Friday, Aug 28th, 2020

Kurdish human rights lawyer Ebru Timtik dies in hospital after spending 238-days on hunger strike in protest of her imprisonment after being found guilty of being a member of the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front. At the time of her death, she was reported to only weigh 65 pounds. (New York Post)

The Bank of Korea cuts its growth forecast and expects the country’s GDP to shrink 1.3% this year. It would be South Korea’s worst performance since the height of the Asian financial crisis in 1998. (Marketwatch)

American retailer Walmart announces its partnership with Microsoft for a bid to acquire the Chinese-based video sharing service TikTok, which faces a ban in the United States through President Donald Trump’s executive order if its parent company ByteDance fails to sell the app’s operations to an American corporation. (AFP via Bangkok Post)

Prime Minister Jean Castex announces the mandatory wearing of face masks throughout Paris after officials released statistics indicating a resurgence of cases throughout the country. (AFP via RTL Today)

France records its highest number of new daily infections since the end of the lockdown in early May, with an additional 6,111 cases reported over the past 24 hours, making it the second highest ever, after 7,578 new cases set on March 30. (BBC)

Italy records its highest number of new cases since early May, when the country was still in lockdown, with 1,411 new cases reported in the last 24 hours. (The Telegraph)

The British government removes Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and Jamaica from the travel corridor list due to rising COVID-19 infection rates. It means that arrivals from those countries will have to self-quarantine for two weeks, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps confirmed. The change will come into effect on Saturday at 4:00 am BST. (The Guardian)

Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation, says that peace talks between the Taliban and the government will start in September with the support of the Trump administration, which pushes both sides to set differences aside. (Al Arabiya)

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Thursday,  Aug 27th, 2020

California Governor Gavin Newsom confirms that the state has signed a deal with Massachusetts-based PerkinElmer to provide faster testing results. (The Hill)

Moderna announces that their potential COVID-19 vaccine produced promising results in elderly patients during an early stage clinical trial. (CNBC)

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin invites residents to join COVID-19 vaccine trials. (ABC News)

Ohio State University suspends more than 200 students for breaking some COVID-19 guidelines even before the school year starts. (NPR)

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, said he was in surgery for vocal cord polyp removal and was not part of the discussion during the August 20 task force meeting when updated guidelines were discussed. He also expressed concerns over how people would interpret the new recommendations. (CNN)

A 17-year-old is arrested for the killing of two people during riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The teenager, who is originally from Antioch, Illinois, was charged with first-degree intentional homicide. (AP)

A mass grave with more than 1,500 bodies is discovered in Osaka, Japan, that dates from the 1600s to the mid-1800s. (News AU)

Marieke Lucas Rijneveld of the Netherlands is awarded the 2020 International Booker Prize for their novel The Discomfort of Evening. (The Guardian)

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Wednesday,  Aug. 26th, 2020

Manchester United captain and England international Harry Maguire is given a suspended sentence of 21 months and 10 days in prison by a Greek court for repeated bodily harm, attempted bribery of police, violence against public employees and insult, following his arrest on the island of Mykonos. (BBC)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-24/covid-s-lingering-malaise-adds-to-35-trillion-economic-cost?srnd=premium

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/dow-jones-industrial-average-shakeup-exxon-pfizer-raytheon-removed-2020-8-1029531716

Biden holds narrow lead in critical swing states Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden hasn’t seen a typical post-convention bump in his polling numbers. And while he was once handily leading in several states Hillary Clinton lost in 2016, those advantages are starting to slip. Clinton lost Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in 2016 — three states that were usually seen as reliably Democratic before that election. Even as of late August 2016, Clinton had a clear lead over Trump in those states: 9 points in Michigan, 9.2 in Pennsylvania, and 11.5 in Wisconsin. But while Biden still has leads in those states, just as he did a month ago, those advantages have narrowed to below Clinton’s pre-election margins. Nationally, Biden still has a wide 8.8 point lead over Trump, even higher than the 5.7-point lead Clinton had at this point in 2016. Source: FiveThirtyEight

The city of Berlin bans any and all future protests against the city’s quarantine measures after organizers of a rally earlier in the month failed to ensure its 20,000 marchers wore masks and practiced social distancing. (MSN)

RNC Night 1: Donald Trump Jr. defends his father, Nikki Haley says U.S. is ‘not racist’ The Republican National Convention kicked off on Monday with the party officially nominating President Trump for re-election. The night’s speakers discussed the economy, the coronavirus pandemic, and race in America, with former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley saying the United States is “a work in progress” but “not a racist country.” Donald Trump Jr. defended his father’s response to the coronavirus, which has left at least 177,000 Americans dead, and accused Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden of being part of the “radical left wing.” Also making appearances were Trump Jr.’s girlfriend, former Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis husband and wife made famous after photos went viral showing them pointing their guns at protesters walking by their house. Source: The Week

2 dead, 1 wounded in Kenosha after ‘vigilantes’ clash with protesters At least two people were shot dead and another wounded in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Tuesday night in a third night of protests against the police shooting of Jacob Blake, Kenosha police said early Wednesday. Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth said nobody has been apprehended for the shootings, but they have identified at least one suspect and he felt “very confident we’ll have him in a very short time.” Police in riot gear pushed protesters away from the courthouse down Sheridan Road earlier Tuesday night, where the protesters collided with armed men Beth described as “a militia” and “like a vigilante group” that has been patrolling Kenosha since some protesters damaged property Monday night. Videos on social media show one white man armed with a long gun shooting at several protesters. Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Two people were fatally shot and one wounded during protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin over the shooting of Jacob Blake. Police are investigating whether the incident occurred during a confrontation between protesters and armed men. (CNN)

At least 64 people were arrested in Louisville, Kentucky as crowds marched over the death of Breonna Taylor. The protests were peaceful until a group of demonstrators “crossed several intersections, creating dangerous situations as traffic continued to try to make its way in the area,” claimed Robert Schroeder, interim chief of the Louisville Metro Police Department. (CNN)

Florida judge blocks state’s school reopening order, saying it ‘disregards safety’ A Florida judge on Monday ruled that the state’s school reopening order is unconstitutional, as it “arbitrarily disregards safety” and “denies local school boards decision making” as to when their schools can open. The American Federation of Teachers, the country’s second-largest teachers’ union, and the Florida Education Association sued Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran over the order, which was issued on July 6 and stated that if school districts did not give students the option of returning to the classroom by Aug. 31, they would risk losing funding. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said her union and teachers were pushing back on a “reckless disregard of human life” and “politics overtaking safety and the science and the well-being of communities.” A Florida Department of Education spokeswoman confirmed the state has filed an appeal.  Source: The New York Times

Authorities intensify the crackdown on opposition leaders, jailing activists Sergei Dylevsky and Olga Kovalkova, handing the former a 10-day jail sentence. Diplomat Pavel Latushko is summoned for questioning, as well as acclaimed writer Svetlana Alexievich. (AP)

South Korea orders most schools in Seoul Capital Area to close and move classes back online as the country battles a resurgence in cases. All students, except for high school seniors, in the cities of Seoul, Incheon, and Gyeonggi Province, will take classes online until September 11. (Reuters)

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