Call for inquiry into why senior Tory helped donor avoid £40m tax

Cabinet Office asked to look into Robert Jenrick’s unlawful approval of property project

Henry McDonald

Sat 30 May 2020 09.36 BSTLast modified on Sat 30 May 2020 12.14 BST

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 The proposed development in east London, which was approved by Robert Jenrick against the advice of his planning inspector. Photograph: PR

Labour has urged the Cabinet Office to investigate why the housing secretary intervened in a controversial London planning decision that could have saved a Conservative party donor tens of millions of pounds.

Robert Jenrick, the housing, communities and local government secretary, knew that the former media tycoon Richard Desmond had only 24 hours to have an East End property development approved before hefty community charges were imposed on the billionaire’s project. The imposition of Tower Hamlets council’s community infrastructure levy (CIL) would have cost Desmond at least £40m.

Jenrick later accepted that approval of the Isle of Dogs project was unlawful.

In a letter to the cabinet secretary, Sir Mark Sedwill, the shadow housing and planning minister, Mike Amesbury, said Jenrick’s decision to back the proposed development was “deeply concerning” and that the Cabinet Office should fully investigate the matter.

“Serious questions need to be answered about why this decision was taken, a decision which could have saved a Conservative donor tens of millions of pounds, and in the process deprived local residents of vital infrastructure funding,” he wrote.

 “It’s essential that we have transparency in processes such as this so that trust can be maintained in our housing and planning system.

 “I hope the Cabinet Office will uphold this spirit of transparency, do the right thing and conduct a thorough investigation into the events around this decision.”

Documents disclosed earlier this week from the consent order for the development showed Jenrick was aware that the council-imposed CIL would have been introduced on 15 January this year.

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Against the advice of his own planning inspector, he gave the go-ahead for the construction of more than 1,500 apartments in a 44-storey complex on 14 January.

CILs were to be used to tax large property developments at £280 per sq metre, with the money raised being used to build schools and health clinics in the council area.

Point 4 of the consent order relating to the project states: “In pre-action correspondence, pursuant to the duty of candour, the first defendant explained the DL (decision letter) was issued on 14 January 2020 so that it would be issued before the claimant (Tower Hamlets) adopt its new local plan and CIL charging schedule.”

Tower Hamlets council took legal action against Jenrick, claiming the timing of his decision appeared to show bias towards the former owner of the Daily Star, Daily Express and Sunday Express. 

The council asked the court to order the government to disclose all correspondence between the housing secretary and government officials about the decision.

Jenrick accepted his decision did show “apparent bias” and recused himself from any future decisions over Desmond’s planned residential project on the site of the old Westferrry Road printworks.

One of those who had raised objections to the project was the ministry’s own planning inspection officer, who said the development would damage views of Tower Bridge.

Desmond sold his Express and Star titles two years ago. The 68-year-old’s company Northern & Shell, which is behind the Isle of Dogs development, donated £10,000 to the Conservatives in 2017 and £1m to Ukip in 2015.

UK DOMINIC CUMMINGS SCANDAL 

NO MASK NO LOCK DOWN TRUMP MINI ME

WILL IT BRING DOWN BORIS
Dominic Cummings has broken Covid-19 policy trust, say top scientists

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'No faith in our leaders': lockdown diaries reveal anger over Cummings

Call for inquiry into why senior Tory helped donor avoid £40m tax

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Boris Johnson sacrifices top scientific advisers on altar of Classic Dom

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Cummings and Johnson evil geniuses? Hardly, just lazy and incompetentNick Cohen

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Global report: new clues about role of pangolins in Covid-19 as US severs ties with WHO

Experts condemn Trump’s actions; India records worst daily rise in infections; surges in Russia and Brazil; Australia tests sewage water

Chris Michael and Guardian staff Sat 30 May 2020

A researcher in Mexico works with reagent samples for taking Covid-19 tests. Photograph: Carlos Tischler/Rex/Shutterstock
Scientists claim to have found more clues about how the new coronavirus could have spread from bats through pangolins and into humans, as India reported its worst single-day rise in new cases, and the number of Covid-19 infections worldwide neared 6 million.

Writing in the journal Covid-19 Science Advances, researchers said an examination of the closest relative of the virus found that it was circulating in bats but lacked the protein needed to bind to human cells. They said this ability could have been acquired from a virus found in pangolins – a scaly mammal that is one of the most illegally trafficked animals in the world.

Dr Elena Giorgi, of Los Alamos national laboratory, one of the study’s lead authors, said people had already looked at the pangolin link but scientists were still divided about their role in the evolution of Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

“In our study, we demonstrated that indeed Sars-Cov-2 has a rich evolutionary history that included a reshuffling of genetic material between bat and pangolin coronavirus before it acquired its ability to jump to humans,” she said, adding that “close proximity of animals of different species in a wet market setting may increase the potential for cross-species spillover infections”.

The study still doesn’t confirm the pangolin as the animal that passed the virus to humans, but it adds weight to previous studies that have suggested it may have been involved.

However, Prof Edward Holmes, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Sydney, in Australia, said more work on the subject was needed. “There is a clear evolutionary gap between Sars-Cov-2 and its closest relatives found to date in bats and pangolins,” he said. “The only way this gap will be filled is through more wildlife sampling.”

The findings came as Donald Trump announced that the United States was severing its ties with the World Health Organization because it had “failed to reform”.

In a speech at the White House devoted mainly to attacking China for its alleged shortcomings in tackling the initial outbreak of coronavirus, Trump said: “We will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs.”

The US is the biggest funder of the WHO, paying about $450m (£365m) in membership dues and voluntary contributions for specific programmes.

Trump’s declaration was condemned in the US and around the world, with Australian experts joining counterparts in the UK and elsewhere in voicing their support for the WHO. Prof Peter Doherty, a Nobel laureate and patron of the Doherty Institute, which is part of global efforts to find a Covid-19 vaccine, said the WHO had the “full support of the scientific community”.

Deaths in the US have climbed to more than 102,000, with 1,747,000 infections. It is by far the biggest total in the world. On Friday it emerged that one person who attended the controversial pool parties in the Ozarks last weekend had tested positive for the virus.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/30/global-report-new-clues-about-how-coronavirus-formed-as-us-severs-ties-with-who

VIDEO OF GEORGE FLOYD PROTESTS ACROSS USA

THE VIDEO OF THE KILLING OF GEORGE FLOYD IS A SNUFF FILM

Snuff film - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Snuff_film

Jump to Definition - A snuff film, or snuff movie, is "a movie in a purported genre of movies in which a person is actually murder or commits suicide. ... Some filmed records of executions and murders exist, but in those cases, the death was not specifically staged for financial gain or entertainment.

Stop Sharing The George Floyd Video

Why must graphic videos of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery make the social media rounds in order for the public to care about their unjust deaths?

Danny Cherry Jr. BuzzFeed Contributor

May 30, 2020

BuzzFeed News; Getty Images

I’m a creature of routine: I start my morning with a cup of tea, a good book, and a quick scroll through Twitter. I have anxiety, I need a routine. With the rise of COVID-19, this routine keeps the walls of my condo from closing in on me, and the clothes I wear from constricting me like a straitjacket. But my routine has been fractured; I can’t get on Twitter anymore. A quick scroll through my timeline might end with my heart pounding. A simple login is now a leap of faith that a wave of anxiety won't crumble me to my knees. Once a refuge from quarantine, my timeline has become a graveyard of dead black bodies:

Sean Reed.

Breonna Taylor.

Ahmaud Arbery.

George Floyd in Minneapolis who gasped "I can't breathe" as an officer pinned Floyd’s neck to the ground with his knee. There are videos of some of these deaths lingering on the internet, as if black death is something that should be traded and shared. As if they weren’t someone’s loved ones. But thanks to public outcry sparked by the videos, both Ahamud Arbery’s killers and the police officer Derek Chauvin who held Floyd in a neck chokehold with his knee as Floyd gasped for air, have been arrested and charged with murder. And Amy Cooper, the white woman who called the police after a black bird-watcher named Christian Cooper asked her to leash her dog, has been fired from her job after a video of her claiming that an “African American man” was threatening her life went viral.


Once a refuge from quarantine, my timeline has become a graveyard of dead black bodies.


It is good, I suppose, that social media has made it possible for these incidents to attract a wide audience and stoke demands for justice. But why does black trauma need to go viral for nonblack people to give a damn? Why is it that we, the people who have dealt with this shit our entire lives, have to see triggering and PTSD-inducing videos just so our issues don’t go ignored? It’s traumatizing having a video of someone being murdered automatically play when you open an app. Especially when the murder is racially motivated, and especially when it’s at the hands of the state. We are being subjected to imagery that, according to studies on racial trauma and vicarious trauma by clinical psychologist Monnica T. Williams, can induce depression and anxiety. And when combined with daily discrimination and microaggressions, we can even have PTSD-like symptoms.

Before social media, the daily black experience was unseen and uncared about by the majority of nonblack Americans. There were no clips of “Karens” calling us nigger while at a restaurant, or sound bites of police officers threatening us. When I had a shotgun pointed in my face after approaching the wrong house looking for a party — a night I’ve played over and over since Ahmaud’s murder —I had to suck that shit up and carry on. I buried it deep down in my crowded subconscious, adding it in with the microaggressions and racial gaslighting I have to deal with on the daily. I, like most black people, had to carry around unseen trauma. But now, our trauma is everywhere. I’ll be blunt: Social media uproars have become necessary to cut through the deafening silence of white people. But white delusions about this country being some postracial paradise are causing black people to relive trauma after trauma after trauma, one retweet at a time. This clear divergence in realities is why things have gotten so bad that black trauma now has to go viral to be seen.

When both black and white Americans are asked their opinions on race relations, for example, this discrepancy is noticeable. In a 2016 Pew Research Center survey, when participants were asked whether they agreed with the statement “black Americans are treated less fairly than whites in the country by police officers,” 50% of white Americans said they agreed, while 84% of black Americans agreed. When asked if they believed black Americans were treated less fairly than white Americans in court, 43% of white people agreed while 75% of black people agreed.

When I had a shotgun pointed in my face after approaching the wrong house looking for a party — a night I’ve played over and over since Ahmaud’s murder —I had to suck that shit up and carry on.


Black and white people can occupy the same spaces now, but we still live in two different countries. Some white people view the Confederate flag as a symbol of the South. I see that flag and think of old grainy pictures of white people on picnic blankets eating around a hanging black body while that flag billowed in the wind behind them, smiles wide on their faces like it’s another fun family outing. Our historical facts will never have as much power as their engrossing mythology. I didn’t have to imagine what I would have done in Ahmaud’s shoes. I have had a shotgun pointed at me before. I want to lie and say something writerly like how the moon glinted on the steel barrel or how I was stoic or brave or even had my life flash before my eyes. But none of those things happened. I didn’t feel anything. I was numb from shock. “Is this the party?” I asked.

They lowered their guns. It wasn’t. I was off by one house. My entire existence almost reduced to a blood spatter against brick siding because I was off by one number courtesy of Google maps. The mundanity of the moment haunted me when I saw Ahmaud’s video on every inch of my timeline. The thought of his day starting with a jog broke me. His day started off so normal. But we don’t get to go to the wrong houses by accident — whether they’re occupied or not. We don’t get to forge checks or sell loose cigarettes. Or play with toy guns. Or reach for our license and registration, even when it’s asked for. That’s why those videos are traumatizing; an everyday, ordinary occurrence that most Americans would survive can become fatal due to the color of your skin — and there’s nothing you can do about it. Depending on where I go, I wear bright colors, smile even when I don’t want to, and wear my college alma mater clothes as a shield to ward off the perceptions of white people. But none of that matters. Every one of these shootings shows that as long as you have black skin, you will always be in danger. It's anxiety-inducing to know the body you occupy could lead to your death.

Black Americans don’t need to see those videos to know this shit goes on. We know it goes on. We hear the stories from our aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, our grandparents and parents who lived through Jim Crow. Discrimination in the US of A is as American as apple pie, and every black American at some point has had a slice. No. Those videos are for those who either didn’t know or have gaslit black people for years about our collective reality, causing us to question our experiences and our perceptions.

But what can we do about it? Is our sanity worth moving the country forward? Will our realities and white mythology ever align? I don’t know the answers. But until then, we’re forced to carry the brunt of this country’s emotional labor.●


Danny Cherry Jr. is a native of New Orleans and a graduate of Southeastern Louisiana University’s MBA program. When he’s not at his day job, he spends his time writing fiction and creative non-fiction. He has short stories published in X-ray Lit Mag & Literally LIterary. He expects to have his first novel released by the end of 2020.

Around The World Workers Are Already Being Monitored By Digital Contact Tracing Apps

Coronavirus contact tracing apps aren’t government-mandated. But they may be employer-mandated.

Caroline Haskins BuzzFeed News Reporter May 30, 2020

Paresh Dave / Reuters
The Care19 mobile app, which the governors of North Dakota and South Dakota have asked residents to download. REUTERS/Paresh Dave

Imagine you arrive at work. Before you’re allowed to clock in, you have to complete a quiz on your phone that asks if you have any of the symptoms of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. If you’re healthy, you get to walk in. Once inside, you go about your day while your phone uses Bluetooth beacons, GPS tracking, or both to determine the people you have been near. If one day you do come down with symptoms, the app alerts HR, which then alerts the people you’ve been in contact with.

This is already a reality for thousands of workers around the world — in particular, those working in sectors like mining, energy, manufacturing, field services (like appliance installation or repair), construction, or hospitality.

Digital contact tracing — using an app or another form of technology to track who you’ve been in touch with, with the goal of stopping the spread of the coronavirus — isn’t mandated by any states or governments in the US. But there’s nothing stopping private companies from encouraging or even requiring workers to participate.

Are you a worker who is required to participate in digital contact tracing? Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Caroline Haskins via email at caroline.haskins@buzzfeed.com or via Signal at +1 (785) 813-1084.

Neema Singh Guliani, a senior legislative counsel for the ACLU, told BuzzFeed News that any company doing digital contact tracing in the workplace should make the system entirely opt-in and have transparency measures so workers know what they are signing up for.

But a crucial problem remains: We don’t know if any of these digital contact tracing tools are as accurate as companies say. Often, they are adapted from existing location-tracking technology, meaning their effectiveness with the coronavirus is unknown.

“A lot of these tools, we don't actually know if they're effective,” Guliani said. “And depending on what the consequences of those false positives and false negatives could be, that could be extremely problematic. So, for example, you have a lot of false positives or negatives, and that still results in needing to close down part of a business or part of a factory. That could raise questions about whether this is something worthwhile at all.”

For companies, the incentive to use digital contact tracing is simple: The longer their facilities stay closed, or the more people they have to quarantine in the case of a workplace outbreak, the more money the company loses.

But companies pitching digital contact tracing tools for workplaces told BuzzFeed News that they envision their products being used long after the coronavirus pandemic is over, meaning that what was originally a health and safety measure could force workers into a difficult quandary: opting in for what could become a permanent surveillance system — or opting out and risking their jobs?

SaferMe, a geolocation technology company based in New Zealand, makes a contact tracing app that asks workers to complete a daily symptom quiz and uses geolocation data to track their movements and possible interactions. Cofounder Mike Steere said the app is GDPR-compliant. But it has its shortfalls: Its geolocation can only gauge distance within the accuracy of several meters, which is far beyond the transmission radius of the coronavirus. Plus, workers may interact with people outside the company who don’t have the app, and they would have to manually add those close interactions.

“Lots of businesses really do prioritize health and safety, but a lot of times it doesn’t make the top list of priorities when it comes to budgeting or financing, so it can be quite a long sales cycle,” Steere said. “Where in this scenario, we can help give this tech to people where there is an acute need.”

Steere told BuzzFeed News that tens of thousands of workers in New Zealand are using SaferMe. Earlier this month, the company received a contract from the country's Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment to give out its tool for free to companies throughout the country. To date, SaferMe has mainly serviced major mining companies, such as AngloGold Ashanti, and energy companies, including Veolia.

SaferMe
Screenshot from the SaferMe website.

The company is also expanding internationally. Steere said it recently signed a contract with a United States–based Fortune 500 company, which he declined to name, and has received interest from other companies in the US and Mexico.


While SaferMe has been around for years, there are also new companies whose mission is specifically to combat the spread of the coronavirus. Jun Ying and Doug Nelson created geolocation-based contact tracing app ExpoSURE Tracing in February.

Since then, ExpoSURE Tracing has been in touch with companies in the warehouse and field service industries with the goal of making them safer for essential workers. But he sees the company’s future as extending far past the most severe phase of the pandemic.


ExpoSURE Tracing
ExpoSURE Tracing map interface on ExpoSURE Tracing's website.

“We built this from the ground up,” Ying told BuzzFeed News. “We don't call this internally a ‘COVID’ or ‘corona’ or anything like that. To us, this is just a pathogen. We think more and more of these things will happen. And even for flu season, this could be something that’s useful.”

There's also hPass, a newly formed company created by academics from Harvard and the Sloan School of Management. Their product — a QR code–based check-in app that requires people to take and pass a symptom quiz before entering a facility — is being piloted by 11 companies, four of which are in the restaurant industry, according to cofounder Shai Kivity.

Kivity told BuzzFeed News that the company has been in touch with over 200 vendors — including gyms, nursing homes, and universities — and that hPass wants its product to be used in any industry.

“What’s so important, what’s so exciting, and what is long term is — this is beyond COVID-19,” cofounder Raphael Yahalom told BuzzFeed News. “Obviously, we’re focusing on the immediate need here. But this is a long term.”

Several companies in the location-tracking business have adopted existing wristbands — typically used in manufacturing facilities, hospitals, warehouses, and construction sites — to address the spread of the coronavirus. These devices typically work by exchanging Bluetooth signals, which are stored locally and uploaded to a cloud server.

A good example is WiSilica, which struck a deal with the Hong Kong government in late March to use its TraceSafe wristbands for an enforced 14-day quarantine for all Hong Kong residents returning from abroad. WiSilica CTO Dennis Kwan told BuzzFeed News the company is in touch with construction and event venue companies.



TraceSafe.=
Screenshot from TraceSafe website.

Kwan said that the company’s relationship with the Hong Kong government demonstrated that the product can work in various scenarios, including ones that have nothing to do with the coronavirus or contact tracing.

“I think what the case in Hong Kong is the proving case for how our product is able to be reliable,” Kwan said. “The fact that we are able to adapt that into different applications, like for delivery, and then to contact tracing. ... It shows the flexibility of this product being adopted for different applications.”

The company is also piloting DeliverSafe in Kuwait, which involves having food delivery workers wear wristbands which send Bluetooth beacons to an app.

AiRSITA Flow, meanwhile, is selling wristbands and handheld devices that conduct Bluetooth contact tracing by logging interactions with nearby employees.

Vincent Grove, vice president of marketing, told BuzzFeed News that the company developed new hardware about a month ago to enforce social distancing, which is GDPR-compliant. The new devices don’t just log interactions; they also light up and beep if you come within 6 feet of another person for more than five seconds.

“We also do things like [send an] alert when groups form,” Grove said. “So if a bunch of tags come together, we can send a notification alert saying, ‘Hey, there’s a group forming.’ We can also have a sense of location associated with this. So we can tell: Is it in the break room? Is it in the lobby? And you can look over time to see if this is a recurring pattern. Are there individuals you wanna have a conversation with?”



AiRSITA Flow
Screenshot from AiRSITA Flow website.

For the past 10 years, one of the company's major clients has been prisons. Grove said that over 100,000 inmates around the globe — especially inmates in Africa, he said — use AiRSITA Flow products.

Now, he said, the company is talking to hundreds of possible vendors in large-scale manufacturing, construction, and auto manufacturing. These companies typically employ thousands to tens of thousands of people at their facilities.

KINEXON, a sensor technology company founded in 2012, also recently brought a wristband contact tracing tool to market. To date, the company's major clients have been in the logistics and manufacturing industries. For clients like BMW, the wristbands tell managers where manufacturing workers are throughout the day.




KINEXON
Screenshot from the KINEXON website.
KINEXON CEO Mehdi Bentanfous told BuzzFeed News the company is piloting its new contact tracing tech to 50 potential clients. Since Bluetooth-based tech can be fallible, doesn't transmit over or through water, and can't determine if people are separated by a wall, KINEXON uses inaudible sound to double-check the Bluetooth transmissions and determine if people were actually near each other.

Bentanfous declined to name specific potential clients but said a "top 3 food and beverage company" in the US, a large logistics corporation, and top automotive suppliers were testing the product and that more than 5,000 workers are already wearing the new contact tracing wristband.

“Since we track people, we are able to track forklifts in production; we are able to do collision warnings,” Bentanfous said. “So the advantage of the product is it’s not only limited to this pandemic and physical distancing and you throw it out after everything is over. There are different applications and extensions of the technology to be used for safety purposes or material flow, people flow within productions.”

Crucially, all of these workplace contact tracing products are only as effective as a company's health, safety, and human resources. If you download your state's contact tracing app, a public health authority is running the show. But if you have an employer-owned contact tracing app, it’s up to HR to responsibly handle that information.

“That employee-employer dynamic creates additional challenges and intricacies,” Guliani said. "When you have trained health professionals, they’re trained to build trust, where there are restrictions on how data can be used. Those existing structures don’t exist in the HR context. And you’re putting [contact tracing] in a context which might already have deficiencies when it comes to workers’ rights.”

She added if workers don’t have access to COVID-19 testing or paid leave, they’re still going to be vulnerable.

“I worry a little bit that there is a sense that some of these tools are going to be silver bullets so that people can return to some degree of normalcy,” Guliani said. “And I think the reality is that in a best-case scenario, these are small tools that will only work if they’re part of a broader public health strategy that has to include things like testing, access to healthcare, and manual tracers.”

A Security Flaw In Qatar's Contact Tracing App Exposed Hundreds Of Thousands Of People's Personal Data

Megha Rajagopalan · May 26, 2020

When India's Airports Reopen On Monday, They'll Be Pushing Travelers To Use The Government's Controversial Contact Tracing App

Pranav Dixit · May 22, 2020

Apple And Google's Coronavirus Tech Won't Actually Do Contact Tracing. Here's Why Exposure Notification Is Different

Caroline Haskins · May 20, 2020


Caroline Haskins  is a technology reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York

THIS IS AMERICA: NATIONWIDE PROTESTS OVER COPS KILLING GEORGE FLOYD & BREONNA TAYLOR

BREAKING NEWS

Mass Protests Erupted Friday Night In Minneapolis, New York, Atlanta, Detroit, Oakland, Los Angeles, And More

George Floyd died on Monday after police officer Derek Chauvin pinned him to the ground in a neck chokehold until he died. On Friday, Chauvin was arrested and charged with murder. Breonna Taylor was shot and killed in her home by police on March 13.

ByAmber Jamieson,

There Were Massive Protests Around The Country For A Second Night In Response To The Killings Of George Floyd And Breonna Taylor

Thousands took to the streets in Minneapolis, New York, Atlanta, Detroit, Oakland, Los Angeles, and more.

Last updated on May 30, 2020

Josh Edelson / Getty Images Oakland on Friday night

Mass protests erupted across the nation for a second night on Friday, with thousands taking to the streets to protest police brutality in response to the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

Floyd, 46, died on Monday, after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pinned him to the ground in a neck chokehold until he died. On Friday, Chauvin was arrested and charged with murder.


In Louisville, Kentucky, demonstrators gathered to protest the death of Taylor, a 26-year-old black woman who was fatally shot in her home by police officers on March 13.

For days, heated protests have taken place in Minneapolis, but they have since expanded nationwide — even amid a lethal pandemic. The protests reflect the nation's outrage that, at the very least, even years after the start of the Black Lives Matter movement, after social media gave rise to widely-recorded police brutality, after repeated calls to reform how law enforcement treat people of different socioeconomic backgrounds, unarmed and innocent black people are still being killed by the people who are supposed to protect society.

“I’m tired,” Salamah Patrick, 27, told BuzzFeed at a protest in Brooklyn. “I’m tired of cops killing us and nothing being done.”

“Mass shootings have gone down" during the pandemic," she said, "but police brutality hasn’t.”

By Saturday morning, the most heated protests were in Minneapolis.

Gov. Tim Walz said that despite bringing in 500 National Guard troops, “We do not have the numbers."

“We cannot arrest people when we are trying to hold ground,” he added.


Walz authorized the full mobilization of the Minnesota National Guard for the first time since WWII, with 2,500 soldiers and airmen scheduled to be mobilized by noon Saturday.


The Pentagon has also put active units of military police on alert so that they might deploy to Minneapolis, the Associated Press reported.

City and state officials condemned the actions of some of the Minneapolis protesters in a press conference Saturday morning.

“This is no longer about protesting, this is no longer about verbal expression, this is about violence, and we need to make sure that it stops," Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said.

Officials criticized protesters for vandalism and throwing improvised explosive devices at law enforcement, and said protesters could expect to see the National Guard "in lockstep" with state, county, and local law enforcement Saturday.

Walz and other officials initially claimed that all protesters arrested in Minneapolis Friday night were from out of state. Walz backtracked slightly when pressed by reporters, saying 20% of those arrested were Minnesotans and 80% were from out of state.

There were about 20 arrests made Friday night by St. Paul police, about half of which were for burglary, and about 20 arrests were made by Minneapolis police, mostly for curfew violations and destruction of property, law enforcement said.

He also said that they would be releasing the identities of those arrested.

"If you know someone was down there protesting, help us, call them in. They're not from Minneapolis," Walz said.


Scott Olson / Getty Images Minneapolis on Friday night.


In Washington DC, the White House was briefly placed on lockdown as protesters and police clashed outside.


And there were sprawling protests across Brooklyn. Thousands of people began in Manhattan, then marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to join a Black Lives Matter protest outside Barclays Center in Brooklyn.



"Take your anger out on those who hold the power, wherever it may reside," New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio said at a press conference earlier in the day as he called for peaceful demonstrations. Later in the evening, after hundreds of NYPD officers were deployed and they repeatedly clashed with protesters, he went to Brooklyn to speak to the police commissioner.



Jon Campbell@j0ncampbell

A lot just popped off at the protest for George Floyd at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Pepper spray, batons, and several arrests.11:38 PM - 29 May 2020
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As the night wore, police started arresting protesters who did not disperse or follow orders, using city buses to hold them — even as some drivers refused to transport them.



Amber Jamieson@ambiej

More arrests, police piling them into city buses. A female protester was just wheeled away on a guerney by paramedics, unclear what happened to her.01:00 AM - 30 May 2020
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Outside the Barclays Center arena, protesters chanted, “Say his name, George Floyd” and “I can’t breathe.”


Protesters took aim at the 88th Precinct in Brooklyn, as the NYPD sent reinforcements. A few blocks away, a police van was set ablaze.



Myles N. Miller@MylesMill

Fully involved here.02:02 AM - 30 May 2020
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Assemblywoman Diana Richardson told WNYC she was pepper sprayed by the NYPD, while other videos showed officers calling another protester a "stupid fucking bitch" and shoving her to the ground.

In Detroit, a 19-year-old man was fatally shot in a drive-by shooting during a protest against police brutality, the Free Press reported.


In Minneapolis, protesters defied the attempted curfew and police, at least early on, took a largely hands-off approach. Many walked through downtown and on expressways.



Danny Spewak@DannySpewak

Demonstrations have moved to the highway. Here’s a look at I-35W South just outside of downtown Minneapolis: @kare1102:18 AM - 30 May 2020
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Walz had set an 8 p.m. curfew earlier in the day, saying "unlawful and dangerous actions of others, under the cover of darkness, has caused irreversible pain and damage to our community."

But roughly two hours past the curfew, police officers and the National Guard had yet to move in as protesters marched on the streets and freeway ramps.



John Minchillo / AP
People attempt to extinguish cars on fire on May 29, 2020, in Minneapolis.


In Louisville, hundreds had gathered outside City Hall demanding justice for Taylor's death in what was initially a peaceful demonstration. But as the night wore on, there were clashes with police trying to disperse the crowds. Police in riot gear reportedly set off gas and fired pepper balls, prompting demonstrators to flee.



Will Clark@WClark840WHAS

Tear gas and flash bangs at 5th and Jefferson. @KYNewsNet @840WHAS @TalkRadio1080 #Louisville02:07 AM - 30 May 2020
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At one point, police appeared to fire projectiles at a reporter for local news station Wave 3, Kaitlin Rust. The confrontation unfolded during a live news segment, with Rust yelling "I'm getting shot, I'm getting..." A few moments later she the tells the news anchors they appeared to be pepper bullets aimed "directly at us."



Timothy Burke@bubbaprog

Police literally opening fire on the free press.02:09 AM - 30 May 2020
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A Louisville Metro Police spokesperson told the station officers do not use rubber bullets, and that they were likely pepper balls.

Another confrontation between police and journalists occurred earlier Friday when a black CNN reporter and two members of his team were arrested live on air in Minneapolis. Walz later apologized to CNN president Jeff Zucker, saying he "accepts full responsibility" and later had the team released.

In Atlanta, protesters focused on the CNN building, breaking glass as they hurled items from the street. Police also threatened to arrest protesters if they didn't leave the street as they threw bottles and other items at officers.




Fernando Alfonso III@fernalfonso

Glass getting broken outside the main entrance to CNN's Atlanta headquarters; protesters cheer11:32 PM - 29 May 2020
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The violence and vandalism prompted a strong rebuke from the city's mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, who told protesters were "disgracing our city.”

“You are disgracing the life of George Floyd and every other person who has been killed in this country," she said. "We are better than this. We are better than this as a city."




CNN Tonight@CNNTonight

"If you care about this city then go home." Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms was visibly angry at a news conference during the Atlanta protests on Friday https://t.co/RyApQwICJx02:33 AM - 30 May 2020
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp announced late Friday night that at the request of Bottoms, he was issuing a state of emergency for Fulton County to activate as many as 500 National Guard troops to assist local law enforcement.



Noah Berger / AP
Demonstrators march in Oakland, on May 29, 2020.


Clashes with police also erupted in Oakland, California, after protesters were told to disperse. Flash bangs and tear gas were eventually deployed, prompting demonstrators to flee.



Caroline O'Donovan@ceodonovan

Huge crowd of people just ran from what is definitely tear gas in downtown oakland after half a dozen flash bangs went off in a crowd04:35 AM - 30 May 2020
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Vandalism also broke out, with some protesters smashing out windows of businesses. A Walgreens was also briefly set ablaze as looters pillaged the store.

Earlier in the evening when protesters were peacefully marching through city streets, Raje Lee told BuzzFeed News she had just heard that Floyd and the ex-officer who put him in a knee chokehold had previously worked together providing security at a local bar for years.

"Saying it was accidental is total bullshit," she said. "You sat there with your knee on someone's trachea and you didn't think they're gonna die?"



Caroline O'Donovan@ceodonovan

In Oakland, just asked this man, Gerraci, how he decided to come out tn: “How could you not want to support something like this? We have the ‘rona in here but we out here dying. We dying both ways, and we can do something about one more than the other one.”03:37 AM - 30 May 2020
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Later in the evening, flash bangs were set off, prompting some demonstrators to leave the area.

In Houston, violence broke out between pockets of protesters who got into heated arguments.



Jay R. Jordan@JayRJordan

Violence erupts during a Black Lives Matter protest over #GeorgeFloyd's death as BLM Houston founder @AshtonPWoods appears to punch a man yelling at him. Now, protestors are attempting to rush I-45 near downtown #Houston https://t.co/Da51yUbigQ09:36 PM - 29 May 2020
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Violence also broke out in San Jose, California, as demonstrators blocked Highway 101, with one protester bashing a driver's window while crossing.



Kristofer Noceda@krisnoceda

Some protesters seen smashing vehicle windows. The protest over George Floyd's death has shut down a portion SB Hwy. 101 in San Jose. https://t.co/GssAT2zqJ611:01 PM - 29 May 2020
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And in Los Angeles, dozens of protesters were arrested after police ordered the downtown area locked down and they refused dispersal orders.


Jae C. Hong / AP
Police officers arrest a man during a protest in Los Angeles.



One LAPD officer was reportedly hurt during clashes with protesters, who smashed windows and vandalized several police vehicles. At one point, demonstrators temporarily blocked traffic on a portion of the 110 Freeway.

As in other cities where large demonstrations took place, businesses were also looted and vandalized.

Police eventually surrounded protesters who remained late Friday for mass arrests in front of City Hall.



Ruben Vives@LATvives

Police asking people to sit down so they can be peacefully arrested. “Don’t resist”. This is in front of city hall. #DowntownLA05:14 AM - 30 May 2020
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Amber Jamieson reported from New York City, and Caroline O'Donovan reported from Oakland.



MORE ON THIS
We're Keeping A Running List Of Hoaxes And Misleading Posts About The Minneapolis ProtestsJane Lytvynenko · May 29, 2020

The Minneapolis Police Officer Who Used A Knee Chokehold On George Floyd Has Been Charged With MurderSalvador Hernandez · May 29, 2020


Amber Jamieson is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.
Contact Amber Jamieson 

Caroline O'Donovan is a senior technology reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in San Francisco.
Contact Caroline O'Donovan 

Singapore otters' lockdown antics spark backlash

AFP / Roslan RAHMAN

There are estimated to be about 90 otters in Singapore, making up 10 families, and appearances at popular tourist sites around the city-state's downtown waterfront had transformed them into local celebrities

Singapore's otters, long adored by the city-state's nature lovers, are popping up in unexpected places during the coronavirus lockdown but their antics have angered some and even sparked calls for a cull.

With the streets empty, the creatures have been spotted hanging out by a shopping centre, scampering through the lobby of a hospital and even feasting on pricey fish stolen from a pond.

While many think of tiny Singapore as a densely populated concrete jungle, it is also relatively green for a busy Asian city, and has patches of rainforest, fairly clean waterways and abundant wildlife.

There are estimated to be about 90 otters in Singapore, making up 10 families, and appearances at popular tourist sites around the city-state's downtown waterfront have transformed them into local celebrities.

AFP / Roslan RAHMAN

While many think of Singapore as a densely populated concrete jungle, it is also relatively green and has patches of rainforest, fairly clean waterways and abundant wildlife
They featured in a documentary narrated by David Attenborough, are tracked avidly by the local media -- and have been spotted more frequently since people were asked to stay home and workplaces closed in April to fight the virus.

"When there's restriction of movement, there's less vehicles and there's less people, so the urban space opens up," said N. Sivasothi, a biologist at the National University of Singapore known as "Otterman" due to his work on the animals.

But their newfound freedoms appear to have emboldened the otters, and they are now facing a backlash.

- 'More daring' -

The most high-profile incident was a raid on a pond at a spa shuttered due to the pandemic. The creatures gobbled several fish including an arowana, a prized species that can sell for tens of thousands of dollars.

Actress-turned-entrepreneur Jazreel Low, who owns the spa, posted pictures on Facebook of fish parts scattered around the pond and lamented a "massacre".

"They probably realised that there was nobody there and became more daring," Low told entertainment news website 8 DAYS.

AFP / Roslan RAHMAN

With the streets empty, the creatures have been spotted hanging out by a shopping centre, scampering through the lobby of a hospital and even feasting on pricey fish stolen from a pond

The case sparked a debate about whether more should be done to stop otters rampaging through the city, with a widely discussed letter in a local newspaper calling for air horns and rubber bullets to be used as deterrents.

"Wild boars have never been encouraged to enter urban areas, neither should otters be just because they look cute," wrote Ong Junkai in the correspondence to the Straits Times, which triggered calls from some for a cull.

In other incidents, a video showed a group charging into the lobby of a children's hospital before being shooed away, and the creatures were also filmed frolicking in the empty streets outside a popular shopping centre.

The otters' more frequent forays onto the streets of Singapore are part of a global trend triggered by virus lockdowns, with animals increasingly slipping cover to explore the streets of some of the world's biggest cities.

- 'Coexist and thrive' -

Still, otter experts believe the anger is an overreaction and that the creatures are likely just enjoying the extra freedom to venture to new places.

NUS's Sivasothi criticised calls for a cull as "quite an uneducated response", and said such a move would be ineffective.

AFP / Roslan RAHMAN

Fans say people should celebrate the return of an animal that was driven out of Singapore by coastal development and water pollution around the 1970s, and only started reappearing in the 1990s as waterways were cleaned


He also said many recent sightings were likely of the same family of smooth-coated otters, which have been searching for a new home along the city's rivers. Most of Singapore's otters are the smooth-coated variety, classified as "vulnerable".

Fans believe people should be celebrating the return of an animal that was driven out of Singapore by coastal development and water pollution around the 1970s, and only started reappearing in the 1990s as waterways were cleaned.

"I simply don't understand anyone who could not like them. They are really cute," said Pam Wong, a 35-year-old Singaporean.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong weighed in on the debate Friday, posting a photo he took of otters before the lockdown on his Facebook account.

"Rather than being focused on protecting 'territory', we must find ways to coexist and thrive with our local flora and fauna," he wrote.

Violence divides protesters, as 'chaos' grips Minneapolis

AFP / Chandan KHANNAUn manifestant devant un bâtiment incendie dans la ville américaine de Minneapolis dans la nuit du 29 au 30 mai 2020

Flames light up the skyline and the smell of acrid smoke fills the streets in a Minneapolis neighborhood rocked by protest, a few hundred meters from a besieged police station.

"The real reason we're here is because the police keep killing black folk all around the United States," says a young African American man who declined to be named.

His face covered by a mask -- whether because of the coronavirus or to protect against tear gas it's not clear -- he says he came to protest peacefully on Friday with friends, despite a curfew imposed after three nights of rioting.

And as flames from a bank lick upwards nearby, the young man explains the anger seething across the country since the death of George Floyd on Monday at the hands of an officer who pinned him to the ground handcuffed and knelt on his neck for more than five minutes.

"We're in 2020 and we're dealing with the same problem that we were dealing with in the 60s... it looks like Minneapolis finally reached that breaking point"

"George Floyd isn't the first," adds Jerry, 29, who is white. "What are you supposed to do, just sit back and take it?"

More than a thousand people died after being shot by police last year in the US, according to The Washington Post. Black people are overrepresented in police shootings and condemnation is rare.

In Floyd's case, the officer shown kneeling on his neck in footage of the incident was charged Friday with third degree murder -- unintentionally causing a death -- and negligent manslaughter.

Floyd's family wants the other three officers at the scene to be charged as well.

- 'Making it worse' -

In Minneapolis Friday night, helicopters flew overhead as protesters faced off against police and explosions echoed through the streets.

"It's scary but necessary at the same time," says one young student, "sometimes things need to get bad before getting better."

Others, however, are not so sure: "They are making it worse, they give them (the police) a reason to shoot us", says thirty-four-year-old Phae, a black woman who lives nearby and is clearly exhausted.

"I sympathized completely but I don't want to lose all my stuff," says a young woman who lives above a barricaded shop and is scared it could be set on fire.

The local authorities were conciliatory in the first days of the protests, but have since called in the National Guard and stiffened their tone.

"There is no honor in burning down your city," said the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, at an improvised news conference held shortly after midnight. "It needs to stop."

Some of the shops gutted by fire are owned by black families, added Minnesota Governor Tim Walz: "This is not about George's death. This is not about inequities that were real. This is about chaos."