China's Politburo has announced that the Communist Party will open its five-yearly National Congress on October 16. The 20th party congress is particularly significant because it is expected to see President Xi Jinping get his coveted third term in office. Joanne Wong reports:

The Covid vaccination requirement for full-day secondary schooling is to be raised in just over two months from now in a bid to increase the inoculation rate among children over the age of 12. The announcement came as the number of new infections rose by just over 350 on Tuesday, although the number of patients being treated in hospital fell slightly from Monday. Natale Ching reports:

A school principal says it will not be easy for secondary schools to meet the increased vaccine requirement. Dion Chen, the chairman of the Hong Kong Direct Subsidy Scheme Schools Council, says between 260 to 300 schools have applied for full-day resumption of face-to-face classes when the new term starts this week. But he says younger students need only two vaccine doses, and must to wait 150 days between their second and third jabs when they turn 12. He told Ben Tse that schools that cannot meet the 90-percent threshold by November would need to return to half-day classes:

A hotel operator says the halving of quarantine to three nights for inbound travellers has had a tremendous reduction on its business of up to 50 percent. Director of Operations at Ovolo Hotels, Mael Vastine, says there are also fewer travellers as summer ends and school begins. The group operates four hotels, two of which are set aside for quarantining arrivals, while the other two have mainly long-stay guests. On Tuesday, the health bureau said four quarantine hotels had opted out of the scheme, citing various factors. Vastine told Samantha Butler that the limited flights coming to Hong Kong was affecting the hotel trade:

A study by the University of Hong Kong suggests that men and young adults are more likely to develop myocarditis - or inflammation of the heart muscle - after taking a second dose of the BioNTech vaccine. The research was based on big data analysis of the side-effects of Covid jabs for different groups of people. But research assistant professor, Francisco Lai, said the benefit of getting inoculated still outweighed the risks. He told Kelly Yu that the chances of adverse events after vaccination were rare:

Several big mainland cities have escalated Covid restrictions, with Shenzhen closing more businesses and Dalian locking down millions, renewing economic uncertainty and delaying the start of the school year for some. Frank Yung reports:

A High Court judge has ruled that two smartphones owned by jailed media tycoon, Jimmy Lai, can be searched on national security grounds. Lai faces various charges under the national security law and had sought to stop police from searching his phones. But the judge said the need to deal with crimes in the public interest trumped journalistic privilege, as Violet Wong reports:

Mainland police have arrested over 200 suspects in connection with a rural banking scam, which led to the freezing of deposits worth at least US$1.5 billion at a handful of small lenders in Henan. Officials have described it as "a complex scam". Andrew Chworowsky reports: