UK Smoking Ban; Singapore’s PM To Step Down After 20 Years | Top Stories | April 16, 2024

Catch up on the Top Stories of the day.Show more

0:00 MPs to vote on smoking ban for those born after 2009
- Plans to stop young people born since 2009 ever smoking are being debated and will be voted on later. The bill aims to create the UK's first smoke-free generation in a major public health intervention. The Tobacco and Vapes Bill would ensure anyone turning 15 from this year would be banned from buying cigarettes, and also aims to make vapes less appealing to children. The bill would make the sale of tobacco products, rather than the act of smoking, illegal. Tobacco use is the UK's single biggest preventable cause of death, killing two-thirds of long-term users and causing 80,000 deaths every year.

0:37 Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to step down after 20 years
⁃ Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee will step down on May 15th and hand over the power to Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. Wong will be sworn in to become Singapore’s fourth prime minister since its independence in 1965. Lee announced in November that Wong will take the reins from him as leader of the ruling People’s Action Party before the next general election due November 2025. Lee has served as prime minister since 2004.

1:05 Israeli strike kills senior Hezbollah commander
- The IDF has confirmed that an Israeli airstrike killed Hezbollah commander Ismail Yusaf Baz in the area of Ain Ebel in Lebanon. The IDF said Baz served as a senior and veteran official in several positions of Hezbollah’s military wing. Meanwhile, Hezbollah said it fired explosive-laden drones at northern Israel setting off rocket sirens.