Murat Ongun

Famous institutions and celebrities have applied to the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality to adopt "Boji," the city's beloved stray dog that gained fame after being spotted by locals for touring the city with public transport and framed over pooping on a train.

After three days of almost incessant rainfall and occasional strong winds, Istanbul awoke to a surprise snowfall on a weekend that coincided with a curfew imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Turkish authorities have refuted reports of an assassination attempt on Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu.

"Such an assassination attempt is out of question," Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu told reporters in parliament.

A drop in rainfall has led to a decline in water levels in dams supplying water to Istanbul, Turkey's most populous province.

The dams held the lowest water level in the past 10 years as of Nov. 22, at 26.34 percent, Demirören News Agency reported.

Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu has launched an online aid campaign calling on better-off residents to help financially troubled dwellers in paying their unpaid bills, as the coronavirus pandemic has strained many households in Turkey's largest city.

The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality has shared pictures of horses that were once used for horse-drawn carriages on Istanbul's Princes' Islands, saying they were being fed regularly despite the outbreak.

Residents of Turkey's largest city taking mass transit now must wear face masks to help stem the spread of the novel coronavirus, authorities said on April 3. 

"Passengers without a face mask will not be admitted on buses, metro, metrobus, or city line ferries as of tomorrow," Murat Ongun, a spokesperson for the Istanbul Municipality, said on Twitter.

The notorious traffic congestion in Istanbul, Turkey's largest city by population, has eased over the past week amid the global coronavirus pandemic that is keeping residents away from the streets.