Currentaffairsnews (Headlines)

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.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2M9jUXJ

At a press conference on Thursday, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said protests and unrest after the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man seen on video pinned to the ground by the neck while being arrested by a white police officer, were the result of “built-up anger and sadness” in the black community over the past 400 years.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2XI5WBv

Transcripts of phone calls that played a pivotal role in the Russia investigation were declassified and released Friday, showing that Michael Flynn, as an adviser to then-President-elect Donald Trump, urged Russia's ambassador to be “even-keeled” in response to punitive Obama administration measures, and assured him “we can have a better conversation” about relations between the two countries after Trump became president. Democrats said the transcripts showed that Flynn had lied to the FBI when he denied details of the conversation, and that he was undercutting a sitting president while ingratiating himself with a country that had just interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2B9BdFW

Gross domestic product data out later on Friday is expected to show India's economy grew at its slowest pace in at least two years in the March quarter as the coronavirus pandemic weakened already declining consumer demand and private investment. The median forecast from a Reuters poll of economists put annual economic growth at 2.1% in the March quarter, lower than 4.7% in the December quarter. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has maintained the lockdown ordered on March 25 to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the world's second most populous country, though many restrictions were eased for manufacturing, transport and other services from May 18.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2X9Aihj

Khadiza Begum, a Rohingya refugee, left Myanmar to escape violence but found more horror at sea.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3etzWb5

Eric Garner. Sandra Bland. Philando Castile. Alton Sterling. Michael Brown. Their names, and those of far too many other unarmed African-Americans killed by police (or in their custody) have become a grim litany etched in the memories of a whole generation of Americans. And now, George Floyd, who was violently detained for a “forgery in progress” on Monday by as many as four Minneapolis police officers, including one with a knee pressing his neck into the ground, has become yet another casualty of excessive force.Floyd’s death stands apart because his death represents perhaps the most high profile case of this nature to occur during Trump’s presidency. His predecessor, Barack Obama was routinely confronted with these kinds of tragedies. And as the first black president and a progressive, he was not only expected to weigh in on them, but was practically required to by his base and the media establishment. Minneapolis Man: Cop Who Kneeled on George Floyd ‘Tried to Kill Me’ in 2008Nearly every time one of these high-profile cases occurred, the president stepped up to offer compassion and in some cases, express his disgust. And while his legislative remedies to address the problem were largely stymied, at the very least Obama was able effectively to commiserate with the portion of the public that was outraged; and shine a spotlight on the issue of racially biased policing.No one expects Donald Trump to similarly elevate the discourse on this subject. On Wednesday, in his first remarks on the case, he conceded that Floyd’s death was “very sad,” but offered no other thoughts other than promising that the FBI and Justice Department will look into the case.On Twitter, where Trump is more freewheeling and candid (for better or worse), he praised local law enforcement, offered condolences to Floyd’s family and promised that “justice will be served” without elaborating on what that would mean, or for who.We can only hope that the president doesn’t try to assert himself too much further in the fallout of the Floyd case; given his history on issues of race, he would likely only add insult to fatal injury.Early Friday morning, hours after this article first posted, Trump bore that prediction out: Of course, Trump bears no direct responsibility for Floyd’s death, but the president’s embrace of racist language, ideas and policies has heightened the perception in this country that black life is expendable.In the past, it has been politically expedient for Trump to defend all police no matter what, and to abuse anyone who deigns to criticize them. During the 2016 campaign, he cast blanket aspersions on all Black Lives Matter activists, claiming they’re only “looking for trouble” and even worse, blaming them for instigating the deaths of police officers, all while waxing nostalgic about the “good old days” where protesters could be beaten with impunity. As president, he has shown far more anger at African-American NFL athletes who silently protest police brutality than, say, a foreign government his own intelligence agencies believe brutally slaughtered a U.S.-based journalist.Even setting issues of race and policing aside, it is not in Trump’s nature to show empathy as we have seen in his response to the pandemic that has claimed 100,000 American lives. As the U.S. crosses this horrendous milestone, he’s spent the better part of a week tweeting juvenile insults about his enemies, indulging in conspiracy theories and threatening the very social media platform on which he spends much of his time.Meanwhile, the president has proven time and again for over 40 years, that he will never acknowledge the existence (let alone comprehend the nuances) of institutional racism or admit how he has benefited from it, as he would say, tremendously. Instead he’s whined that ‘an educated black” stands a better chance of benefiting from the American dream than he does.If anything, Trump staying relatively silent would be a relief coming from a man who instinctively gravitates to the people causing black pain rather than those trying to alleviate it. If in the wake of Floyd’s death, people start to point the finger at Trump’s rhetoric endorsing “tough” police tactics, he and many of his supporters will defensively seek excuses for the Minneapolis police. They will insist that we don’t know what occurred prior to the video — as if any action by a single, unarmed suspect could justify his fate. They will say that people looting a Target is somehow more heinous than an officer of the law suffocating a man with his knee. Others will, with a straight face, suggest that Floyd couldn’t be suffocating if he was able to articulate it — the same inhumane reaction that was repeated endlessly after the killing of Eric Garner. They perceive an alternative universe where speaking out against police brutality somehow is responsible for inspiring more of it, and where the real victims are cops who are subjected to unreasonable accountability for their actions.People in this universe, and particularly people of color, are keenly aware of a very different status quo, where heroic people on their phones are seemingly the only thing that stands between many of us and the truth and where the president openly encourages police to rough up suspects without fear of reprisal.They know they are not safe on the street, in a store, or even in their own home. You can add bird-watching to that litany. This same week,another racially fraught viral video out of New York City caused a sensation, but, gratefully, not a death. In the clip, a white woman named Amy Cooper, after being asked by a bird-watching black man to put her dog on a leash (a regulation in Central Park), calls the police to falsely claim “an African-Ammerican man” was threatening her life.The most chilling thing about the video is seeing Cooper, who is not an actress, perform faux trauma to a 911 operator with such instinctual ease.The video footage exposed Cooper as a liar and cost her job (and her dog, that she manhandled terribly throughout the clip). Is this a happy ending? Well, not for any viewer of color who still has to live every day with the existential fear that the black man who filmed her must have felt — that a trigger-happy policeman might have responded to her call for help. 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.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2MfzzVq

Law enforcement officials around the country are publicly condemning the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who was seen on video gasping for breath as a white officer held him down with a knee on his neck for close to eight minutes.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2zy0A45

Award-winning photographer Niraj Gera takes on stigma surrounding menstruation in India.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/36EVZci

Despite the growing number of coronavirus cases and deaths in Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro has refused to impose a lockdown.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2AbQGoy

A TikTok shows a "Karen" blocking TikTok user @savsoares and her friend from parking by leaning on their car as she directed another car to park.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2TLRCqz

"Hong Kong, in many ways, has become the new Berlin: the new meeting point of a big argument of big disagreement between two major powers."

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3d9kJMk

Fox News host Tucker Carlson condemned the protests that have broken out in Minneapolis following the killing of George Floyd by police, claiming on Wednesday night that they are a “form of tyranny” and “oppression.”With demonstrations growing violent and chaotic as protesters have clashed with riot gear-clad police—who have cracked down on the protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets—Carlson devoted most of his attention to the actions of the demonstrators, who are protesting the death of a black man who was pinned down by a cop.“So we know that George Floyd died in police custody, and when an investigation is done we will do a lot more,” the conservative primetime host declared  “It’s possible that at least one police officer will be charged in the case. So as of tonight, those are the facts. Here’s another fact: What happened last night in Minneapolis was not a political protest—it was a riot.”Showing footage of demonstrators breaking windows and cursing, Carlson told his viewers that this is “what rioting looks like,” insisting he wasn’t trying to defend the behavior of the police officers involved in Floyd’s death.“We are defending society itself,” he said. “Rioting is one thing you don’t want. Ugly opinions, police brutality, officious birdwatchers, rude entitled ladies walking their dogs in big city parks—all of that is bad, but none of it is nearly as bad as what you just saw.”“The indiscriminate use of violence by mobs is a threat to every American of all colors and backgrounds and political beliefs,” Carlson continued. “Democracy cannot exist when people are rioting. Rioting is a form of tyranny. The strong and the violent oppress the weak and the unarmed. It is oppression.”The Fox News host went on to accuse CNN and other media outlets of trying to fan racial flames, complaining that CNN labeled the demonstrators as “protesters” rather than “rioters.”While Carlson said that these recent demonstrations against police brutality are riots and not political protests, the Fox News host—who said last summer that white supremacy is a “hoax”—was singing a different tune during the anti-lockdown protests staged by armed, largely white, right-wingers storming the Michigan capitol.“This is America,” Carlson said at the time. “We’re allowed to disagree with what our leaders do however we like, and we’re allowed to express that disagreement in public.”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.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2X9DQQP

The much-heralded joint launch between NASA and Elon Musk's SpaceX was postponed on Wednesday due to light rain in Florida. It was a disappointing anticlimax for the first manned space launch from American soil since 2011 — all systems were "go" just an hour before astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley were scheduled for 4:33 p.m. liftoff — but there was a silver lining to the clouds above Cape Canaveral: the world got to see, for the first time, NASA and SpaceX's alarmingly cheesy spacesuits, which looked something like man-sized Mentos dispensers topped off with garden galoshes.While many on Twitter hailed the gear as looking "soo cool" and "so f—ing dope," the correct reaction came from one commenter who said the suits "make [the astronauts] look like stunt extras in a low budget space movie." Whether or not Behnken and Hurley find themselves menaced by rubbery Venus ghouls in some misbegotten Roger Corman epic, the suits might lead to an even graver danger: not being able to extract their heads from the two-sizes-too small helmets that Musk looks to have grabbed from his local Spirit Halloween.If the spacemen are fortunate enough to somehow wrench the helmets from their skulls, NASA and SpaceX will give it another go on either Saturday or Sunday — probably not enough time to raid NASA's old closets for some real spacesuits.More stories from theweek.com Amy Klobuchar didn't prosecute officer at center of George Floyd's death after previous conduct complaints Boston Marathon canceled, replaced by a virtual event Trump retweets video declaring 'the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat'

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3daErHs

The manhunt for the 23-year-old college senior had spanned Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3evnDv7

Ford worked with Ohio State and police departments to develop the tech. Ford has a longstanding relationship with law enforcement.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3gzbjeX

President Donald Trump sent a Twitter message on Thursday to mourn 100,000 people in the United States lost to the coronavirus pandemic, a day after the threshold was reached and his silence noted. To all of the families & friends of those who have passed, I want to extend my heartfelt sympathy & love for everything that these great people stood for & represent. The expression of sympathy came after the voluble Republican president drew criticism in media and on Twitter for his failure to note the grim milestone that had dominated U.S. news reports on Wednesday.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3gtVTIZ

An off-duty firefighter saw Floyd "go from struggling to unresponsive on the ground while handcuffed and subdued" by police, an incident report said.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3eupKz6