The Dutch driver Max Verstappen took his first win of the year in a chaotic, incident-strewn Emilia Romagna Grand Prix as Lewis Hamilton fought back to second place.

Lando Norris took third place after a strong weekend in the McLaren, followed by two Ferraris with Charles Leclerc and team-mate Carlos Sainz.

After evaluating three commercial designs for new Artemis moon landers, NASA on Friday awarded a single $2.9 billion contract to SpaceX, rejecting more expensive proposals from a team led by Blue Origin, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and another led by Dynetics.

The contract will cover one unpiloted test flight from lunar orbit down to the surface and back again, and one piloted flight carrying two astronauts launched to the moon in a Lockheed Martin Orion capsule atop NASA's Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket.

Starting April 24 France will order a strict 10-day quarantine for all travellers coming from Brazil in a bid to prevent the spread of a coronavirus variant first found in the South American county. Also, only people residing in France or holding a French or European Union passport will be allowed to fly to the country.

The same measures will also gradually be put in place by April 24 for people returning from Argentina, Chile and South Africa, where the presence of other coronavirus variants were detected, the prime minister's office said.

The Czech Republic announced Saturday that it was expelling 18 Russian diplomats who it has identified as spies in a case related to a huge ammunition depot explosion in 2014.

"There is a reasonable suspicion that Russian secret agents of the GRU service were involved in the 2014 explosions of an ammunition dump in the Czech village of Vrbětice. The Czech Republic has consequently expelled 18 Russian diplomats.", wrote Prime Minister Andrej Babis on Twitter.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedez, took pole position ahead of Sergio Perez, Red Bull, in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix qualifying session. Hamilton now has 99 pole positions in his career.

Max Verstappen took the third position and Charles Leclerc put the Ferrari fourth.

Liberal congressional Democrats unveiled a proposal Thursday to expand the number of seats on the Supreme Court from nine to 13 — a move Republicans have blasted as "court-packing" and which has almost no chance of being voted on after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she "has no plans to bring it to the floor."

"We are not packing the Supreme Court, we are unpacking it," Jerrold Nadler said at a news conference in front of the Supreme Court.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 1 million people have died from Covid-19 in Europe, the World Health Organization announced on Thursday.

The WHO Europe Director Hans Kluge warned that the situation remains "serious," with about 1.6 million new cases reported each week in the region.

The US has announced sanctions against Russian entities and expelled 10 Russian diplomats in response to a hacking attack and election interference.

President Joe Biden's executive order "sends a signal that the United States will impose costs in a strategic and economically impactful manner on Russia if it continues or escalates its destabilising international action," the White House said.

Denmark has removed the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine from its vaccination program, saying it is not needed because the country has already reached "such an advanced point" in its vaccine rollout.

The Danish Health Authority said studies had shown a higher than expected frequency of blood clots following doses, affecting about one in 40,000 people.

President Joe Biden announced Wednesday the withdrawal of all United States troops from Afghanistan by September 11, after two decades of fighting militants. The US would miss a May deadline for a pull-out agreed with the Trump administration's Taliban last year.

"It's time to end this forever war," said Biden.