Sri Lanka leader loses parliament majority

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa lost his parliamentary majority on Tuesday as former allies called for his resignation, following days of street protests over the island nation's crippling economic crisis.

Severe shortages of food, fuel and other essentials — along with record inflation and crippling power cuts — have inflicted widespread misery in the South Asian country's most painful downturn since its independence from the United Kingdom in 1948.