tournaments in China until it is sure that doubles star Peng Shuai is safe and sound, following the 35-year-old Peng's quickly deleted post on Chinese social media last month denouncing sexual assault by a former vice premier. How far will the ripple effects go?

China warned Western nations on Thursday they would "pay the price" for a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

IOC senior member Dick Pound told German radio that China would allow athletes to speak freely during news conferences. He said politics does not factor into decision-making on events.

Archery is becoming one of the interesting, competitive games and recreational activities in the country. Introduced officially in Nigeria in 1997 after the Nigerian Archery Federation was founded, it got affiliated to the World Archery in the same year. Since then, professional archers and team coaches in Nigeria have been training new archers in order to get the country represented at international championships. Currently, the organisation has its eye set on the 2024 Olympics game in Paris.

Instead, mRNA vaccines use mRNA created in a laboratory to teach our cells how to make a protein—or even just a piece of a protein—that triggers an immune response inside our bodies. That immune response, which produces antibodies, is what protects us from getting infected if the real virus enters our bodies.

The United States has announced a diplomatic boycott of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing over China’s “egregious” rights abuses, a move the Chinese government has said would be met with “resolute countermeasures”.

Call it an Olympic-sized gamble. Ahead of Chinese New Year holiday travel and the Winter Games, authorities there are sticking to their zero-Covid policy. As Omicron tears through much of the rest of the world, can the coronavirus really be barred from the Beijing Olympics?

Uyghurs say China's treatment of the Muslim minority group in the remote Xinjiang region amounts to "genocide." They are calling for a boycott of the upcoming Games.

Over 200 NGOs and rights organizations have called for a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. They have raised concerns about atrocities and human rights violations by the Chinese government.