| One of Trump's favorite pollsters shows his approval plummeting Posted: 27 May 2020 11:39 AM PDT  President Trump's approval rating has plummeted since late February, according to the Rasmussen daily tracking poll, which the president frequently cited during his first three years in office.
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| ‘Burn It Down. Let Them Pay’: Deadly Chaos Erupts in Minneapolis as Fires Rage Over Police Violence Posted: 28 May 2020 03:25 AM PDT  MINNEAPOLIS—Flames and black smoke poured into the sky here early Thursday as protests over the death of George Floyd took a violent turn, with multiple local businesses and residential buildings near police headquarters set ablaze and at least one person fatally shot in the area. Minneapolis Police spokesman John Elder confirmed the shooting shortly before midnight local time, but did not say if it was connected to the protests, according to the Star Tribune. A video shared on Twitter and purportedly filmed at the scene showed medics frantically trying to save a man lying on the ground; at one point, one of the medics can be heard urging people to stay away, yelling, "There's somebody in there with a rifle, back up! Back up!"The shooting came amid major fires across the southern part of city, including an AutoZone that burned to the ground overnight, spewing toxic fumes across the entire neighborhood. Widespread looting included mobs—whose ties to organized protesters were vague at best—clearing out a Target across from the precinct house, and video emerged of heavily armed white men who said they were trying to keep people from damaging property.By 1 a.m., Mayor Jacob Frey, a first-term Democrat, said he was calling in the National Guard and state police to help get the scene under control. He pleaded for peace and urged people to go home.But for some protesters who'd faced down the threat of tear gas and rubber bullets, the fires were nothing compared to the death of Floyd, 46. The unarmed black man's last moments were captured on camera for the whole world to see as a white police officer knelt on his neck. "The whole city can burn down. They should all be out here protesting, not just people who care about black lives. Everybody. Burn it down. Make them pay. Maybe then they'll understand," one protester, Elicia S.—she declined to give her full last name—told The Daily Beast late Wednesday. "I read somewhere that you're never gonna care until it hits your front door. We are here now, knocking in the front door," demonstrator Becky Mathews added. The chaos came after police tried to fend off protesters surrounding Third Precinct headquarters by erecting barricades and firing projectiles at the crowd.One demonstrator, Jeremy Kocke, held up the back of his shirt to show a large bruise forming from a rubber bullet. "I turned around and was shot in the back," he said Wednesday evening. "I didn't do anything to get shot."The 32-year-old was one of several protesters struck by projectiles after activists surrounded the department's embattled precinct house. Some threw water bottles and rocks over a hastily constructed police barricade. From the roof, looming police brandished weapons at the crowd below.Earlier on Wednesday, Kocke and a roommate had listened to Minneapolis City Council members "talk about how the police need to be restrained and will show restraint," he told The Daily Beast. "They asked protesters to show restraint. But they [the police] aren't. This isn't restraint. There is no restraint. This is chaos."Like COVID-19 death rates and social-distancing arrests, a new wave of protests—and their police response—are highlighting racial disparities in the coronavirus era. Tuesday's initial demonstrations in Minneapolis, which protested the death of Floyd, likewise saw officers in riot gear crack down on demonstrators, striking at least one protester in the head with a rubber bullet and bloodying a reporter. Meanwhile, right-wing "reopen" protests in Minnesota and elsewhere have generally proceeded without police violence, even as mostly white demonstrators—some with extremist ties—occupied government buildings with semi-automatic rifles.Derek Chauvin, Minneapolis Cop Shown Kneeling on George Floyd's Neck, Hires Philando Castile Shooter's Lawyer Activists in Minneapolis say race is a motivating factor in police responses to the protests. It's why some say they're coming out to protest—even during a deadly pandemic—in the first place, and why an increasingly volatile landscape in a progressive city began to take on the feel of Ferguson-style unrest."Throwing tear gas at kids is not going to help," Leslie Redmon, president of the Minneapolis NAACP, told The Daily Beast. Redmon said she was among the demonstrators hit with tear gas on Tuesday and that the heavy-handed response would not improve the police's relationship with protesters.Nekima Levy-Armstrong, Minneapolis-based civil-rights attorney and founder of the Racial Justice Network, a racial equality group, described the police response as "excessive and militarized." Officers were filmed using tear gas, rubber bullets, and what appeared to be stun grenades on demonstrators on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. "There was no communication to protesters that police were going to start shooting projectiles and shooting rubber bullets and spraying tear gas," Levy-Armstrong told The Daily Beast, echoing activists and journalists who were caught in the crossfire. "They just started doing it. They didn't give people time to leave the area if they didn't want to engage with police on that level."Monique Cullars-Doty, an organizer with Black Lives Matter Twin Cities, said the police response hindered medical care for at least one person struck in the head with a rubber bullet. "They called 9-1-1 and the protesters were told that the police [on the scene] were the first responders and no medical attention was given. They were trying to get this person to ride to the hospital," said Cullars-Doty, whose own nephew was killed by police in nearby St. Paul in 2015.After witnessing one night of tear gas, Lisa Grimm brought water and milk to Wednesday night's protest. "I live less than a mile away from the murder. This is my home," she told The Daily Beast."How have the killers not been arrested and held like anyone else? This wouldn't be happening like this. We wouldn't have to risk our safety. We wouldn't be at risk for coronavirus. It's common logic." Some of the response might have stemmed from the police department's unprecedented decision to fire four officers involved in Floyd's death. A viral video showed Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck for at least seven minutes after police apprehended him over an alleged forgery. In the harrowing video, captured by a bystander, Floyd repeatedly states that he cannot breathe and that he is dying. Bystanders plead with Chauvin to get off Floyd, noting that he appears to have died. Although police initially claimed Floyd later died in the hospital after a "medical incident," a Minneapolis Fire Department report found that he had no pulse when he was placed in an ambulance.The four officers' brisk firings were a first for the city and may have motivated police response to protesters, Levy-Armstrong argued. (The Minneapolis Police Department did not immediately return a request for comment.)"They want to retaliate," she told The Daily Beast earlier Wednesday. "They're angry, they're upset, and that's what we witnessed last night. Why did they need to wear riot gear and treat people like they were serious threats?"Images from reopen protests, including of white militia members lynching an effigy of Kentucky's governor, or armed protesters storming Michigan's statehouse, have led some protesters to question whether activists of color could get away with the same stunts."When I look and see the angry white protester with their guns and having the opportunity to celebrate their constitutional rights, then look at black protesters who are peaceful… getting tear gas and shot with rubber bullets," said Toya Woodland, a minister and Black Lives Matter activists. "We've never been looked at as whole people. We're still being looked at as animals, by the Three-Fifths Compromise," she said, referring to the part of the U.S. Constitution classifying enslaved people as less than fully human.Carmen Perez-Jordan, president of the nonprofit The Gathering for Justice, likewise tied the disparity in police response to America's centuries-long racial divides."How is it that an officer feels safe with an armed white person yelling and spitting in their face, but not with an unarmed black person?" she asked. Minneapolis, in particular, has struggled with those narratives. In 2015, Minneapolis police shot and killed Jamar Clark, a 24-year-old black man. When activists staged a days-long occupation outside the police station in protest, white supremacists fired on the crowd, seriously wounding five people.In 2016, a police officer in nearby Falcon Heights shot and killed Philando Castile, a black man during a traffic stop, while Castile's girlfriend and her young daughter looked on in horror. Chauvin, the officer who kneeled on Floyd's neck, has hired the lawyer who defended Castile's killer.Protests over Castile's killing were also marked by arrests."My friend had a bouquet of flowers in her hand, and there's a photo of her being arrested," Cullars-Doty said. "How much more peaceful can you be when you're just standing holding flowers?"She noted that the Castile protests had taken place at the state capitol in neighboring St. Paul, which has its own police force, where reopen protesters had demonstrated earlier this month, without incident.Reopen protesters don't deserve the crackdown Minneapolis protesters experienced, Perez-Jordan noted. But their demands differ. "Black and brown people are asking for their full humanity to be respected. They're asking for the right to live," she said, as opposed to reopen protesters who are demanding "a perceived right to access to privilege, like having a certain haircut or being able to go out to eat in public. That's very different from what we're seeing online every single day when it comes to police officers who can kill an unarmed black person or an unarmed brown person with impunity."And while reopen protesters will theoretically go home when the lockdowns end, Minneapolis protesters said the demonstrations might continue. (If protests do go on, Floyd's family—through their attorney, Benjamin Crump—has asked that looting and violence be rejected.)Anika Bowie, an activist who attended the Minneapolis protests on Wednesday, said the demonstrations were building on momentum from the Black Lives Matter protests that touched off after the killing of black teenager Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri."Just since Ferguson, we've had this whole backlog of history of police brutality," she said. "Now, we have more networks to exchange this information and communication."As a press conference Thursday, Frey tried to make protesters feel seen even as Police Chief Medaria Arradondo decried a "core group of people who had really been focused on causing destruction.""What we've seen is the result of so much built up anger and sadness, anger and sadness that has been engrained in our black community—not just because of five minutes of horror but 400 years," Frey said. "If you're feeling that sadness, that anger, it's not only understandable, it's right."For her part, Cullars-Doty attributed the protest explosion to the nature of Floyd's death. It wasn't the first time a horrific video of a black man who died in police custody went viral. But the deaths are adding up."That video that we just have is gut-wrenching," she said. "I was getting messages from people who haven't been out protesting ever. They're saying now that they're either fed up; they sat on the sidelines too long and some people have had their eyes opened. So I think this really is a big one."Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| The Chinese CDC now says the coronavirus didn't jump to people at the Wuhan wet market — instead, it was the site of a super-spreader event Posted: 28 May 2020 03:49 PM PDT  The origin of the new coronavirus still isn't known. But according to the Chinese CDC, it isn't the wet market in Wuhan.
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| So-called honor killing of teen girl sparks outcry in Iran Posted: 27 May 2020 02:53 PM PDT  The so-called honor killing of a 14-year-old Iranian girl by her dad, who reportedly beheaded her as she slept, has sparked a nationwide outcry.
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| Iran outraged by 'honour killing' of 14-year-old girl Romina Ashrafi Posted: 28 May 2020 03:36 AM PDT  The killing of an Iranian teen by her father after she eloped with an older man sparked outrage on Wednesday, with local media denouncing "institutionalised violence" in "patriarchal" Iran. Iranian media covered the apparent "honour" crime extensively, with Ebtekar newspaper leading its front page with the headline "Unsafe father's house". According to local media, Romina Ashrafi was killed in her sleep on May 21 by her father, who decapitated her in the family home in Talesh in northern Gilan province. The reports said her father had refused her permission to marry a man fifteen years her senior, spurring her to run away, but she was returned home after her father reported her. The legal marriage age in Iran is 13 for women. Iranian media reported that after authorities detained the teenager, she told a judge she feared for her life if she was returned to home. But what most outraged public opinion was the lenient punishment the father is likely to face, Ebtekar wrote. The newspaper notes that Iran's normal "eye for an eye" retributive justice does not apply to fathers who kill their children. Accordingly, he is likely to face three to 10 years in prison, a sentence that could be reduced further, the newspaper wrote, denouncing the "institutionalised violence" of Iran's "patriarchal culture". With the farsi hashtag Romina_Ashrafi focusing outrage on Twitter, President Hassan Rouhani "expressed his regrets" in a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, pleading for the speedy passing of several anti-violence bills, his office said. On Twitter, Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, Masoumeh Ebtekar, said a bill on the protection of young people was in the "final phase" of validation by Iran's Guardian Council. The council, which vets legislation to ensure compliance with Iran's constitution and Islamic sharia law, has thrice previously called for changes to the law after it was passed by lawmakers, Ebtekar newspaper wrote. The publication fears that if the council sends back the bill, it will be buried by Iran's new parliament, which held its first session Wednesday and is dominated by conservatives and hardliners opposed to Rouhani.
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| UConn student wanted in connection to 2 deaths is captured Posted: 28 May 2020 04:39 AM PDT  "Peter Manfredonia has been found & is in custody" after a nearly weeklong manhunt, officials said Wednesday.
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| Huawei CFO Meng loses key court fight against extradition to United States Posted: 27 May 2020 02:08 AM PDT  Huawei Technologies Co's Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was dealt a setback by a Canadian court on Wednesday as she tries to avoid extradition to the United States to face bank fraud charges, dashing hopes for an end to her 18-month house arrest in Vancouver. The ruling, which could further deteriorate relations between Ottawa and Beijing, elicited immediate strong reaction from China's embassy in Canada, which said Canada is "accomplice to United States efforts to bring down Huawei and Chinese high-tech companies."
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| Ann Coulter doesn't know if she will vote for 'defective man' Donald Trump Posted: 27 May 2020 02:29 PM PDT  Conservative author and commentator Ann Coulter told Yahoo News she may cast a write-in vote for former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions rather than vote to reelect Trump.
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| Violence again rocks Minneapolis after man's death; 1 killed Posted: 27 May 2020 07:40 PM PDT  A man was shot to death as violent protests over the death of a black man in police custody rocked Minneapolis for a second straight night, with protesters looting stores near a police precinct and setting fires that continued to burn Thursday morning. Protesters began gathering in the early afternoon near the city's 3rd Precinct station, in the southern part of the city where 46-year-old George Floyd died on Memorial Day after an officer knelt on his neck until he became unresponsive. News helicopter footage showed protesters milling in streets near the city's 3rd Precinct station, with some running in and out of nearby stores.
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| ICC allows former I.Coast president Gbagbo to leave Belgium Posted: 28 May 2020 03:02 PM PDT  The International Criminal Court on Thursday said former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo can leave Belgium under certain conditions following his acquittal last year over post-electoral violence that killed 3,000 people. Gbagbo and his deputy Charles Ble Goude were both cleared of crimes against humanity a year ago, eight years after the former West African strongman's arrest and transfer to the Hague-based court. Belgium agreed to host Gbagbo, 73, after he was released in February last year under strict conditions including that he would return to court for a prosecution appeal against his acquittal.
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| People are accidentally throwing out their stimulus check — because it looks like junk mail Posted: 28 May 2020 02:39 PM PDT  The latest round of stimulus checks were issued in the form of prepaid debit cards — in a plain white envelope that does not bear any federal markings.
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| Amy Cooper: Woman sacked after calling police on black man Posted: 28 May 2020 07:53 AM PDT  The woman, identified as Amy Cooper, called police saying an African-American man was threatening her life.
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| English court to weigh recognition of Maduro, Guaido in Venezuela gold case Posted: 28 May 2020 11:52 AM PDT  An English court on Thursday said it would need to decide which of Venezuela's dueling political factions to recognize before ruling on President Nicolas Maduro's request for the Bank of England to hand over gold the country has in its vaults. Venezuela for decades stored gold that makes up part of its central bank reserves in the vaults of foreign financial institutions including the Bank of England, which provides gold custodian services to developing countries. The bank since 2018 has refused to transfer the funds to Maduro's government, which Britain does not recognize.
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| Coronavirus infections are rising as states reopen, potentially signaling a second wave Posted: 27 May 2020 08:48 AM PDT  Twenty states reported an increase in new infections during the week ending May 24, up from 13 states the week before.
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| Hard-line former Tehran mayor named Iran parliament speaker Posted: 27 May 2020 10:09 PM PDT  Iran's parliament elected a former mayor of Tehran tied to the Revolutionary Guard as its next speaker Thursday, solidifying hard-line control of the body as tensions between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic remain high over its collapsed nuclear deal. Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf's assumption of power comes after a string of failed presidential bids and 12 years as the leader of Iran's capital city, in which he built onto Tehran's subway and supported the construction of modern high-rises. Many, however, remember Qalibaf for his support as a Revolutionary Guard general for a violent crackdown on Iranian university students in 1999.
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| Protester who hung effigy of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear fired from job at car dealership Posted: 27 May 2020 12:39 PM PDT  Terry Bush, president of the Kentucky 3 Percenters group, only hoisted the effigy, his wife Patsy said Wednesday morning.
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| Minneapolis Man: Cop Who Kneeled on George Floyd ‘Tried to Kill Me’ in 2008 Posted: 28 May 2020 09:27 AM PDT  Ira Latrell Toles didn't immediately recognize Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin in the now-viral video of him holding his knee on George Floyd's neck as the handcuffed black man repeatedly told him he couldn't breathe.But when news outlets identified the officers involved, Toles, 33, realized the man responsible for Floyd's death was the same police officer who barged into his home and beat him up in the bathroom before shooting him in the stomach 12 years earlier while responding to a domestic violence call. "The officer that killed that guy might be the one that shot me," Toles texted his sister on Tuesday night, according to messages shared with The Daily Beast. "They said his last name and I think it was him.""It's him," his sister instantly replied.On Tuesday, Chauvin was one of four officers fired for his involvement in Floyd's death, which has sparked protests across the country and calls for a federal hate-crime investigation. Local outlets reported that Chauvin was the officer who knelt on Floyd's neck for several minutes—as the 46-year-old pleaded, "I'm about to die." Floyd had no pulse when he was finally put into an ambulance.'Burn It Down. Let Them Pay': Deadly Chaos Erupts in Minneapolis as Fires Rage Over Police ViolenceMinneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Wednesday called for Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman to arrest and charge Chauvin with Floyd's death. "Why is the man who killed George Floyd not in jail? If you had done it, or I had done it, we would be behind bars right now," Frey said in a news conference.Toles believes that Floyd's horrific death could have been prevented if Chauvin was properly punished for his violent arrest in May 2008. He said that while he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge—and still suffers pain from the bullet hole in his lower stomach—Chauvin continued his career at the Minneapolis Police Department with nothing more than a slap on the wrist."If he was reprimanded when he shot me, George Floyd would still be alive," the IT professional said. Authorities said that just before 2 a.m on May 24, 2008, officers responded to a domestic violence call at an apartment complex on Columbus Ave South. The 911 operator could hear a woman yelling for somebody to stop hitting her, local media reported at the time. Toles, who was then 21, admits that the mother of his child called the cops on him that night, but he was surprised when several officers showed up without announcing themselves. "When I saw that he breached the front door, I ran in the bathroom," Toles told The Daily Beast. "Then [Chauvin] starts kicking in that door. I was in the bathroom with a cigarette and no lighter."The 33-year-old said that Chauvin broke into the bathroom and started to hit him without warning. Toles said he returned blows to the officer because "my natural reaction to someone hitting me is to stop them from hitting me." "All I could do is assume it was the police because they didn't announce themselves or ever give me a command," he said. "I didn't know what to think when he started hitting me. I swear he was hitting me with the gun."According to local news reports, Chauvin shot and wounded Toles after he allegedly reached for an officer's gun. Toles said he doesn't remember being shot—just "being walked through the apartment until I collapsed in the main entrance where I was left to bleed until the paramedics came." "I remember my baby mother screaming and crying also," he added.Toles was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center, where he said he stayed for about three days. There, he learned Chauvin had shot him at such close range that the bullet went through his groin and came out his left butt cheek before hitting the bathroom wall. The wound, he said, left a hole that "never really closed" and is so large he can still stick a finger inside. Once he was released from the hospital, Toles said he was taken directly to court, where he was charged with two felony counts of obstructing legal process or arrest and a misdemeanor count of domestic assault. "I would assume my reaction would be to try to stop him from hitting me. If his first reaction was hitting me in the face that means I can't see and I'm too disoriented to first locate his gun and then try to take it from him and for what?" Toles said. "To turn a misdemeanor disorderly situation into a felony situation that could have resulted in me dying? He tried to kill me in that bathroom." Toles said he only spent a day or two in jail—where he was denied pain pills—for the charges before he was released. Three months later, he said he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge as part of a deal.Chauvin and the other officers involved were put on paid administrative leave pending an investigation into the shooting—a standard procedure for the Minneapolis Police Department—but were later placed back into the field. "I knew he would do something again," Toles said. "I wish we had smartphones back then."The Minneapolis Police Department did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast's request for comment. Chauvin, 44, is one of four officers who responded to a suspected "forgery in process" on Monday night—along with Thomas Lane, J Alexander Kueng, and Tou Thao.In the gut-wrenching, 10-minute video recorded by a bystander, Chauvin is seen pressing his knee on Floyd's neck while Thao stands guard, trying to keep upset bystanders at bay. "Please, please, please, I can't breathe. Please, man," Floyd says in the footage that does not show the beginning of the arrest. "I'm about to die," he says. A Minneapolis Fire Department report said Floyd did not have a pulse when he was loaded into an ambulance. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital shortly after in what police described as a "medical incident.""We are looking and demanding that these officers be arrested and charged with the murder of George Floyd," Ben Crump, a civil rights attorney representing the 46-year-old's family, told The Daily Beast on Thursday. "My hope is that there will be effective and courageous leadership that will speak to the value of George Floyd's life as an example to the world that black lives matter. It's time for a change in Minneapolis."Chauvin, who joined the force in 2001, has also been involved in several other police-involved shootings throughout his career. According to Communities United Against Police Brutality, 10 complaints have been filed against the now-former police officer—but Chauvin only ever received two verbal reprimands.In 2006, Chauvin was involved in the fatal shooting of 42-year-old Wayne Reyes, who allegedly stabbed two people before reportedly turning a gun on police. Chauvin was among six officers to respond to the stabbing. A year prior, Chauvin and another officer were also chasing a car that then hit and killed three people, according to Communities United Against Police Brutality.In 2011, the officer was also one of five officers placed on a standard three-day leave after the non-fatal shooting of a Native American man. The officers returned to work after the department determined that they had acted "appropriately."The city's Civilian Review Authority, which lists complaints prior to September 2012, shows five more complaints against Chauvin, which were closed without discipline. A prisoner at a Minnesota correctional facility sued Chauvin and seven other officers for "alleged violations of his federal constitutional rights" in 2006, although the case was dismissed and the details were not clear.Toles said that while he has not protested himself, he believes this horrific incident is a watershed moment for the Minneapolis Police Department—an agency that he says has become the butt of a joke in the black community."We joke about it in the black community but we know that a white person calling the cops on us is gonna go in their favor," he said. The 33-year-old added that while he believes Floyd's death will finally bring change and reform that is necessary for Minneapolis, it's outraged residents who will ensure that justice is finally seen. He added that while he never filed a complaint in 2008, he is now looking to sue the Minneapolis Police Department for the violent incident. "We've all reached our tipping point. Water boils at 212 degrees," he said. "We're at 600."Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Another cruise crew member in coronavirus limbo dies of apparent suicide Posted: 27 May 2020 02:33 PM PDT  A cruise ship crew member died last week of self-inflicted harm, the US Coast Guard said Wednesday as it confirmed the latest in a series of apparent suicides among such workers trapped at sea because of the coronavirus pandemic. A 32-year-old Filipino worker on a ship called Scarlet Lady, the only cruise ship owned by Virgin Voyages, died of "apparent self-harm," the Coast Guard told AFP. The Florida-based company founded by British billionaire Richard Branson expressed its condolences over the death of its employee but gave no details of what happened.
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| Biden on 100,000 coronavirus deaths: 'To those hurting, the nation grieves with you.' Posted: 27 May 2020 04:39 PM PDT  Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden released a video message on Wednesday marking the grim milestone of 100,000 American lives lost to the coronavirus pandemic, telling the bereaved: "The nation grieves with you." Biden spoke after various tallies of COVID-19 deaths, including one compiled by Reuters, showed that the novel coronavirus has killed over 100,000 people in the United States, even as the slowdown in deaths encouraged businesses to reopen and Americans to emerge from more than two months of lockdowns. Biden, speaking from his home in Delaware, drew on his own family loss when making his remarks.
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| Coronavirus: How the pandemic in US compares with rest of world Posted: 28 May 2020 04:55 AM PDT  More than 100,000 people have died and the country is now slowly reopening amid fears of new spikes.
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| Rights group urges inquiry into Philippine drug war killings Posted: 26 May 2020 11:50 PM PDT  Human Rights Watch is calling on the U.N.'s top human rights body to launch an independent investigation into the Philippine government's drug war that has left thousands dead, pointing in particular to its harmful effects on children. The advocacy group made the call alongside Wednesday's launch of a report timed for the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council session next month. The 48-page report is based on nearly 50 interviews and examines the impact of about two dozen killings under President Rodrigo Duterte's drug war.
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| Iran Guards warn US after receiving new combat vessels Posted: 28 May 2020 06:15 AM PDT  Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Thursday warned the United States against its naval presence in the Gulf as they received 110 new combat vessels. "We announce today that wherever the Americans are, we are right next to them, and they will feel our presence even more in the near future," the Guards' navy chief Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri said during a ceremony in southern Iran. Iran and the United States have appeared to be on the brink of an all-out confrontation twice in the past year.
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| Tesla slashes prices to boost demand Posted: 27 May 2020 09:06 AM PDT  Tesla Inc. has cut prices of its electric vehicles by as much as 6% in North America following a decline in auto demand in the region during weeks of lockdown that have now started to ease.
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| Protests, looting erupt in Minneapolis over racially charged killing by police Posted: 27 May 2020 08:58 AM PDT  The video, taken by an onlooker to Monday night's fatal encounter between police and George Floyd, 46, showed him lying face down and handcuffed, groaning for help and repeatedly saying, "please, I can't breathe," before growing motionless. The second day of demonstrations, accompanied by looting and vandalism, began hours after Mayor Jacob Frey urged prosecutors to file criminal charges against the white policeman shown pinning Floyd to the street. Floyd, who was unarmed and reportedly suspected of trying to pass counterfeit bills at a corner eatery, was taken by ambulance from the scene of his arrest and pronounced dead the same night at a hospital.
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| MGM Resorts to reopen Bellagio, New York-New York, MGM Grand in Las Vegas Posted: 27 May 2020 01:52 PM PDT  MGM Resorts plans to reopen Bellagio, New York-New York, MGM Grand and The Signature on June 4. Bellagio's famed fountains will be turned on.
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| One chart shows a noticeable correlation between how late a country started its coronavirus lockdown and the number of excess deaths Posted: 28 May 2020 06:30 AM PDT  Analysis from the Financial Times has shown that the number of excess deaths correlates to when a country decided to lock down.
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| Mitt Romney calls out ‘vile’ Donald Trump murder accusations against ‘psycho’ Joe Scarborough Posted: 27 May 2020 08:26 AM PDT  "Never Trumper" Mitt Romney stepped in to defend his friend and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough on Wednesday after the president renewed his Twitter feud against the MSNBC host.The Utah senator called the accusations vile and baseless after Donald Trump escalated his campaign against "psycho Joe" over the death of a former staffer Lori Klausutis, who died in Mr Scarborough's office when he was a Florida congressman, also empathising with Klausutis' husband.
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| Spread of coronavirus fuels corruption in Latin America Posted: 26 May 2020 09:08 PM PDT  From Argentina to Panama, a number of officials have been forced to resign as reports of fraudulent purchases of ventilators, masks and other medical supplies pile up. "Whenever there's a dire situation, spending rules are relaxed and there's always someone around looking to take advantage to make a profit," said José Ugaz, a former Peruvian prosecutor who jailed former President Alberto Fujimori and was chairman of Transparency International from 2014-17. Coronavirus clusters are still spreading in Latin America, fueling a spike in deaths, swamping already-precarious hospitals and threatening to ravage slumping economies.
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| Russia slams 'dangerous' US foreign policy moves Posted: 28 May 2020 03:00 PM PDT  Russia said on Thursday the United States was acting in a dngerous and unpredictable way, after Washington withdrew from a key military treaty and moved to ramp up pressure on Iran. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova made the comments after Washington announced it would end sanctions waivers for nations that remain in a nuclear accord signed with Iran.
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| Why India must battle the shame of period stain Posted: 28 May 2020 10:38 AM PDT  Award-winning photographer Niraj Gera takes on stigma surrounding menstruation in India.
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| Researchers tested 4,160 people for coronavirus in a San Francisco neighborhood. Not a single white person tested positive. Posted: 28 May 2020 08:43 AM PDT  A coronavirus testing project in San Francisco has provided yet another example of how COVID-19 is overwhelmingly affecting people of color.Diane Havlir, the director of the HIV/AIDS division at the University of California, San Francisco, noticed early in the pandemic that young Latino men were arriving at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital with coronavirus symptoms more often than any other demographic. So she conducted a research project that involved testing 4,160 residents of San Francisco's Mission District — and found that not a single white person tested positive, Stat News reports.Havlir's project focused on a single, 16-square-block census tract in the Mission district, "one of the city's most densely populated and heavily Latinx neighborhoods," Stat News writes. A third of the tract's residents are white, while 58 percent are Hispanic, the U.S. Census estimates. But 95 percent of those who tested positive were Latinx, while no white person in the tract tested positive.Just like testing and death rates are revealing across the country, "what really comes out of these data is that low-wage essential workers are victims of this disease," Havlir told Stat News. And with 53 percent of those who tested positive showing no symptoms of coronavirus, it's even more clear that allowing workers to stay home only if they feel sick may not be enough to stop the spread. Read more at Stat News.More stories from theweek.com Amy Klobuchar declined to prosecute officer at center of George Floyd's death after previous conduct complaints Trump signs executive order seeking regulations on social media Trump retweets video declaring 'the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat'
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| Gang of 26 arrested for allegedly smuggling people from Vietnam to Europe in investigation prompted by Essex lorry deaths Posted: 27 May 2020 07:29 AM PDT  A gang of 26 suspected people smugglers have been arrested in France and Belgium in an investigation prompted by the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants found in the back of a lorry in Essex last year. The early morning raids took place in Paris and Brussels, with 13 people detained in each country. In Belgium, 11 Vietnamese and two Moroccans were held, while in France, authorities said the suspects were "mostly Vietnamese and French". The suspects are allegedly part of an organised crime group that smuggles refugees from Asia, particularly from Vietnam, and that likely has transported up to several dozen people every day for several months, Europol said in a statement. "Prompted by the discovery of 39 deceased Vietnamese nationals inside a refrigerated trailer in Essex in the United Kingdom in October 2019, a joint investigation team (JIT) was created between Belgium, Ireland, France, the United Kingdom, Eurojust and Europol," Europol said.
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| Putin says worst-case coronavirus scenario in Moscow averted as lockdown unwinds Posted: 27 May 2020 12:44 AM PDT  President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Moscow, the epicentre of Russia's coronavirus outbreak, had succeeded in preventing what he called worst-case scenarios as the city announced it would ease tough lockdown measures within days. Speaking to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, an ally, by video conference, Putin said it was obvious the situation in the city of 12.7 million people had stabilised thanks to steps taken by the authorities. It was now time for Moscow to provide medical help to regions where the coronavirus remained rampant, said Putin, something Sobyanin said would be organised immediately.
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| Photos of mass graves in Brazil show the stark toll of the coronavirus, as experts predict that it will surpass 125,000 deaths by August Posted: 27 May 2020 07:51 PM PDT  Despite the growing number of coronavirus cases and deaths in Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro has refused to impose a lockdown.
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| Pelosi calls on Trump to 'take responsibility' for coronavirus response Posted: 27 May 2020 01:15 PM PDT  In a press conference Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called on President Trump to "stop making excuses. Take responsibility" for his response to the coronavirus pandemic.
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| The man who filmed his encounter with a woman in Central Park says her actions were 'definitely racist,' but he's asking people to stop making death threats against her Posted: 27 May 2020 10:58 AM PDT  Christian Cooper told CNN that he thinks Amy Cooper's apology is sincere, and has asked people to stop making death threats toward her.
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| French lawmakers endorse the country's virus tracing app Posted: 27 May 2020 05:16 AM PDT  France's lower house of parliament endorsed Wednesday a contact-tracing app designed to contain the spread of the coronavirus amid sharp debate over privacy concerns. Lawmakers in the National Assembly, where French President Emmanuel Macron's centrist party has a majority, voted 338-215 to approve the StopCovid app.
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| Trump Is Offering to Mediate in the India-China Border Dispute. Here's What to Know About the Escalating Tensions Posted: 27 May 2020 10:35 AM PDT  President Trump offered to mediate in the 'raging' border dispute. Here's why tensions are rising between China and India on the border.
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| India coronavirus: Trouble ahead for India's fight against infections Posted: 27 May 2020 07:25 PM PDT  India's fatality rate remains among the lowest in the world, but the rise in infections is worrying.
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| CDC changes its 'confusing' guidelines on coronavirus and surfaces. Here's what we know. Posted: 27 May 2020 11:48 AM PDT  This new CDC update may quell some major concerns about how COVID-19 is transmitted, but plenty of questions still remain. Here's what to know.
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