A company belonging to Kanye West received millions in loans from a federal coronavirus stimulus package, raising questions about potential conflicts of interest given the rapper's ties to the Trump administration.On Monday, the US Small Business Administration released data on more than 40,000 companies that received loans of $150,000 (approximately £120,000) or more under the payroll protection program (PPP). As first reported by the Daily Beast, Yeezy LLC, a company established in Delaware but operated in California, received between $2m and $5m. Related: Kanye West's company granted millions in coronavirus stimulus
Thousands of people have demonstrated against the Serbian president's announcement that a lockdown will be reintroduced after the Balkan country reported its highest single-day death toll.Police fired teargas as the protesters, some chanting, "Resignation! Resignation!", who had gathered in front of the parliament building in Belgrade. Some briefly managed to enter by force but were pushed back by riot police. Continue reading...
Lawrence Gostin, the director of the WHO's Collaborating Center on National & Global Health Law, said Trump's decision to withdraw from the global health agency was "among most ruinous presidential decisions in history".He added that the move would counterproductively benefit China, leaving the country to fill the leadership gap left by the US.
Can there be any winners from @realDonaldTrump unilateral threat to w/draw from @WHO? There is a clear loser, the USA, which will lost global influence, with our citizens less safe & secure. There also may be a winner, China, which could help fill the gap in US loss of leadership Continue reading...
French coronavirus study finds black immigrant deaths doubled at peak Statistics agency is first in France to cross-check Covid-19 fatalities with country of originDeath rates among immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa doubled in France and tripled in the Paris region at the height of France's coronavirus outbreak, finds a study from the French government's statistics agency.The INSEE agency's findings, published on Tuesday, are the closest France has come to acknowledging with numbers the disproportionate impact of the virus on the country's black immigrants and members of other overlooked minority groups. Continue reading...
The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has announced live on television he has tested positive for coronavirus."It came back positive," a mask-wearing Bolsonaro told a hand-picked group of reporters on Tuesday lunchtime outside his official residence. Continue reading...
Christian Rodríguez named after testing at Austrian university
43 Ayotzinapa teachers college students abducted by police
Nearly six years after 43 Mexican students were kidnapped and forcibly disappeared, a new forensic science study has identified the remains of a second member of the missing group.Omar Gómez Trejo, head of the special unit of the attorney general's office charged with reinvestigating the case, said on Tuesday that remains found in November were subjected to DNA analysis this year at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. Continue reading...
Donald Trump's extraordinary character and outrageous behaviour "threaten the world's health, economic security and social fabric" and were shaped by his "high-functioning sociopath" father during childhood, according to a bombshell book written by the president's niece. Related: Fox News apologises for cropping Trump out of Epstein and Maxwell photoContinue reading...
Atlanta Mayor Orders Protesters to 'Clear Out' After 8-Year-Old Girl Fatally Shot The mayor of Atlanta is forcing protesters to "clear out" of the Wendy's where a police officer fatally shot Rayshard Brooks last month after a violent night that included a dozen shootings citywide and the death of an 8-year-old girl, the mayor said Sunday. "You shot and killed a baby," Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said at a news conference. "Enough is enough."Secoriea Turner was shot and killed less than a half mile from the Wendy's, which had become a place of memorial and protest since Brooks's death on June 12. Three suspects have been arrested on suspicion of arson after protesters set the fast-food joint ablaze the day after Brooks's death.Interim police chief Rodney Bryant said the girl was in a car with her mother and an adult friend Saturday night when the driver tried to pull into a liquor store parking lot and was confronted by a group of armed people who had blocked the entrance, NBC News reported. "At some point someone in the group opened fire, striking the car multiple times," he said.Police are investigating the incident. No suspects have been identified.Protesters had put up illegal barriers, at times flanked by armed protesters, to keep police out of the area near Wendy's. The city reportedly had tried to take down the barriers multiple times in recent weeks. Authorities had been notified of the barriers' resurrection less than an hour before the shooting. The Atlanta Police Department told Fox 5 they had planned on checking out the area but were swamped with other 911 calls."We're doing each other more harm than any police officer on this force," said Bottoms, who had allowed protesters to occupy the Wendy's for weeks during open discussions. "We've had over 75 shootings in the city over the past several weeks. You can't blame that on APD."Within hours of the mayor's announcement three more people were shot, one fatally, when two people exchanged gunfire, Fox 5 reported. "They say black lives matter," said the victim's father, Secoriya Williamson. "You killed your own. You killed your own this time just because of a barrier. They killed my baby because she crossed the barrier and made a U-turn."
FBI chief says China threatens families to coerce overseas critics to return to China FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday urged China-born people in the United States to contact the FBI if Chinese officials try to force them to return to China under a program of coercion that he said is led by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Wray issued the unusual appeal in an address to the Hudson Institute think tank in which he reiterated U.S. charges that China is using espionage, cyber theft, blackmail and other means as part of a strategy to replace the United States as the world's dominant economic and technological power.
Surge in NYC shootings fuels police reform debate New York reeled from a spate of holiday weekend shootings Monday, with police fueling controversy by partially attributing them to reforms undertaken following the death in custody of George Floyd. The Big Apple was rocked by 45 shootings -- which resulted in 11 deaths -- over the long July 4th weekend, up from just 16 shootings for the same period in 2019. Terence Monahan, the NYPD's highest-ranking uniformed officer, said "tremendous animosity" shown towards officers following the recent Black Lives Matter protests had contributed by lowering police morale.
See Gov. Desantis' response to critical virus question In a press conference, Florida Gov. Ron Desantis and Miami-Dade County mayor Carlos Giménez were pushed by a reporter on contract tracers after there was confusion over whether the governor or mayor could hire contact tracers during the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump rebukes Fauci's assessment: 'We are in a good place' President Donald Trump on Tuesday rebuked Dr. Anthony Fauci's blunt assessment of the US' coronavirus response, claiming that the country is "in a good place" even as new cases surge.
