At least six people, including four school children, were killed and scores missing after a ferry capsized in eastern Sri Lanka on Tuesday, officials said. Sri Lanka navy officials and divers conducted a search and rescue operation after the incident, authorities said.

Nine people are dead and two others missing after floods in Sri Lanka and parts of southern India caused by more than a week of pounding rains. Nearly half of Sri Lanka's 25 districts have been hit by the deluge, with the worst affected areas in and around the island's tea-growing Central Highlands.

Sri Lanka's aim to become the world's first 100 percent organic food producer is threatening its famous tea industry. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's ban on chemical fertiliser earlier this year has sparked concerns of a severe reduction in tea, the island's main export commodity, as well other crops by the end of this year.

Sri Lanka's main elephant orphanage recorded a rare twin birth Tuesday as a 25-year-old named Surangi delivered healthy male calves, the first elephant twins born in captivity in the country for 80 years. Official records show there are about 200 domesticated elephants in the island country and an estimated 7,500 in the wild.

The authorities in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka pledged to close over 1,000 Islamic schools and formally ban burqas. The government also granted itself powers to detain suspects for "deradicalization."

The child died in hospital after being beaten during a suspected exorcism. The girl's mother and the exorcist have been charged in connection with the death.

An England cricket fan who waited 10 months in Sri Lanka to watch his team play is escorted away by police before a ball had been bowled in the first Test. Rob Lewis, who decided to stay in the country after the original tour was aborted over the coronavirus last March, tried to watch the game from the historic ramparts of Galle Fort, a vantage point which overlooks the city's cricket ground. But he was ordered off there just after the national anthems. The game was held behind closed doors because of the pandemic.

The violent clashes broke out after prisoners vented their anger over coronavirus-related conditions at a high-security prison located near Colombo. Eleven people have since died, with over 100 wounded in the riots.

A group of Sri Lankan rescuers have returned more than 100 whales to the sea after a mass beaching of the mammals. A team made up of the Sri Lanka navy and coast guard and local residents worked overnight to save 100 to 120 stranded short-finned pilot whales on Panadura Beach, according to the country's navy.

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The first anniversary of Sri Lanka's 2019 Easter Sunday bombings has been marked with silence and bells amid its coronavirus curfew. Suspected Islamist attackers killed 268 people, Catholic and Protestant, and tourists.

A young woman was on board an airplane about to set off to an arranged marriage in Sri Lanka against her will. But at the last second, an alert police officer intervened.