- PoliticsYahoo News
Former top Justice Department official warns Trump may 'not cede power'
A former top Justice Department official told Yahoo News she is deeply worried that President Trump could “delegitimize a lawful election” this November “and not cede power.” Vanita Gupta ran the civil rights division at the Department of Justice from 2014 to 2017 and is now part of an informal, bipartisan group that has spent the past year preparing for Trump to potentially contest the results of the election. “He's already talking about how this will be a rigged election and saying if more and more people are voting using these so called mail-in ballots, that the election will be rigged,” Gupta told Yahoo News' “Skullduggery” podcast.
- U.S.Reuters
Reuters camera crew hit by rubber bullets as more journalists attacked at U.S. protests
Two members of a Reuters TV crew were hit by rubber bullets and a photographer's camera was smashed in Minneapolis on Saturday night as attacks against journalists covering civil unrest in U.S. cities intensified. Footage taken by cameraman Julio-Cesar Chavez showed a police officer aiming directly at him as police fired rubber bullets, pepper spray and tear gas to disperse about 500 protesters in the southwest of the city shortly after the 8 p.m. curfew. "A police officer that I'm filming turns around points his rubber-bullet rifle straight at me," said Chavez.
- U.S.Associated Press
As Minneapolis burns, mayor takes heat for the response
First-term Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey appeared to be doing everything right. When George Floyd, a handcuffed black man, died Monday after a white police officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes and ignored his “I can't breathe” pleas, Frey quickly expressed outrage and called for charges against the officer. Four officers were fired the next day, and on Friday, Officer Derek Chauvin was charged in Floyd's death.
WorldAFPIsrael police kill Palestinian they mistakenly thought was armed
Israeli police in annexed east Jerusalem on Saturday shot dead a disabled Palestinian they mistakenly thought was armed with a pistol, prompting furious condemnation from the Palestinians. The incident happened in the alleys of the walled Old City near Lions' Gate, an access point mainly used by Palestinians. "Police units on patrol there spotted a suspect with a suspicious object that looked like a pistol," an Israeli police statement said.
- U.S.The Daily Beast
Fire and Fury: Crowd Attacks CNN Center in Atlanta
CNN Center, the cable network's Atlanta headquarters, came under attack Friday night during protests over police brutality sparked by the death of an unarmed black man in Minneapolis. A largely peaceful demonstration erupted first in vandalism, then in violence. Cops used pepper spray, and then some in the crowd were seen smashing windows and defacing the giant CNN sign with spray-paint.
- U.S.CBS News
Cuomo pleads for calm after night of statewide protests
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo used his daily coronavirus briefing on Sunday to plead for calm after a night of unrest in cities throughout the state. "Violence never works," Cuomo said. Mr. Floyd wasn't even charged or accused of a violent crime.
- WorldBusiness Insider
The coronavirus has killed over 100,000 people in the US in just 4 months. This chart shows how that compares to other common causes of death.
Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images The novel coronavirus has killed over 100,000 Americans in just the four months since the first confirmed case in the country. To put that into perspective, we compared that death toll to the average number of deaths from several common causes between February and May of recent years. While heart disease and cancer typically kill around 200,000 Americans in those months, the coronavirus has been far deadlier than several other common causes of death, including car accidents and influenza.
- WorldThe Telegraph
British expat on frontline of Hong Kong protests says UK has abandoned former colony
As pepper balls and rubber bullets rained down on the crowd of Hong Kong protesters crouched by the entrance of a carpark tunnel, protecting themselves from the riot police with flimsy umbrellas, a chill of terror swept over one young man as he dived for cover with his girlfriend. Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph as protests got back under way in Hong Kong last week he said he had taken to the streets of his adopted city because his own government had “turned its back” on the people of Hong Kong. The UK government this week offered a "path to citizenship" to almost three million Hong Kong residents as it condemned China's move to crush dissent in the former British colony.
- WorldBBC
Coronavirus: Brazil now fourth-highest nation in Covid-19 deaths
The number of coronavirus fatalities in Brazil has risen by almost 1,000 in a day, making the country's overall death toll the world's fourth highest. Its figure of 28,834 has now surpassed France, and only the US, the UK and Italy have recorded more deaths. President Jair Bolsonaro has consistently played down the outbreak, although the country has the world's second-highest number of cases.
- PoliticsYahoo News
Trump’s campaign tries to recapture its magic on the virtual campaign trail. Will it succeed?
There are backlit billboards announcing the upcoming campaign event for President Trump. Outside a large arena footage of Trump plays on giant screens as supporters chant “Four more years!” Inside the arena, Trump's surrogates appear on a large Jumbotron as the crowd roars. While rallies had been Trump's trademark prior to the public health crisis, his reelection team has embraced virtual events and believes they provide a major advantage over his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, on the “digital campaign trail.”
- WorldReuters
U.S. CDC reports total of 1,737,950 coronavirus cases, 102,785 deaths
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Saturday reported a total 1,737,950 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 18,123 cases from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 1,074 to 102,785. The CDC reported its tally of cases of the respiratory illness known as COVID-19, caused by the new coronavirus, as of 4 p.m. EDT on May 29 versus its previous report released on Friday.
U.S.Yahoo News VideoLouisville police appear to shoot pepper rounds at reporters
Footage from Wave 3 local news in Louisville, Ky. appears to show police shooting pepper rounds directly at news crew.
- U.S.INSIDER
A Tennessee police chief had a message for fellow law enforcement: turn in your badge if 'you don't have an issue' with George Floyd's death
After the video of George Floyd's arrest and his subsequent death went viral on Monday, a Tennessee police chief tweeted his thoughts on Wednesday. David Roddy said that officers who don't have an issue with Floyd's arrest should turn in their badges. A Tennessee police chief by the name of David Roddy sent a message to his fellow officers on Twitter in response to the death of George Floyd.
- U.S.Associated Press
Boy Scout victims' choice: Sue rashly, or wait and risk loss
Some victims of childhood sex abuse who are considering suing the Boy Scouts of America face a choice: an anguished rush to meet a deadline earlier than what lawmakers intended, or wait and sue local councils, perhaps putting them at greater risk of losing. Attorneys for the Scouts and victims agreed during federal bankruptcy proceedings this month on a Nov. 16 deadline by which victims must come forward with a claim or be barred from bringing one later, with the victims' lawyers seeking a cutoff in December and the Boy Scouts pushing for October. New Jersey, New York, California and a few other states loosened their statute of limitations last year.
WorldAFPMasks and no ablution: Saudis flock to reopened mosques
Mask-clad worshippers flocked to Saudi mosques that reopened nationwide Sunday -- except in the holy city of Mecca –- over two months after congregational prayers were halted under a coronavirus-triggered lockdown. Complying with stringent social distancing rules, worshippers kept a minimum of two metres apart. "Worshippers rushed to the home of God to perform their obligatory duty (prayers) after the reopening of mosques," the ministry of Islamic affairs said on Twitter.
- U.S.CBS News
Louisville police shoot reporter with pepper bullets on TV
Hours after a CNN reporter was arrested while covering protests in Minneapolis, a crew from an NBC affiliate faced its own violent interaction with police in Louisville, Kentucky. While providing live coverage of the protests in Louisville, the city where Breonna Taylor was shot and killed by police in her own home, a WAVE 3 news reporter and her crew were directly shot with pepper bullets by police outfitted in riot gear. The incident happened while the crew from WAVE 3 was live on air, when reporter Kaitlin Rust was speaking about the dozens of officers in riot gear standing shoulder-to-shoulder near Louisville City Hall, according to CBS affiliate WIVB.
- WorldReuters
Israeli police fatally shoot Palestinian in Jerusalem: spokesman
Israeli police officers fatally shot a Palestinian they suspected was carrying a weapon in Jerusalem's Old City on Saturday, a police spokesman said, but the man was later found to have been unarmed, Israeli media reported. Palestinian officials said the man killed suffered mental health issues. "Police units on patrol there spotted a suspect with a suspicious object that looked like a pistol.
- WorldThe Guardian
Cemeteries braced for surge in Covid-19 dead as Mexico readies to reopen
Yet as Mexico's daily death toll rises to become one of the highest in the world – a record 501 fatalities were reported on Tuesday alone – the country is simultaneously preparing to reopen and weathering a politically charged battle over the true scale of the crisis. We're doing well, the pandemic has been tamed,” Mexico's populist president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, claimed on Thursday as he announced he would resume touring the country when a period of nationwide quarantine was wound down next week. Alejandro Macías, a leading infectious diseases specialist, said he understood and supported the need to plot out a return to some kind of normality for Mexico's 129 million citizens.
- U.S.Business Insider
Trump is reportedly insisting the Republican National Convention be held without face masks or social distancing measures
Associated Press President Donald Trump is insisting the Republican National Convention be held without social distancing measures and without the presence of facial coverings, a spokesperson for North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said Friday. Trump has previously threatened to move the convention from North Carolina, claiming that the state's Democrat governor was in a "shutdown mood" and hadn't committed to allowing full attendance at the event. Both Texas and Georgia have offered to host the 2020 RNC — scheduled for the end of August — if the event is pulled from North Carolina.
- U.S.Los Angeles Times Opinion
Letters to the Editor: Stacey Abrams lost in Georgia, but she could lift Biden as his VP.
To the editor: I like what columnist Jonah Goldberg has to say about Joe Biden's potential picks for vice president, yet I disagree with his assessment of former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. Abrams is a winner. Maybe it behooves Goldberg to take a second look at Abrams and her qualifications.
- PoliticsNBC News
Iowa Rep. Steve King's many outrageous comments may finally catch up with him
Feenstra's campaign reported having over $120,000 in cash on hand in the latest reporting period, while King had $32,000. King's opponents haven't focused on his past rhetoric as much as they have on what's happened because of it: his loss of power. The longtime congressman, who's been in office since 2003, was stripped of his assignments on the Agriculture, Judiciary and Small Business committees last year and essentially ostracized from the Republican Party after The New York Times published his comments about white nationalism.
- U.S.USA TODAY Opinion
Police act like laws don't apply to them because of 'qualified immunity.' They're right.
Not because the officers didn't do anything wrong, but because there isn't a case from the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court specifically holding that it is unconstitutional for police to kneel on the neck of a handcuffed man for nearly nine minutes until he loses consciousness and then dies. And such a specific case is what Floyd's family must provide to overcome a legal doctrine called “qualified immunity” that shields police and all other government officials from accountability for their illegal and unconstitutional acts. The Supreme Court created qualified immunity in 1982.
- BusinessAssociated Press
Long-haul carrier Emirates says it fires staff amid virus
Dubai's long-haul carrier Emirates said Sunday it fired an undisclosed number of employees as the coronavirus pandemic has halted global aviation, becoming the latest Mideast airline to shed staff over the outbreak. Emirates, the jewel of the sheikhdom's vast array of state-linked enterprises known as “Dubai Inc." to diplomats and investors, declined to offer figures on how many staff it fired. The carrier said it would treat fired staff “with fairness and respect,” without elaborating.
WorldAFPVenezuela raises fuel prices after arrival of Iranian oil tankers
Venezuela will increase fuel prices in June, the president said, putting a limit on state subsidies that for decades had allowed citizens to fill their gas tanks virtually for free. Although the country has huge oil reserves, production has collapsed and Venezuelans are facing dire shortages -- exacerbated by the impact of COVID-19 on the economy. Under the changes, which will come into force on June 1, drivers will be allowed up to 120 liters of gasoline a month and up to 60 liters for motorbikes at a subsidized price of 5,000 bolivars (US$0.025) per liter.
- WorldBBC
#JusticeForUwa trends in Nigeria after student murdered in church
There is outrage in Nigeria following the murder of a 22-year-old student, Uwavera Omozuwa in a church. The hashtag #JusticeForUwa is trending in Nigeria, with her family appealing for help to track down her killers. Uwavera had been studying in a "quiet" church near her home in Benin City when she was killed, her sister, Judith, told BBC Pidgin.
