| Republican lawmakers accused of hiding positive COVID-19 test result from Democrats, who call it 'immoral' Posted: 28 May 2020 11:54 AM PDT  Democratic lawmakers in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives are demanding answers after learning that one of their Republican colleagues tested positive for COVID-19, shared that information with GOP leadership, but never informed them.
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| White House encourages hydroxychloroquine use for coronavirus again Posted: 28 May 2020 02:03 PM PDT  Speaking during a press briefing on Thursday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany strongly endorsed the "prophylactic" use of hydroxychloroquine: that is, to prevent contracting the coronavirus.
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| Can you contract coronavirus from a surface or object? Posted: 29 May 2020 03:48 PM PDT  The CDC says that it may be possible to contract COVID-19 by coming in contact with a surface or object that has the virus on it, but you're much more likely to get the coronavirus through person-to-person transmission.
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| CNN reporter arrested live on air at George Floyd Minnesota protest Posted: 29 May 2020 04:15 AM PDT  A CNN crew was arrested by police Friday morning while giving a live television report in Minneapolis, where the crew was covering ongoing protests over the death of George Floyd.
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| The reality of the 'new cold war' with China Posted: 29 May 2020 02:45 AM PDT  It's a good time to be a China hawk. Beijing's new national security law for Hong Kong, the latest effort to neuter the region's promised autonomy, has rung alarm bells across the political spectrum about China's intentions. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has already declared that the move would justify revoking the various special trade and financial agreements the United States has with the territory, and Biden advisers have announced that the presumptive Democratic nominee would impose even greater sanctions on China. While America's options for helping the people of Hong Kong are distinctly limited, that's unlikely to stop us from trying, even if an ineffectual move could backfire. The logic of confrontation appears to be taking over.It's important, though, to understand why.The "great unwinding" of America's economic entanglement with China has deep causes, and, more proximately, the novel coronavirus has revealed in stark terms how important it is from a national security perspective for the United States to reduce its outright dependence on the People's Republic. But that process need not lead to confrontation — indeed, it would be perfectly compatible with a policy of global retreat that would probably make China feel more secure.On the other side, the nature of China's regime has indeed been changing dramatically under Xi Jinping, becoming more nationalistic and repressive as well as less institutional, with power increasingly concentrated in a single leader's hands. But that process also need not lead to conflict — indeed, at the time of Nixon's opening to China, when Mao was in his final years, the communist country was far more insular and repressive, and its political system far more personalized, than it is today.What's truly different, and the necessary additional element that explains the "new cold war" that may be aborning, is the sheer scope of Chinese power. China has now grown sufficiently potent for it to reasonably expect to be able to shape the international order to its liking, and not merely thrive within it as it exists. That expectation would be alarming to the United States even if China were not increasingly repressive, and even if America had not allowed itself to be vulnerable to supply chain disruption.Consider the situation in Hong Kong. Imagine that China, instead of using a hammer on all visible nails, used softer tactics to woo Hong Kong's citizens over to a more complaisant stance, as it had been doing for years prior. Suppose, similarly, that rather than bullying Taiwan, Beijing put the bulk of its efforts into corrupting the island's political system — as, again, it has to some extent done. Suppose these efforts began to bear fruit, to the point that Taipei began to distance itself from Washington in an effort to avoid angering Beijing, and the prospect of reunification was in the air. Suppose that South Korea followed suit. Would the United States view these events with equanimity?Of course not. They would be obvious signs of dramatically weakened American clout in Asia. Moreover, they would materially weaken our military position in the case of a future confrontation with China. And that possibility could never be ruled out, even if China's regime at that moment were less-confrontational.Or consider the ongoing conflict with Europe over Huawei, China's 5G powerhouse. The United States is legitimately concerned for national security reasons about the prospect of a Chinese company becoming dominant in this area, because of the opportunities for espionage. But those concerns — along with the concerns about future Western dependence on Chinese technology in this area, as well as other areas like artificial intelligence — would obtain even if China were less-overtly truculent and bullying. After all, alarm bells were rung in the 1980s over increasing Japanese dominance in high technology, and Japan was an American ally with a pacifistic constitution. How could we not be more alarmed by the rise of a much larger China to something approaching peer-competitor status?In international affairs, intentions are important, but capabilities matter more. That's a tragic reality that Thucydides identified as a key cause of the ruinous Peloponnesian War, and that in modern times paved the way for World War I. The rise of China makes the United States more vulnerable — economically and militarily. We'd need to worry about those vulnerabilities even if China were more benevolent than it now appears, because there could be no guarantee that they would remain benevolent. Indeed, we're observing that transformation in China right now, and ruing the degree to which we have already allowed ourselves to give ground.China's turn to authoritarianism may well make it easier for us to pursue a policy of confrontation — easier to accumulate allies abroad as well as easier to justify ideologically at home — just as the Trump administration's full-spectrum obnoxious incompetence makes it harder. It may also make it seem necessary, since Beijing has closed off many other possible avenues to coexistence. But perceived lack of choice is precisely what leads to tragedy.Because however much we say that we have no quarrel with the Chinese people, all our efforts to respond to our vulnerability will be aimed at constraining their power. We're not trying to preserve a balance of power, after all, however much we may tell ourselves that we are. We're trying to preserve an American preponderance of power. If we choose that path, we should expect China to respond the way we would to efforts to impose such constraints on us, and prepare accordingly.Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.More stories from theweek.com Amy Klobuchar didn't prosecute officer at center of George Floyd's death Minnesota governor says Trump's Minneapolis tweets are 'just not helpful' 'A riot is the language of the unheard,' Martin Luther King Jr. explained 53 years ago
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| Greece to open airports to arrivals from 29 countries from June 15 Posted: 29 May 2020 07:42 AM PDT  Greece said Friday it would reopen its airports in Athens and Thessaloniki to arrivals from 29 countries from June 15, the start of the tourist season. Visitors would be allowed to fly into Greece from 16 EU countries, including Germany, Austria, Denmark, Finland, the Czech Republic, Baltic countries, Cyprus and Malta, the tourism ministry said in a statement. Outside the European Union, holidaymakers from Switzerland, Norway, and neighbouring Balkan countries such as Albania, Serbia and North Macedonia will be allowed to land at Greece's main airports from June 15.
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| Move over James Bond; India returns alleged bird spy to Pakistan Posted: 29 May 2020 12:43 PM PDT  Indian police have released a pigeon belonging to a Pakistani fisherman after a probe found that the bird, which had flown across the contentious border between the nuclear-armed nations, was not a spy, two officials said on Friday. "The pigeon was set free yesterday (May 28) after nothing suspicious was found," said Shailendra Mishra, a senior police official in Indian-administered Kashmir. The Pakistani owner of the pigeon had urged India to return his bird, which Indian villagers turned over to police after discovering it.
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| Denmark and Norway cut coronavirus-hit Sweden out of free travel deal Posted: 29 May 2020 08:21 AM PDT  The governments of Denmark and Norway have cut Sweden out of a deal allowing each other's tourists to travel freely between the two countries — citing their Nordic neighbour's higher levels of coronavirus infection. The deal, announced at parallel press conferences in Oslo and Copenhagen on Friday afternoon, showed Sweden has failed in its diplomatic efforts to be included in the first stage of a Nordic travel bubble. Under the deal, people from Denmark will from June 15 be allowed to enter Norway without needing to quarantine, while tourists from Norway will be able to enter Denmark, so long as they have booked accommodation for at least six days. As she announced the agreement, Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen acknowledged that it would be difficult for many Swedes. "Danes and Swedes have family, lovers, and holiday homes across the border," she said. "Denmark and Sweden are at different places in relation to the coronavirus [epidemic], and this has a bearing on what we can decide in relation to the border."
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| Defense secretary says coronavirus vaccine will be available within months, but experts skeptical Posted: 28 May 2020 01:30 PM PDT  Pentagon leaders expressed strong confidence Thursday that a coronavirus vaccine will be available by January, and possibly as early as this fall — claims that were met with skepticism by scientific experts.
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| Twitter adds unprecedented warning to Trump tweet threatening to shoot Minneapolis protesters Posted: 29 May 2020 12:30 AM PDT  Twitter has added an unprecedented warning to a Trump tweet, warning users that the post "glorifies violence".The message was added to a post in which Mr Trump seemed to threatened that people protesting against the death of an unarmed black man in custody could be shot.
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| Mississippi mayor under fire over comments on George Floyd's death Posted: 28 May 2020 07:36 AM PDT  Mayor Hal Marx of Petal, Mississippi, said he "didn't see anything unreasonable" in the video of George Floyd's arrest. "If you can talk, you can breathe."
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| Long Island serial killer victim IDed 2 decades later Posted: 28 May 2020 11:13 AM PDT  A woman whose skeletal remains were found along a suburban New York beach highway, in an area where body parts of 10 other people had been strewn, was identified as a Philadelphia escort who went missing two decades ago, police said Thursday. Suffolk County police said the woman previously known as "Jane Doe No. 6" was identified through genetic genealogy technology as Valerie Mack, who also went by Melissa Taylor and was last seen in 2000 near Atlantic City, New Jersey. Determining the victim's identity has brought clarity to a long-running Long Island mystery that attracted national headlines, was featured on true-crime TV shows and was the subject of a recent Netflix film, Police Commissioner Geraldine Hart said.
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| Joshua Wong: Hong Kong Cannot Prosper Without Autonomy Posted: 29 May 2020 07:13 AM PDT  The prosperity of Hong Kong is based on its autonomy, not Beijing's dictatorship, writes Hong Kong activists Joshua Wong and Glacier Kwong.
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| Britain pushing US to form 5G club of nations to cut out Huawei Posted: 29 May 2020 10:15 AM PDT  Britain said Friday it was pushing the United States to form a club of 10 nations that could develop its own 5G technology and reduce dependence on China's controversial telecoms giant Huawei. The issue is expected to feature at a G7 summit that US President Donald Trump will host next month against the backdrop of a fierce confrontation with China that has been exacerbated by a global blame game over the spread of the novel coronavirus. Britain has allowed the Chinese global leader in 5G technology to build up to 35 percent of the infrastructure necessary to roll out its new speedy data network.
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| China plans to extend curbs on international flights until June 30: U.S. embassy Posted: 29 May 2020 01:54 AM PDT  Chinese civil aviation authorities plan to extend until June 30 their curbs on international flights to contain the spread of the coronavirus, the U.S. embassy in Beijing said in a travel advisory on Friday. China has drastically cut such flights since March to allay concerns over infections brought by arriving passengers. A so-called "Five One" policy allows mainland carriers to fly just one flight a week on one route to any country and foreign airlines to operate just one flight a week to China.
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| Pharma chiefs see coronavirus vaccine by year-end, but challenges 'daunting' Posted: 28 May 2020 01:05 PM PDT  Pharmaceutical company executives said Thursday that one or several COVID-19 vaccines could begin rolling out before 2021, but warned the challenges would be "daunting" as it was estimated that 15 billion doses would be needed to halt the pandemic. Well over 100 labs around the world are scrambling to come up with a vaccine against the novel coronavirus, including 10 that have made it to the clinical trial stage. "The hope of many people is that we will have a vaccine, hopefully several, by the end of this year," Pascal Soriot, head of AstraZeneca, told a virtual briefing.
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| Will Trump be 'played for a sucker' by the Taliban? Posted: 29 May 2020 02:00 AM PDT  President Donald Trump wants to get out of Afghanistan, but whether or not that happens should depend on whether the Taliban negotiates in good faith.
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| Coronavirus quietly started spreading as early as January, CDC says Posted: 29 May 2020 10:35 AM PDT  By early February, there was "cryptic circulation" of the virus.
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| The Latest: US agency calls back drone it sent to Minnesota Posted: 29 May 2020 08:03 AM PDT  U.S. Customs and Border Patrol says it dispatched a drone to Minneapolis following three nights of violent protests there but ended up sending it back to its base because the unmanned aerial vehicle wasn't needed. The agency, which typically patrols the nation's border and ports of entry, said the drone was going to provide live video to assist law enforcement in Minneapolis as they responded to protests that have left dozens of stores burned and looted. President Donald Trump says he talked to members of George Floyd's family on Friday and "expressed my sorrow."
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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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| Burundi first lady hospitalised in Nairobi: government sources Posted: 29 May 2020 07:28 AM PDT  Burundi's first lady was in hospital in Nairobi on Friday, after being flown in on a late-night medical flight, according to sources at the airport and in the presidency. First lady Denise Bucumi was flown out of Burundi on a Pilatus plane by the AMREF air ambulance service, according to a source at the Melchior Airport in Bujumbura. A high-ranking government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that Bucumi had gone to Nairobi "for treatment as she caught the coronavirus".
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| The Bird Watcher, That Incident and His Conflicted Feelings on Her Fate Posted: 28 May 2020 05:16 AM PDT  NEW YORK -- His binoculars around his neck, Christian Cooper, an avid birder, was back in his happy place on Wednesday: Central Park during migration season. He was trying to focus on the olive-sided flycatchers and red-bellied woodpeckers -- not on what had happened there two days earlier.That was when Cooper, who is black, asked a white woman to put her dog on a leash. When she did not, he began filming. In response, the woman said she would tell the police that "an African American man is threatening my life" before dialing 911.On Tuesday, the video went viral on Twitter and garnered more than 40 million views, setting off a painful discourse about the history of dangerous false accusations against black people made to police.The birds were a welcome distraction from thinking about what had happened next: By that day's end, the woman, Amy Cooper (no relation) had surrendered her dog and had been fired from her high-level finance job. As he wandered the park's North Woods on Wednesday shortly after dawn, Christian Cooper said he felt exhausted, exposed and profoundly conflicted, particularly about her fate."Any of us can make -- not necessarily a racist mistake, but a mistake," he said, "And to get that kind of tidal wave in such a compressed period of time, it's got to hurt. It's got to hurt."A gray catbird darted around his hiking boots."I'm not excusing the racism," he said. "But I don't know if her life needed to be torn apart."He opened his mouth to speak further and then stopped himself. He had been about to say the phrase, "that poor woman," he later acknowledged, but he could not bring himself to complete the thought."She went racial. There are certain dark societal impulses that she, as a white woman facing in a conflict with a black man, that she thought she could marshal to her advantage," he said."I don't know if it was a conscious thing or not," he added. "But she did it, and she went there."Cooper's love of birding began at age 10, he said, when his parents, two Long Island schoolteachers, enrolled him in a 4-H program. There, in a woodworking class, he crafted a bird feeder that he set in his lawn.The creatures that flocked to it set off a fascination that has endured for four decades, through his time at Harvard, where he graduated with a degree in political science, and into his years as an editor for Marvel Comics, where he is credited with creating one of the first gay characters in the Star Trek comic universe.A northern rough-winged swallow alighted on a branch and Cooper, 57, trained his lenses on it for a while.Then he resumed. "If we are going to make progress, we've got to address these things, and if this painful process is going to help us address this -- there's the yellow warbler!" Cooper said, cutting himself off to peer around with his binoculars.At length, he turned his eyes away from the tops of the London plane trees and continued where he had left off:"If this painful process -- oh, a Baltimore oriole just flew across!-- helps to correct, or takes us a step further toward addressing the underlying racial, horrible assumptions that we African Americans have to deal with, and have dealt with for centuries, that this woman tapped into, then it's worth it," he said, setting his binoculars down on his chest."Sadly, it has to come at her expense," he added.On Tuesday, Amy Cooper was fired by her employer, Franklin Templeton, where she had been a head of insurance portfolio management, according to her LinkedIn page.Cooper, who graduated from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, also surrendered her dog, Henry, to the rescue organization she had adopted him from, the same day, according to a Facebook post by the group.She issued a public apology to Christian Cooper, whom she had encountered in a semi-wild part of the park called The Ramble, where dogs must be leashed.After she refused to tether her dog on Memorial Day, Christian Cooper said, he attempted to lure the dog with treats, to induce her to restrain her pet. In a statement, Amy Cooper said she had misread his intent."I reacted emotionally and made false assumptions about his intentions when, in fact, I was the one who was acting inappropriately by not having my dog on a leash," she said in the statement.She did not respond to multiple requests for comment.On Wednesday, New York City's Commission on Human Rights began an investigation into Amy Cooper's actions.On his birding walk Wednesday, Christian Cooper said he had read her apology.He called it "a start." He said he was not interested in meeting her or in any face-to-face reconciliation.What he was interested in were birds, like the sighting in 2018 of a rare Kirtland's warbler that led him to sprint from his office in Midtown Manhattan to the park to catch a glimpse.Cooper, who now works in communications and lives on the Lower East Side, has fed his passion with birding trips to Central Park and around the world, and he is on the board of the New York City Audubon Society.He has developed a virtuoso's ear for their birdsong, and can identify them by chirp. ("There's a myth that I have the best ears in the park," he said. "It's a myth.")As he has pursued his passion, he has been keenly aware of the fact that there appear to be few other African American men invested in the hobby, excluded by the same subtle messaging he gets when he is followed around in shops, he said.And he is aware that the image he cuts -- as a man often shuffling the undergrowth after a rare bird, with a metal object, the binoculars, in his hand -- can read differently for a black person than for a white person.It doesn't stop him."We should be out here. The birds belong to all of us," he said. "The birds don't care what color you are."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| China and U.S. should respect each other's core interests - Premier Li Posted: 28 May 2020 03:26 AM PDT  China and United States should respect each other's core interests and manage their differences, Premier Li Keqiang said on Thursday, adding that a decoupling of their economies is not good for the world. "I believe both countries should respect each other and develop a relationship on the basis of equality, respect each other's core interests and major concerns and embrace cooperation," Li said in his annual news conference after the close of the annual meeting of parliament.
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| Marauding monkeys attack lab technician and steal Covid-19 tests Posted: 29 May 2020 05:00 AM PDT  A band of marauding monkeys has attacked a laboratory technician and stolen three Covid-19 test samples, raising fears they will infect themselves and then spread the deadly disease to humans. The worker was attacked outside a medical college in Meerut, northern India, while transporting samples from patients suspected of having coronavirus. The monkeys ran off into a residential area. The employee is said to have been unharmed, but has angered officials after filming the aftermath of the attack, rather than attempting to retrieve the samples from the fleeing monkeys. Monkeys can contract Covid-19 and then infect humans, according to scientists. Some Indians have been worried about catching the deadly virus from animals and it led to pet dogs being released onto the streets during the start of the pandemic. Others saw the funny side of the monkey attack, with the incident coming days after the Indian authorities detained a pigeon in Jammu & Kashmir on suspicion of spying for Pakistan. "The nation wants to know if Pakistan has sent those monkeys to steal coronavirus samples," joked one user on Twitter. "These are highly trained monkeys and very intelligent monkeys." In India, groups of monkeys are attacking people with increasing regularity as they are displaced from their natural habitats by urban sprawl. Their attacks can prove deadly - particularly for young children who are vulnerable to their powerful bites. In 2018, a 12-day-old baby boy died after he was bitten by a monkey in the city of Agra, home of the Taj Mahal.
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| Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto withdraws from Biden VP consideration Posted: 28 May 2020 03:54 PM PDT  "I support Joe Biden 100% and will work tirelessly to help get him elected this November," Cortez Masto said in a statement.
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| President is slammed for leaving ‘press conference’ without addressing Minnesota as he disbands US relationship with WHO Posted: 29 May 2020 05:05 AM PDT  Donald Trump held a "press conference" on Friday to discuss the United State's relationship with China, but then left the Rose Garden without taking questions or addressing the mounting situation in Minnesota following the death of George Floyd.The president announced during his statement the US would disband its relationship with the World Health Organisation (WHO) amid the coronavirus pandemic.
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| One of the coldest places on Earth is experiencing a record-breaking heat wave Posted: 29 May 2020 09:46 AM PDT  Heat wave sparks concerns about devastating wildfire season and melting permafrost.
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| Peter Manfredonia, the 23-year-old college student suspected of double murder, has been captured after a weeklong, multi-state manhunt Posted: 28 May 2020 05:05 AM PDT  Peter Manfredonia had been on the run since last Friday. He is suspected of killing two men and kidnapping one woman.
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| Powell: Fed to soon begin 'challenging' Main Street lending Posted: 29 May 2020 09:32 AM PDT  Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged Friday that the Fed faces a major challenge with the launch in the coming days of a program that will lend to companies other than banks for the first time since the Great Depression. The Fed's Main Street Lending is geared toward medium-sized companies that are too large for the government's small business lending program and too small to sell bonds or stock to the public. Powell said that Main Street will make its first loans in a "few days."
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| Rep. Mark Green on suing House Speaker Pelosi Posted: 28 May 2020 03:04 AM PDT  House GOP sue over proxy voting; Tennessee Republican Rep. Mark Green weighs in.
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| Indian monkeys snatch coronavirus samples Posted: 29 May 2020 06:05 AM PDT  Monkeys mobbed an Indian health worker and made off with coronavirus test blood samples, spreading fears that the stealing simians could spread the pandemic in the local area. Indian authorities often have to grapple with primates snatching food and even mobile phones. After making off with the three samples earlier this week in Meerut, near the capital New Delhi, the monkeys scampered up nearby trees and one then tried to chew its plunder.
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| Fourth Iranian tanker docks at Venezuelan port, U.S. slams 'distraction' Posted: 28 May 2020 10:12 AM PDT |
| Caution on China from EU, West's 'soft underbelly' Posted: 29 May 2020 09:44 AM PDT  After a video conference with 27 foreign ministers, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell expressed "grave concern" but he could threaten no sanctions and said planning for an EU-China summit would continue. In fact, Borrell said, only one of the European countries even raised the possibly of sanctions -- a diplomatic source told AFP this was Sweden -- and he said European investment in China was not in question.
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| Don Lemon Erupts: ‘No One Wants to Hear From the Birther-In-Chief’ on George Floyd Posted: 28 May 2020 06:42 PM PDT  CNN anchor Don Lemon unloaded on President Donald Trump after the Justice Department said Thursday that the president was "actively monitoring" the investigation of four Minneapolis police officers over the death of an unarmed black man, exclaiming that nobody "wants to hear from the Birther-in-Chief."During a press conference late Thursday afternoon, local and federal investigators insisted that they "can't rush" bringing charges for the death of George Floyd, who was pronounced dead after an officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes. With protests raging across the country, U.S. Attorney Erica MacDonald said the investigation was a "top priority" for the feds before adding that Trump and Attorney General William Barr were paying high attention to the case.Moments after the presser wrapped up, Lemon blew up over MacDonald invoking the president in this particular situation, bringing up a number of incidents Trump has been involved in over the years that have widely been seen as racist."I know she has a tough job, but guess what, as long as we are being honest right now, nobody wants to hear from the White House or the attorney general right now," Lemon exclaimed. "No one wants to hear from the man who wanted the death penalty to come back for the Central Park Five.""No one wants to hear from the man who says that the former president was not born in this country," the CNN anchor continued, in something of a call-and-response fashion. "No one wants to hear from the man who said there are 'very fine people on both sides.' Do you understand what I am saying?""No one wants to hear from the person that they perceive as contributing to situations like this in this society," Lemon kept going. "Not directly, but allowing people like that to think they can get away from this. No one wants to hear from the Birther-in-Chief, from the 'sons of bitches'-calling person, who says that athletes are kneeling for this very reason."After scolding federal investigators for seemingly having more urgency in telling protesters to calm down than investigating police brutality, Lemon concluded by expressing some solidarity with demonstrators amid the increasingly violent clashes."I understand the anger of the people upset in Minneapolis, Minnesota," he said. "I don't condone the actions. I don't understand the actions, but I understand the anger."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get 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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| Texas Children's Hospital treating several children with inflammatory illness linked to COVID-19 Posted: 28 May 2020 07:28 PM PDT  Some of the children are reportedly in critical condition. Though the illness itself isn't contagious, but could be deadly if left untreated.
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| IKEA manager in Poland charged for firing worker over anti-gay comments Posted: 28 May 2020 11:27 AM PDT  The manager was charged with religious discrimination for firing an employee who called homosexuality "an abomination" on the company's internal website.
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| AP Explains: What's behind latest India-China border tension Posted: 29 May 2020 12:25 AM PDT  Indian officials say the latest row began in early May, when Chinese soldiers entered the Indian-controlled territory of Ladakh at three different points, erecting tents and guard posts. China has sought to downplay the confrontation while providing little information. China has objected to India building a road through the valley connecting the region to an airstrip, possibly sparking its move to assert control over territory along the border that is not clearly defined in places.
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| UK chief negotiator rules out fish for financial services Brexit deal Posted: 29 May 2020 02:57 AM PDT  Britain's chief Brexit negotiator has ruled out any deal giving European boats access to UK waters in return for better conditions for British financial services in the EU's Single Market. The EU and the UK are deeply divided over fishing in free trade negotiations ahead of the next round of talks, which start on Monday, David Frost told peers in the European Union Select Committee on Thursday. Brussels also rejected British calls for an improved system of regulatory recognition for the City of London than the "equivalence" model currently on offer, during the last round of negotiations. Those talks ended in deadlock and mutual recrimination with both sides urging each other to drop their red lines. Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, and Phil Hogan, the EU's trade commissioner, have both suggested that a "fish for financial services" compromise could be struck to break the deadlock between the two sides. Mr Hogan, who is Ireland's EU commissioner, said yesterday, "Perhaps the United Kingdom has come to the conclusion that there's not going to be a deal." "I don't think fisheries is something we are going to link to anything," Boris Johnson's top Brexit official said. The Political Declaration, a joint document for the trade talks, said that a deal on fishing and financial services should be completed by July, ahead of the end of year deadline for the trade deal to be finalised. Mr Frost said he thought the deadline would be missed and repeated that the UK would not ask for an extension to the transition period to allow time for more trade negotiations beyond December 31. "I'm sure we'll carry on talking after June 30. Obviously, at some point, there will need to be a negotiation on the arrangements for 21, whether there's an agreement or not," Mr Frost said. "If there isn't an agreement that will reflect the fact that we're in the independent coastal state, and we'll control access, and fishing in our waters at that point." He added, "So, that is the reality that we have to contend with, if the EU doesn't evolve its position and try and reach an agreement with us."
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| US Air Force looks to up-gun its airlift planes Posted: 28 May 2020 02:03 PM PDT  Two demonstrations of a new "palletized munitions" concept have shown promise, an Air Force general said.
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| Crashed Pakistan plane hit runway three times on first approach, minister says Posted: 28 May 2020 02:42 AM PDT  The captain of a Pakistani airliner that crashed last week, killing 97 people on board, approached Karachi airport without announcing he couldn't open his landing gear and hit the runway three times, a government minister said on Thursday. Search teams recovered the cockpit voice recorder from the wreckage of the Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320 that crashed into a residential neighbourhood of Karachi last Friday, a spokesman for the airline said. Minister for Civil Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan told reporters the plane's engines touched the ground three times on the first attempt at landing.
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| 'No mask — no entry': New York Gov. Cuomo says he'll sign an executive order allowing businesses to refuse service to people who won't wear masks Posted: 28 May 2020 09:56 AM PDT  "No mask — no entry," said New York's governor. The executive order will give businesses the power to keep people without masks from entering.
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| Hong Kong on borrowed time as China pushes for more control Posted: 29 May 2020 06:00 AM PDT  Hong Kong has been living on borrowed time ever since the British made it a colony nearly 180 years ago, and all the more so after Beijing took control in 1997 and granted it autonomous status. China's passage of a national security law for the city is the latest sign that the 50-year "one country, two systems" arrangement that allowed Hong Kong to keep its own legal, financial and trade regimes is perishable. China's communist leaders have been preparing for decades to take full control of the glittering capitalist oasis, while building up their own trade and financial centers to take Hong Kong's place.
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| Rush Limbaugh: Trump’s ‘Clever’ to Peddle Baseless Murder Conspiracies Posted: 27 May 2020 06:39 PM PDT  Conservative radio host and recent Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Rush Limbaugh praised President Donald Trump on Wednesday as "clever" for falsely accusing MSNBC host Joe Scarborough of murder, claiming the president is "just throwing gasoline on a fire" because he's "having fun."Over the past several weeks, the president has repeatedly suggested that Scarborough—while he was a member of Congress in 2001—killed his aide Lori Klausutis. Her death, which occurred in Scarborough's Florida congressional office, was ruled an accident due to an abnormal heart rhythm. Furthermore, Scarborough was in D.C. at the time.Despite Klausutis' widower begging the president to please stop dragging her name through the mud in order to attack a cable news host, the president has persisted. Limbaugh, for one, applauded the president for continuing to peddle the conspiracies."So Trump goes out there and starts tweeting about Jeff Sessions, and then he starts tweeting about Scarborough perhaps being a murderer, which I explained yesterday," Limbaugh declared on his radio show. "Trump is Trump. It's not hard to understand him."The right-wing talker went on to justify the president's actions by noting that Trump has had to deal with Scarborough first being a "sycophant" before suddenly shifting in 2016 and becoming an outspoken Trump critic, adding that "it has got to be beyond frustrating."Later in the segment, Limbaugh circled back to explain to his audience how brilliant Trump was in tossing out baseless conspiracies."The thing here is when you get to Trump and his conspiracy theories, he does it in a really clever way," he proclaimed. "And this is where people don't get the subtlety of Trump because they don't think he has the ability to be subtle. Trump never says that he believes these conspiracy theories that he touts. He's simply passing them on."Asked by his producer whether he thinks "Trump cares whether Scarborough murdered anybody or not," Limbaugh replied that the president doesn't care but is tweeting about it "because it's out there.""So Trump is just throwing gasoline on a fire here, and he's having fun watching the flames—and he's having fun watching these holier-than-thou leftist journalists react like their moral sensibilities have been forever rocked and can never recover," he concluded.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get 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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| 'If you say you can't breathe, you're breathing': A Mississippi mayor who defended the officer who stood on George Floyd's neck has been asked to resign Posted: 29 May 2020 10:57 AM PDT  Petal, Mississippi, Mayor Hal Marx tweeted Floyd likely "died of overdose or heart attack" and that Minneapolis police are being "crucified."
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| Rwanda court sentences ex-mayor to life for role in genocide Posted: 28 May 2020 09:35 AM PDT  Rwanda's High Court on Thursday sentenced a former mayor to life in prison for his role in the country's 1994 genocide, which included leading attacks that resulted in the deaths of around 25,000 ethnic Tutsis in his town. Ladislas Ntaganzwa was one of the top fugitive suspects, accused of playing a key role in the massacre of some 800,000 mostly Tutsi but also moderate Hutus, when he was arrested in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2015. A statement from Rwanda's prosecution authority said the court "convicted him for genocide, extermination as crime against humanity and rape as crime against humanity and sentenced him to life imprisonment."
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| Russian warplanes in Libya could open new phase in Middle East's biggest proxy war Posted: 29 May 2020 10:15 AM PDT  The U.S. says Russian warplanes sent to back Moscow's favored militia leader in Libya could open a new phase in the Middle East's biggest proxy war.
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