Good morning.
Demonstrators stormed the headquarters of the Minneapolis police and set the department’s 3rd precinct station alight on the third night of protests over the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed 46-year-old black man. The demonstrations have spread to several other cities, including New York, Chicago, Oakland and Denver, where shots were reportedly fired outside the Colorado state capitol.
Donald Trump attacked the Democratic mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, on Twitter as “very weak”. He described the demonstrators as “thugs” and threatened that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”. Twitter hid that tweet, accusing the president of glorifying violence.
Frey responded fiercely, saying:
Weakness is refusing to take responsibility for your own actions. Weakness is pointing your finger at somebody else during a time of crisis.
The Department of Justice says its investigation of Floyd’s death is a top priority, with the FBI conducting a “robust” inquiry as it emerged that two of the officers involved in the incident had previously been reviewed for their use of force.
Trump signs executive order targeting social media
Trump’s “thugs” tweet, his latest violation of Twitter rules, came hours after he signed an executive order intended to limit protections for social media companies from liability over the content users post on their platforms.
The move was welcomed by those who argue that Twitter and Facebook should be held accountable for their content like other publishers, but the president’s critics say the controversy is intended as a distraction from his administration’s disastrous handling of the coronavirus crisis.
Mark Zuckerberg seemed keen to appease Trump during a Fox News interview, in which the Facebook founder implicitly criticised Twitter’s new policies, saying: “Facebook shouldn’t be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online.”
The Trump campaign tried to remove a satirical cartoon mocking the president from an online retailer by making a trademark infringement claim, apparently over illustrator Nick Anderson’s depiction of Trump supporters wearing Maga hats.
Hispanic Americans hit hardest by unemployment
More than 40 million Americans have filed for unemployment in the 10 weeks since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, a number not seen since the Great Depression. Many are struggling to make ends meet, as Michael Sainato reports. Among the jaw-dropping statistics, one figure stands out. Hispanic Americans have suffered the highest unemployment rate of any racial group at 18.9%, more than 4% higher than the national rate.
Homeless deaths in San Francisco have tripled this spring compared with the same period last year. Some of the 48 deaths were directly attributed to Covid-19, but advocates say many are a result of the city’s shelter-in-place order forcing people onto the streets.
Covid-19 patients forced to share beds in Mumbai
Parts of India’s healthcare system are reportedly close to collapse, and patients in the city of Mumbai have been forced to share beds and oxygen tanks as the coronavirus pandemic takes hold in the world’s most populous democracy. “The magnitude of the cases is overwhelming us all,” one Mumbai doctor said.
The president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, has announced plans to ease one of the world’s longest and strictest lockdowns, despite the country’s biggest daily rise in infections on Thursday, when 539 new cases were recorded.
Why Lombardy? Covid-19 has killed almost 16,000 people in Italy’s richest province, a vast number compared with even its closest neighbours. Health experts and Italian politicians are still trying to work out why, as Angela Giuffrida reports.
In other news …
The Hong Kong government has told the US not to interfere in its affairs, after China’s parliament approved a new security law seen by outside critics and local protesters as the death knell for Hong Kong’s autonomy from Beijing. The move has led many residents to look for an exit.
An Armenian website spreading Covid-19 disinformation is funded by the US government. Medmedia.am was originally launched with the help of a Department of State grant meant to promote democracy.
The “murder hornet” is spreading through the Pacific north-west, scientists fear, after one of the aggressive Asian insects was found in British Columbia in western Canada.
Great reads
Woody Allen: ‘Denouncing me became the fashionable thing’
Woody Allen’s long career was upended and the publication of his memoir disrupted by the continuing fallout from a 1992 accusation that he sexually assaulted his young daughter. “Anything I say sounds self-serving and defensive, so it’s best if I just go my way and work,” he tells Hadley Freeman.
How anti-vaxxers could hinder the battle against Covid-19
Once a fringe presence in the US, the message of the anti-vaccination movement appears to have infected the minds of millions of Americans, with 23% saying in a recent survey that they would refuse a vaccination for the coronavirus. Adam Gabbatt asks anti-vaxxers why they refuse to believe the evidence.
What happens next for RuPaul’s Drag Race winners
With the finale of season 12 fast approaching, Michael Segalov spoke to several past winners of RuPaul’s Drag Race crown to ask them what happened after their victory. “A crazy party train wreck,” says the season five runner-up Alaska Thunderfuck.
Opinion: will Trump dispute the 2020 election result?
The president’s repeated attacks on the reliability of mail-in voting raise an ominous possibility, writes Lawrence Douglas. If he loses narrowly in November, he may refuse to accept defeat.
The president is defaming not an individual but the integrity of our electoral process, confidence in which is a key to a stable democratic order.
Last Thing: football is kicking off again
Dig out your team jersey. Europe’s top soccer leagues have announced their plans to return over the coming weeks. Games will resume in empty stadiums in Spain’s La Liga on 11 June, England’s Premier League on 17 June and Italy’s Serie A on 20 June.
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