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Go ahead and pray — it’s OK.That’s the new word from the man at the top, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, announcing that houses of worship will now be allowed to hold in-person services — with certain restrictions to guard against COVID-19.The announcement softens the government’s hard stance prohibiting all religious gatherings, which medical experts identified as high-risk for transmission of the virus.But Ramaphosa said that in the end, faith trumped those concerns.“As a nation, we have a responsibility to respond to this aspect of the pandemic with as much effort and urgency as we have responded to the health crisis, and as we have acted to relieve the economic and social effects on our people,” he said. “We have a responsibility to also take care of the spiritual, psychological and emotional well-being of all South Africans.”Under the new regulations, houses of worship must keep facilities clean and sanitized, limit congregations to fewer than 50 people and require participants to wear face masks and maintain social distancing protocols.Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana, general secretary of the influential South African Council of Churches, told VOA that the group’s member churches themselves came up with the new guidelines, which gives him confidence that they can follow them. He said heads of member churches meet weekly — online — to discuss their anti-virus strategy, and want to include other faiths in these discussions.He stressed that for millions of lower-income South Africans, who don’t have the means to watch virtual services, the physical church is a lifeline.“For several months, including times of major festivals in their churches or even in their mosques and synagogues, they’ve been unable to get in touch with their spirituality because there’s a total shutdown,” he said. “It is not appropriate to say that they can only be able to do that next year, when we get to level one. But it says to me is that we need to now look at how differently to be church in COVID times, because COVID is not going away.”Some worry about risksFortunately, he said, churches are familiar with the challenges posed by plagues. To that end, the council plans to widen churches’ range of social services, including academic support for students who have suffered from school closures.But not everyone believes this is a good idea.Rick Raubenheimer is president of the South African Secular Society, a group of atheists, skeptics and agnostics that, since the pandemic began, has met only virtually. They do not plan to resume actual meetings, although technically, he told VOA, they could argue that they qualify under the new rules.“We think it’s a bad idea, from several points of view,” he said. “Firstly, the president has to date largely followed the science, and the science says that you need to practice social distancing, not have large gatherings, take precautions against transmission and so on. And a lot of these would be very problematic in religious gatherings, which is why the prohibition on religious gatherings, just like any other recreational gathering, has been a good idea to date. He is now making an exception for a particular community, so he is in fact going against the constitution which says that there shall be no discrimination on the basis of religion or belief.”A legal outcry seems unlikely, as 80 percent of South Africans identify as Christian. Mpumlwana said houses of worship now have to take the lead in showing how to live — and thrive — amid the virus.“We are a society, and we are as churches, a community that saves lives. We should not be, and cannot be, that this place of worship becomes a gateway to the grave,” he said. “And for that reason, we will do everything we can, and we are encouraging everyone. The reason I wear a mask is not because I fear you will contaminate me. I wear a mask because I fear I might contaminate you, and I do not know if I’m a carrier or not. It is an act of love that I would not shake your hand. It is an act of love that I’ll be distant from you. It is an act of love to make sure that all of us survive beyond this.”Ramaphosa has declared Sunday a national day of prayer across the Rainbow Nation. More than 520 South Africans have died of the virus since March.
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Demonstrators gathered Wednesday for a second night of protests over the killing in the U.S. city of Minneapolis of a handcuffed black man by a policeman who held him to the ground with a knee on his neck.As dusk fell, police formed a human barricade around the Third Precinct, where the officers accused of killing George Floyd worked before they were fired on Tuesday.They pushed protesters back as the crowd grew, a day after police fired rubber bullets and tear gas on thousands of demonstrators angered by the latest death of an African-American at the hands of U.S. law enforcement.Minneapolis police chief Medaria Arradondo cautioned protestors to remain peaceful.President Donald Trump in a tweet called Floyd’s death “sad and tragic” as outrage spread across the country over a bystander’s cellphone video of his killing on Monday while in the custody of four white police officers.All four have been fired, as prosecutors said they had called in the FBI to help investigate the case, which could involve a federal felony civil rights violation.”I would like those officers to be charged with murder, because that’s exactly what they did,” Bridgett Floyd, his sister, said on NBC television.”They murdered my brother…. They should be in jail for murder.”Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he could not understand why the officer who held his knee to Floyd’s neck on a Minneapolis street until the 46-year-old restaurant worker went limp has not been arrested.”Why is the man who killed George Floyd not in jail? If you had done it, or I had done it, we would be behind bars right now,” Frey said.”Based on what I saw, the officer who had his knee on the neck of George Floyd should be charged,” he said.’I can’t breathe’The case was seen as the latest example of police brutality against African Americans, which gave rise six years ago to the Black Lives Matter movement.Floyd had been detained on a minor charge of allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill to make a purchase at a convenience store.In the video, policemen hold him to the ground while one presses his knee to Floyd’s neck.”Your knee in my neck. I can’t breathe…. Mama. Mama,” Floyd pleaded.He grew silent and motionless, unable to move even as the officers told him to “get up and get in the car.”He was taken to hospital where he was later declared dead.’A public execution’Calls for justice came from around the country.Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said the FBI needs to thoroughly investigate the case.”It’s a tragic reminder that this was not an isolated incident, but part of an engrained systemic cycle of injustice that still exists in this country,” Biden said.”We have to ensure that the Floyd family receive the justice they are entitled to.”Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris called the policeman’s using his knee on Floyd’s neck “torture.””This is not new, it has been going on a long time… what our communities have known for generations, which is discriminatory implementation and enforcement of the laws,” she said.”He was begging to be able to breathe,” she said. “It was a public execution.”The protests evoked memories of the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 after a policeman shot dead a young African American man suspected of robbery, as well as the case of New Yorker Eric Garner, who was detained by police for illegally selling cigarettes and filmed being held in an illegal chokehold by police that led to his death.”How many more of these senseless excessive-force killings from the people who are supposed to protect us can we take in America?” said civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who was retained by Floyd’s family.Crump pointed out that the arrest involved a minor, non-violent crime, and there was no sign, as police initially claimed, that Floyd resisted arrest.”There is no reason to apply this excessive fatal force,” Crump said.”That has to be the tipping point. Everybody deserves justice…. We can’t have two justice systems, one for blacks and one for whites.”  
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Congress voted Wednesday to toughen the U.S. response to a brutal Chinese crackdown on ethnic minorities, adding another factor to the increasingly stormy relationship between the two countries.The House passed a bipartisan bill that would impose sanctions on Chinese officials involved in the mass surveillance and detention of Uighurs and other ethnic groups in the western Xianjiang region, a campaign that has drawn muted international response because of China’s influence around the world.The measure already passed the Senate and needs a signature from President Donald Trump, who said this week he’ll “very strongly” consider it amid U.S. anger over China’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak and tension over a Chinese plan to restrict civil liberties in Hong Kong.Both issues emerged, along with other sore points in the China-U.S. relationship, as Republican and Democratic members of Congress spoke in support of the bill. No one spoke against it, and it passed by a 413-1 vote.”Beijing’s barbarous actions targeting the Uighur people are an outrage to the collective conscience of the world,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a floor speech in support of the bill.FILE PHOTO – In this Dec. 3, 2018, a guard tower and barbed wire fences are seen around a facility in the Kunshan Industrial Park in Artux in western China’s Xinjiang region.It was the first bill in history to pass with proxy votes after House Democrats, over Republican objections, adopted a measure allowing such votes in response to the coronavirus outbreak.Congress late last year voted to condemn the crackdown in Xianjiang, where Chinese authorities have detained more than a million people — from mostly Muslim ethnic groups that include Uighurs, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz — in a vast network of detention centers.This new legislation is intended to increase the pressure by imposing sanctions on specific Chinese officials, such as the Communist Party official who oversees government policy in Xianjiang.The legislation also requires the U.S. government to report to Congress on violations of human rights in Xianjiang as well as China’s acquisition of technology used for mass detention and surveillance. It also provides for an assessment of the pervasive reports of harassment and threats of Uighurs and other Chinese nationals in the United States.A provision that would have imposed export restrictions on surveillance and other equipment used in the crackdown was initially passed in the House but then stripped out in the version that passed in the Senate earlier this month.Despite the limitations, the legislation amounts to the first concrete step by a government to penalize China over the treatment of the Uighurs since the existence of the mass internment camps became widely known in recent years, said Peter Irwin, a senior program officer at the Uighur Human Rights Project.”It signals that a member of the international community is actually taking some steps to address the problem,” Irwin said. “The legislation itself has to spur the rest of the international community, particularly the European Union and other powerful blocs of states, to actually take this as a template and pass their own legislation.”FILE – Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, attends a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Oct. 23, 2019.Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican and chairman of the House China Task Force, called what’s happening in Xianjiang a “cultural genocide” of Uighurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups.The passage of the bill with strong bipartisan support would “show the Chinese Communist Party and the entire world that their treatment of the Muslim Uighurs is inexcusable and will not be allowed without serious consequences,” McCaul said.China has publicly brushed away criticism of its crackdown in Xianjiang, which it launched in 2014 as the “Strike Hard Against Violent Extremism” in a vast resource-rich territory whose inhabitants are largely distinct, culturally and ethnically, from the country’s Han Chinese majority.The Chinese government, when not bristling at criticism of what it sees as an internal matter, has also said the detention camps are vocational training centers. Uighur activists and human rights groups have countered that many of those held are people with advanced degrees and business owners who are influential in their communities and have no need of any special education.People held in the internment camps have described being subjected to forced political indoctrination, torture, beatings, denial of food and medicine and say they have been prohibited from practicing their religion or speaking their language. China has denied these accounts but refused to allow independent inspections.
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The launch of a SpaceX rocket ship with two NASA astronauts on a history-making flight into orbit was called off with 16 minutes to go in the countdown Wednesday because of thunderclouds and the danger of lightning. Liftoff was rescheduled for Saturday afternoon.The commercially designed, built and owned spacecraft was set to blast off in the afternoon for the International Space Station, ushering in a new era in commercial spaceflight and putting NASA back in the business of launching astronauts from U.S. soil for the first time in nearly a decade. But thunderstorms for much of the day threatened to force a postponement, and the word finally came down that the atmosphere was so electrically charged that the spacecraft with NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken aboard could get hit by a bolt of lightning.”No launch for today — safety for our crew members @Astro_Doug and @AstroBehnken is our top priority,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted, using a lightning emoji.The SpaceX Falcon 9, with the Crew Dragon spacecraft on top of the rocket, sits on Launch Pad 39-A at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., May 27, 2020.The two men were scheduled to ride into orbit aboard the SpaceX’s bullet-shaped Dragon capsule on top of a Falcon 9 rocket, taking off from the same launch pad used during the Apollo moon missions a half-century ago. Both President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence had arrived to watch.The flight — the long-held dream of SpaceX founder Elon Musk — would have marked the first time a private company sent humans into orbit.It would also have been the first time in nearly a decade that the United States launched astronauts into orbit from U.S. soil. Ever since the space shuttle was retired in 2011, NASA has relied on Russian spaceships launched from Kazakhstan to take U.S. astronauts to and from the space station.During the day, thunder could be heard as the astronauts made their way to the pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, and a tornado warning was issued moments after they climbed into their capsule.The preparations took place in the shadow of the coronavirus outbreak that has killed an estimated 100,000 Americans.”We’re launching American astronauts on American rockets from American soil. We haven’t done this really since 2011, so this is a unique moment in time,” Bridenstine said.With this launch, he said, “everybody can look up and say, ‘Look, the future is so much brighter than the present.’ And I really hope that this is an inspiration to the world.”The mission would put Musk and SpaceX in the same league as only three spacefaring countries — Russia, the U.S. and China, all of which gave sent astronauts into orbit.”What today is about is reigniting the dream of space and getting people fired up about the future,” he said in a NASA interview before the flight was scrubbed.A solemn-sounding Musk said he felt his responsibilities most strongly when he saw the astronauts’ wives and sons just before launch. He said he told them: “We’ve done everything we can to make sure your dads come back OK.”President Donald Trump looks at an area on a piece of equipment to sign during tour of NASA facilities before viewing the SpaceX Demonstration Mission 2 Launch at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., May 27, 2020.NASA pushed ahead with the launch despite the viral outbreak but kept the guest list at Kennedy extremely limited and asked spectators to stay at home. Still, beaches and parks along Florida’s Space Coast are open again, and hours before the launch, cars and RVs already were lining the causeway in Cape Canaveral.The space agency also estimated 1.7 million people were watching the launch preparations online during the afternoon.Among the sightseers was Erin Gatz, who came prepared for both rain and pandemic. 
Accompanied by her 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son, she brought face masks and a small tent to protect against the elements. She said the children had faint memories of watching in person one of the last shuttle launches almost a decade ago when they were preschoolers. “I wanted them to see the flip side and get to see the next era of space travel,” said Gatz, who lives in Deltona, Florida. “It’s exciting and hopeful.”NASA hired SpaceX and Boeing in 2014 to transport astronauts to the space station in a new kind of public-private partnership. Development of SpaceX’s Dragon and Boeing’s Starliner capsules took longer than expected, however. Boeing’s ship is not expected to fly astronauts into space until early 2021.”We’re doing it differently than we’ve ever done it before,” Bridenstine said. “We’re transforming how we do spaceflight in the future.”
 
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Daily DebunkClaim: A new mutation is making the COVID-19 virus more contagious.Verdict: UnsubstantiatedRead the full story at: The Walrus Fact-Checking​Social Media DisinfoScreenshotCirculating on social media: Claim that a photograph shows a vacant, sand-covered highway to Dubai during COVID-19 stay-at-home orders.Verdict: FalseRead the full story at: Snopes
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Riot police in Hong Kong Wednesday fired pepper balls to disperse tens of thousands of demonstrators protesting adoption of a controversial national security law that is poised to pass in Beijing on Thursday and a proposed law criminalizing the disrespect of the national anthem tabled in the city’s legislature.   
 
Thousands of riot police officers guarded several districts in Hong Kong, firing pepper balls and using pepper spray to disperse protesters.  Police stopped and searched mostly young people outside subway stations and on the streets throughout the day.  
 
Crowds of people who gathered in Admiralty, the area where the legislative council and government quarters are located, were dispersed by police who threatened them with pepper spray if they did not comply.  There were police officers guarding every street corner in the area to prevent people from getting near the government buildings. Walkways leading to the government buildings were cordoned off.   Police quickly closed in on small groups of activists who gathered to chant slogans and give speeches expressing their opposition to the national anthem bill. At one point, police ordered people in nearby restaurants to leave.  WATCH: Street view of Hong Kong protesters Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyAt lunch time, hundreds of office workers turned out on the streets in Central, the heart of Hong Kong’s business district, at a rally.  Crowds chanted slogans, including “Fight for Freedom, Stand with Hong Kong,”  “Hong Kong independence, the only way” alternately and shouted obscenities at the police.  “Be a Hong Konger!” someone shouted towards the police, implying they were working for the interests of China, and not their own city.  About half an hour into the rally, police fired pepper balls and people ran into nearby buildings.
 
“Not just this national security law, we see China continuously encroaching on our freedoms and we see police being whitewashed (in a report clearing them of wrongdoing),” said a lawyer who declined to give his name.  “If we keep quiet, they can get away with it.”Hong Kong riot police on patrol during protest against National Anthem law, May 27, 2020. (Photo: Hong Kong Police Facebook)A police statement said protesters blocked roads with bins and traffic cones and threw objects at officers. It said police had “no other choice but to employ minimal force” by firing pepper balls to stop the “violent behavior.”   The interruption was however brief as traffic continued to move slowly.   
 
Hundreds of people also defied the heavy police presence to gather on the streets of Causeway and Mongkok, both busy shopping districts.  Many young people were stopped and searched by riot police.  Young people, including some in high school uniforms, were made to line up against the wall outside a shopping center in Mongkok.  Police accused protesters of blocking traffic and placing obstacles on the streets.
 
As of mid-afternoon, police said more than 290 people have been arrested for illegal assembly.
 
Protesters said they were fueled by anger at what they perceive as China’s intensifying encroachments into the semi-autonomous city, including foisting patriotism upon Hong Kongers through a law that forbids mockery of the national anthem.  They also expressed helplessness as China’s National People’s Congress prepared to pass national security laws, bypassing Hong Kong’s legislature on Thursday. 
“I know we have no power to fight against China, but I must come out to show my opposition to it.  I’m not afraid even if they jail me,” said a 71-year-old man surnamed Chow, who used to be a staunch supporter of the Communist party until the crackdown on the Tiananmen pro-democracy movement.
Inside the chamber of the Legislative Council, lawmakers made speeches to express their stance on the national anthem bill, which is expected to pass on June 4, the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.  Pro-Democracy lawmakers expressed their exasperation over a bill that is poised to pass because the legislature is dominated by pro-Beijing lawmakers – only half the seats are popularly elected by ordinary voters while the rest are chosen by largely pro-Beijing “functional constituencies.”
Lawmaker Dr. Kwok Ka-Ki told the legislature that rulers should follow the teaching of ancient Chinese philosopher Mencius, who said rulers should “love their people as if they were his children.” 
“There is no need to use rubber bullets and tear gas to suppress people and to make people become subservient to your rule… and when they are already feeling emotional you suppress them with the security law to subjugate them under truncheons and guns,” Kwok said.
China last week revealed its plan to bypass Hong Kong’s legislature to impose a national security law on Hong Kong to prevent and punish acts of  “secession, subversion or terrorism activities” that threaten national security.
The move, which would also allow Chinese national security organs to set up agencies in Hong Kong, has received wide international criticism, with the United States threatening consequences for China.
 
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U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening unspecified retaliation against Twitter after the social media platform tagged a pair of his tweets on Tuesday with a fact-check warning.  The unprecedented alert on the @realDonaldTrump tweets about mail-in balloting prompted the president to accuse Twitter of interference in this year’s election and of “completely stifling” free speech.  “I, as President, will not allow it to happen,” he concluded.  .Fact checking needed, critics say
“Social media companies have been struggling with the spread of misinformation and the need for fact checking for years, most prominently in the last presidential election,” noted Marcus Messner, the  director of Virginia Commonwealth University’s school of media and culture.  “Twitter is right to flag incorrect information even when it involves tweets by President Trump,” Messner told VOA. The journalism professor noted the action “walks the fine between fact checking and being accused of censoring political speech through more drastic measures such as deleting posts and suspending accounts. But the question remains whether the fact tags with links to news articles will even be recognized by supporters of President Trump, who regularly dismiss all reporting from mainstream media. The effect of the fact tags in this heated partisan environment might be limited.”    Texas A&M Communications Assistant Professor Jennifer Mercieca, who refers to Trump as “an outrage president” who uses social media to “go around the news filter and speak directly with his supporters and set the nation’s news agenda” says Twitter’s strategy “allows Trump to communicate, but enables his audience to think more critically about the content of his message.” Mercieca, author of “2020: Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump,” accuses Trump of using his Twitter account irresponsibly to spread “conspiracy, racism and misinformation.” The president’s response to the action by the platform “is to further use outrage to condemn Twitter for the policy while vaguely threatening that he would do something to stop them,” she told VOA. It is unclear what legal leverage Trump has over Twitter, which does not need any government licenses to operate as do radio or television stations.Twitter stands by decision A Twitter spokesperson said the company took the unprecedented action, based on its new policy announced earlier this month, because Trump’s tweets “contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labeled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots.” During an exchange with reporters in the White House Rose Garden earlier Tuesday, Trump, responding to journalist’s questions about his mail-in ballot accusations, claimed the state of California — the most populous in the country — would be sending out “millions and millions of ballots to anybody,” including those who “don’t have the right to vote.”  California is planning to send every registered voter a ballot by mail for the November 3 election, a plan that prompted the Republican National Committee to sue California Governor Gavin Newsom.  The action by Twitter to flag Trump’s tweets “is a small step in the right direction. But we can all do our part to call out the lies,” California Secretary of State Alex Padilla tweeted on Tuesday evening. “The president is intentionally spreading false information about vote by mail and blatantly trying to suppress the vote.”  .@Twitter “fact-checking” @realDonaldTrump is a small step in the right direction. But we can all do our part to call out the lies. The president is intentionally spreading false information about vote by mail and blatantly trying to suppress the vote. RT the TRUTH. pic.twitter.com/oaJGH41K1I— Alex Padilla (@AlexPadilla4CA) May 26, 2020Calls to delete some tweets
Twitter has also been facing calls to remove Trump’s tweets that push an old conspiracy theory about the death of a congressional staffer.  The president has stopped short of directly accusing Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, who hosts a morning program on the MSNBC cable channel of killing a woman in 2001 even though the politician was 1,300 kilometers away at the time and authorities ruled her death an accident. Scarborough was once friendly with Trump but has become a fierce on-air critic of the president.  “We are deeply sorry about the pain these statements, and the attention they are drawing, are causing the family,” said a Twitter spokesperson on Tuesday. “We’ve been working to expand existing product features and features so we can more effectively address things like this going forward, and we hope to have those changes in place shortly.” Timothy Klausutis, widower of Lori Klausutis, has written to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey claiming the president has violated the social media company’s erms of service and “has taken something that does not belong to him-the memory of my dead wife-and perverted it for perceived political gain.” Questioned by reporters in the Rose Garden about the tweets on Tuesday, Trump did not prevaricate.  “I’m sure that, ultimately, they want to get to the bottom of it and it’s a very serious situation,” the president said of the deceased woman’s relatives, calling for law enforcement to re-open the investigation. “As you know, there’s no statute of limitations. So, it would be a very good, very good thing to do.”    
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Thai citizens who have tried to download a COVID-19 contact tracing app found that, in some cases, hackers were trying to lure them to fake versions of the app launched by the government last week. Thailand moved immediately to warn citizens of the cyber-crime, but more broadly observers are not optimistic that cyber and other economic fraud is on the decline. Of companies surveyed in Thailand 33% reported having experienced economic crime and fraud, compared with 48% in 2018, according to the survey released by PwC, a business consulting firm, last week. However, pollsters do not see that as the good news it might appear to be. More likely there is still fraud but less of it is being reported, argues Shin Honma, a partner for forensic services at PwC Thailand. “We believe that when reported incidences in Thailand are higher, as they were in 2018, this indicates that companies are investing more in fraud detection programs, specialized staff and technology needed to detect crime,” he said. “When reported incidences fall, like they did this year, this could mean fraudsters are winning the war, evolving their methods and using new technologies to breach defenses undetected.”  That analysis leads to the counterintuitive idea that as firms get safer, there should be more crime recorded.  Skeptics like UK security official Ian Levy have said cyber security firms in general exaggerate threats and sell services to combat them.  In Thailand firms appear vulnerable to crime because, among those that have programs to fight fraud, less than 10% follow best practices, PwC said. COVID-19 further complicates the situation. As the pandemic led to Thailand’s economy shrinking 2% in the first quarter of 2020, less corporate income means firms will have less money to invest in services like fraud detection.  Cost is already a factor. Three in five Thai firms that did not upgrade their technology to fight fraud cited cost as the reason, according to the PwC survey report. ‘Surprising’ results “The number of respondents that struggled to see how technology could help them fight crime was surprising,” the report said. “No single tool or technology will replace a comprehensive anti-fraud program, so technology is no magic solution, but there is no doubt it has an important role to play if the basics are already in place.” Some ways firms can deal with fraud are to have a tip line for whistleblowers, conduct internal and external audits, do a risk assessment, respond quickly to signs of a crime, and apply technology when appropriate, such as using communications monitoring software that would alert managers to suspicious content.  Economic crime covered in the survey included asset misappropriation, cyber crime, bribery, corruption, procurement fraud and customer fraud. Of those, asset misappropriation was the most common crime reported. “Our experience suggests this could be because fraud schemes involving theft of assets are evolving and becoming more complicated and difficult to detect,” the survey report said, “with internal staff colluding with suppliers or vendors to hide their tracks under multiple layers of fraud.” PwC said its advice is based on consulting it has done for firms on misappropriation, cyber crime, kickbacks, bribery, money laundering, financial statement fraud and other crimes.  
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Nearly a year after 36 people were killed in a raging fire at an animation studio, Japanese police have formally arrested the man suspected of setting the fire. Kyoto police carried 42-year-old Shinji Aoba on a stretcher from a hospital Wednesday and transferred to a police station for further questioning on arson and murder charges. Aoba had been hospitalized since the attack, suffering deep scars on his face and hands. Witnesses told police Aoba broke into the entrance of Kyoto Animation studio, poured flammable liquid on the floor and set it on fire while shouting “Die!”  He reportedly set the fire because he believed the studio had plagiarized his novel. The attack was the deadliest violent crime in Japan in decades, and shocked animation fans all over the world.  Kyoto Animation has produced several anime films and television shows that have gained huge audiences both in Japan and internationally. 
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Amazon.com Inc is in advanced talks to buy self-driving startup Zoox Inc, in a move that would expand the e-commerce giant’s reach in autonomous-vehicle technology, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.The deal will value Zoox at less than the $3.2 billion it achieved in a funding round in 2018, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.An agreement may be weeks away and the discussions could still fall apart, the report added.Amazon has stepped up its investment in the car sector, participating in a $530 million funding round early last year in self-driving car startup Aurora Innovation Inc.Both Amazon and Zoox declined a Reuters request for comment. 
 
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Walt Disney World is presenting its plans for reopening after being shuttered along with Florida’s other theme parks since mid-March because of the new coronavirus.Disney World and SeaWorld Orlando will present their proposals for phased reopenings before an Orange County task force on Wednesday, said Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings. If Demings signs off on them, the plans will be sent to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for approval.With 77,000 workers, Disney World is central Florida’s biggest employer.Last week, Disney World allowed third-party businesses at its Disney Springs dining and shopping complex to open with new restrictions.All workers and visitors older than 2 at Disney Springs must wear masks, temperatures are checked at entrances to keep out anyone with a temperature 100.4 degrees (38 degrees Celsius) or higher, and a limited number of people are admitted to allow social distancing at the high-end outdoor shopping area with restaurants, movie theaters, a bowling alley and a Cirque du Soleil theater.Crosstown rival, Universal Orlando, presented its reopening proposal last week to county officials, saying it was aiming to reopen June 5. Officials approved those plans and sent them to the governor. Universal also has opened up its dining and entertainment complex with restrictions similar to Disney Springs.Earlier this month, Shanghai Disneyland became the first of Disney’s theme park resorts to reopen, with severe limits on the number of visitors allowed in, mandatory masks and temperature checks. 
 
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Many medical students feel that a pause has been placed on their education because of COVID-19. But a few have seen their careers suddenly accelerate when they were asked to graduate early to help hospitals fight against the coronavirus pandemic. Esha Sarai has more.Produced by: Esha Sarai 
 
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Costa Rica became the latest country to legalize same-sex marriage early Tuesday when a ruling from its supreme court went into effect ending the country’s ban.Couples held ceremonies — mostly private due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but some that were broadcast — to celebrate their unions before judges and notaries after the ban was lifted at midnight.Daritza Araya and Alexandra Quirós married just after midnight in an outdoor service performed by a notary wearing a face mask who pronounced them “wife and wife.” Theirs was the first legal gay marriage in Costa Rica and it was streamed live on the internet.Costa Rica is the sixth country in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage, following most recently Ecuador, which allowed it last year. It is also permitted in some parts of Mexico.Gay equality activist Marco Castillo married his longtime partner Tuesday morning before a judge.”This is a step in social equality. The fact that Rodrigo and I are able to come marry each other in a court is progress,” Castillo said. “This drives us to continue other fights for those who have a different sexual orientation.”Castillo had fought for same-sex marriage for years in the courts. He was also recently sanctioned as a notary for conducting the marriage of two women, which was later annulled.President Carlos Alvarado sent a message on state television and social networks, saying, “Today we celebrate freedom, equality and democratic institutions,. The issue took center stage in Costa Rica’s 2018 presidential election after the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued an opinion that countries like Costa Rica, which had signed the American Convention on Human Rights, had to move immediately to legalize gay marriage.  It helped propel President Carlos Alvarado to victory over an evangelical candidate, Fabricio Alvarado, who had campaigned against it. In August 2018, Costa Rica’s supreme court said the country’s ban was unconstitutional and gave the congress 18 months to correct it or it would happen automatically. The Legislative Assembly did not act, so at midnight the law banning same-sex marriage was nullified. A campaign celebrating the change called “I do” planned a series of events including hours of coverage on state television and messages from celebrities, including Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations rgh commissioner for human Rights.Gia Miranda, director of the “I do” campaign, said television coverage would also include segments on the movement’s history in Costa Rica.”It gives us so much joy,” Miranda said. “The only thing that could win with this is Costa Rica and in general love.” She said it would help decrease discrimination and make the country more prosperous and attractive to tourists. 
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A growing number of companies from different countries are developing different shapes and sizes of delivery robots. Some of them move around indoors while others head to the streets outdoors. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details on what they are delivering and why they are needed
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Medical school hopefuls and students eager to start other professional healthcare studies endured grueling wait times online recently to sign up for their licensing and medical school entrance exams. And then they were denied entry to the testing center’s national website.  Applicants and students wanting to take the med school entrance test — MCAT — as well as the physical therapy, occupational therapy, and nursing licensing exams, were stymied when the online test scheduling system failed, according to the medical news website MedPageToday.“I would estimate about 33,000 students were impacted,” said Matthew Durst, president of the University Medical Student Council (UMSC) at the University of Illinois College of Medicine (UICOM), told the Student Doctor Network.  Because of the coronavirus pandemic, testing centers are closed for the MCAT — administered by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMXC) —  and all appointments were cancelled in March, April and the large part of May.  The AAMC condensed the MCAT from 7 hours and 30 minutes to 5 hours and 45 minutes to handle the high volume of students who will take the test once shelter in place orders are relaxed. That allows test centers to schedule three tests a day.  But when about 62,000 students logged on May 7 to schedule their exams, the system crashed and did not come back online for hours, Gabrielle Campbell, AAMC’s chief service officer on May 8, told MedpageToday. “The system became overwhelmed with the number of accommodations requests due to the condensed processing period,” said Karen Mitchell, Ph.D., senior director of the MCAT program for AAMC.  “We are sorry that the MCAT scheduling process has been frustrating for examinees testing with accommodations and are actively working to address the issues,” the official MCAT account tweeted on May 21. We are sorry that the MCAT scheduling process has been frustrating for examinees testing with accommodations and are actively working to address the issues.— MCAT (@AAMC_MCAT) May 21, 2020Fortunately, by the end of the day, 78,000 test takers were registered for exams from May through September, with thousands of seats and multiple dates remaining. “We have made extensive changes to the exam to ensure that students can safely take the test during the COVID-19 pandemic, including shortening the test and administering the exam three times a day for all remaining dates this year. Additionally, we have increased testing capacity by 50% for each exam date,” Mitchell stated on the AAMC website. The spread of COVID-19 remaining uncertain and test dates tentative, some students expressed worry about the expense of driving long distances or overnight stays to take the exam. “I have to drive an hour and a half for my exam. One way. Since I take it on two days, I have to get a hotel room,” tweeted Emma Eaton. “My other option was a month and half later in my requested city. Does this sound equitable?” I got my request back and have to drive an hour and a half for my exam. One way. Since I take it on two days, I have to get a hotel room. My other option was a month and half later in my requested city. Does this sound equitable?— Emma Eaton (@emmabaileyeaton) May 21, 2020Cristina Goerdt contributed to this report. 
     
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As the white van approached Perfect Love Street, one by one chatting neighbors fell silent, covered their mouths and noses and scattered.
Men in full body suits carried an empty coffin into the small, blue house where Edgar Silva had spent two feverish days gasping for air before drawing his last breath on May 12.
“It wasn’t COVID,” Silva’s daughter, Eliete das Graças insisted to the funerary workers. She swore her 83-year-old father had died of Alzheimer’s disease, not that sickness ravaging the city’s hospitals.  But Silva, like the vast majority of those dying at home, was never tested for the new coronavirus.
The doctor who signed his death certificate never saw his body before determining the cause: “cardiorespiratory arrest.”
His death was not counted as one of Brazil’s victims of the pandemic.
Manaus is one of the hardest hit cities in Brazil, which officially has lost more than 23,000 lives to the coronavirus. But in the absence of evidence proving otherwise, relatives like das Graças are quick to deny the possibility that COVID-19 claimed their loved ones, meaning that the toll is likely a vast undercount.
As ambulances zip through Manaus with sirens blaring and backhoes dig rows of new graves, the muggy air in this city by the majestic Amazon River feels thicker than usual with such pervasive denial. Manaus has seen nearly triple the usual number of dead in April and May.
Doctors and psychologists say denial at the grassroots stems from a mixture of misinformation, lack of education, insufficient testing and conflicting messages from the country’s leaders.
Chief among skeptics is President Jair Bolsonaro, who has repeatedly called COVID-19 a “little flu,” and argued that concern over the virus is overblown.
Asked by a reporter about the surging number of deaths on April 20, Bolsonaro responded, “I’m not a gravedigger, OK?”  
He has resisted U.S. and European-style lockdowns to contain the virus’ spread, saying such measures aren’t worth the economic wreckage. He fired his first Health Minister for supporting quarantines, accepted the resignation of a second one after less than a month on the job, and said that the interim minister, an army general with no background in health or medicine, will remain in charge of the pandemic response “for a long time.” In a cabinet meeting last month, a visibly enraged Bolsonaro insulted governors and mayors enforcing stay-at-home measures.  
The president’s political followers are receptive to his dismissal of the virus, as determined as he is to proceed with life as usual.
On a recent Saturday in Manaus, locals flocked to the bustling riverside market to buy fresh fish, unaware of the need for social distancing, or uninterested. As swamped intensive-care units struggled to accommodate new patients airlifted from the Amazon, the faithful returned to some of the city’s evangelical churches. Coffins arriving by riverboat did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of young people at clandestine dance parties. And in the streets, masks frequently covered chins and foreheads rather than mouths and noses.
For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms. But for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause severe illness such as pneumonia and lead to death.  
The new sickness made its way to Manaus in March, in the middle of the rainy season. At least that’s when health officials first became aware of it in the capital of Amazonas state, which is at once remote and international. One precarious road connects the city to the rest of Brazil, and other municipalities are hours away by boat. But tropical fauna and flora normally draw tourist cruises up the Amazon, and business people fly in from around the world, to visit its free trade zone. Just last October, Manaus sent a delegation to China looking for investors.
The city’s first virus fatality was reported on March 25 and deaths have surged since then. But due to a lack of testing, just 5% of the more than 4,300 burials performed in April and May were confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to city funeral statistics.
To accommodate its swelling number of coffins, the public Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery razed an area of tropical forest to dig dozens of trenches in the rust-colored soil for burials.
These mass graves sparked anger toward city officials among families of the deceased. Why did their loved ones’ bodies have to be buried in such a way, they asked, if there was no evidence the deaths were caused by COVID-19?
Das Graças was among those who had hoped that her father could have a proper sendoff. But it wasn’t to be. The white-suited men informed her that his coffin would be sealed, a precaution taken now regardless of cause of death. He would be sent to the public cemetery’s refrigerated container to await burial.
“A person can’t even die with dignity,” das Graças, 49, said through tears. “He’s going to spend the night in the freezer when we could be doing his wake at home!”
Home wakes are no longer permitted. But workers from SOS Funeral, which provides free coffins and funeral services to those who can’t afford them, have found homes packed with relatives touching the bodies of loved ones, hugging each other and wiping away tears with ungloved hands—a potentially contagious farewell.  
Overwhelmed emergency services have encountered similar reluctance to acknowledge viral risk. Ambulance doctor Sandokan Costa said patients often omit the mention of COVID-19 symptoms, putting him and his colleagues at greater risk. “What has most struck me is people’s belief that the pandemic isn’t real.”
Costa fell ill with the virus in late March but has worked non-stop since recovering and is astonished to see his fellow citizens on the streets acting as though nothing is going on. There is a stigma attached to the new disease, he said. “Coronavirus has become something pejorative.”
Health care officials attribute much of that to Bolsonaro’s handling of the pandemic.
Rather than take precautions, Bolsonaro has supported the use of chloroquine, the predecessor of an anti-malaria drug that U.S. President Donald Trump has advocated for treatment of coronavirus and is taking himself to ward it off. Bolsonaro ordered the Army’s Chemical and Pharmaceutical Laboratory to boost its chloroquine production despite a lack of clinical proof that it is effective. A large study recently published in the Lancet medical journal suggests that the malaria drugs not only do not help but are also tied to a greater risk of death in coronavirus patients.  
In Manaus, scientists stopped part of a study of chloroquine after heart rhythm problems developed in a quarter of people given the higher of two doses being tested.
Visiting the hard-hit Amazon capital was a priority for Bolsonaro’s second health minister, Nelson Teich, who donned a body suit to tour several hospitals. But he resigned days later after disagreeing with the president’s demand that the ministry recommend chloroquine be prescribed to patients with mild coronavirus symptoms.  
Amazonas Gov. Wilson Lima, a Bolsonaro ally, downplayed the virus at first. “There’s huge hysteria and panic,” Lima said March 16, three days after the first virus case in Manaus was confirmed in a woman who had traveled from Europe. That same day he declared a state of emergency, but his first measures were limited—cancellation of events organized by the state, suspension of classes and prison visits. For the rest, he recommended avoiding crowds and good hand washing.
It was only on March 23, when his state had 32 cases including local transmissions that he ordered the suspension of non-essential services. But the restrictions were never imposed on the city’s industrial zone.
A month later, hospitals in Manaus were overwhelmed with thousands of cases and hundreds of dead.
In late-April the governor announced plans to progressively reopen commerce, but backed down as the death toll continued to climb. This month, he told the Associated Press in an interview that the unusual surge in deaths can only be explained by the outbreak.  
“There’s no doubt that the majority (have died) because of COVID-19,” Gov. Lima said as he sat in a vast but empty meeting room in the state government headquarters in Manaus. “We don’t have any other explanation for this if not COVID.”
He admitted lack of testing makes it nearly impossible to have a clear idea how many people in the state are infected.  
But even with vast under-reporting, Amazonas state has the highest number of deaths by COVID-19 per capita in the country with more than 1,700 fatal victims.
Poor and crowded neighborhoods have been particularly affected. Unable to afford private consultations and fearing the chaos of the public health system, many only sought medical help when it was too late. Others preferred to die at home rather than alone at a hospital.
Lima’s administration has come under fire for spending half a million dollars (2.9 million Brazilian reais) to buy 28 ventilators at quadruple the market price from a wine importer and distributor. The breathing machines were deemed inadequate for use on coronavirus patients after inspections by the regional council of medicine and Manaus’ health surveillance office.
Lima denies any wrongdoing. Asked if he would have done anything differently to confront the virus, the governor shook his head.
“Even if I had stopped it (economy), if I had closed the city for 30 days, no one goes in and no one goes out. At some point I would have had to open and at some point the virus would have gotten here,” he said.  
The virus has, in the meantime, spread upriver from Manaus, creeping into remote towns and indigenous territories to infect indigenous tribes. The sparsely populated but vast rainforest region is completely unprepared to cope. Some towns can’t get oxygen tanks refilled or don’t have breathing machines, forcing nurses to manually pump air into lungs. When they do have machines, power cuts frequently shut them down.
Many patients are being airlifted to Manaus, the only place in the state of 4 million people with full intensive care units.
Although health experts warn that the pandemic is far from over in the Amazon region, or the rest of the country, national polls show adherence to lockdowns and quarantines falling, and a growing number of Brazilians are neglecting local leaders’ safety recommendations.
“Every day there are different messages coming from the federal government that clash with measures by the cities and states, and with what science says” said Manaus-based physician Adele Benzaken.
A public health researcher who until last year lead the HIV/AIDS department at the Health Ministry, Benzaken already has lost four colleagues in the pandemic.  
Meanwhile, misinformation and disinformation about the virus is swirling, some of it shared by the president himself. On May 11, Instagram labeled one of his posts as fake news after he falsely claimed a state had seen a drop in respiratory disease this year. Facebook also blocked one of his posts in March that showed him praising the healing powers of chloroquine to supporters.  
One false claim circulating on social media said the death rate in Manaus plummeted the day after the health minister’s visit. Another purported to show an empty coffin being unearthed at Manaus’ cemetery, implying the city was inflating its death toll. But the photo was taken in Sao Paulo three years ago.  
Still, the messages take root and spread like jungle foliage.
“My opinion is that they’re making this up and trying to make money from it” Israel Reis, 54, said outside Manaus’ fish market. He didn’t specify who “they” might be.  
Reis, who recently lost his job in an electronics maintenance company due to the pandemic, spoke without a mask and said he “of course” agrees with Bolsonaro the severity of the pandemic is exaggerated and death toll inflated.  
He recently advised his nephew against seeking help at the local health clinic for an earache. “Any dizziness and they’ll say it’s that thing,” he said, referring to the virus.
 
One recent late afternoon, a group of paunchy middle-aged men seated in plastic chairs on the sidewalk debated measures to fight the virus. The street bar, just a few blocks from a police station in downtown Manaus, was operating in violation of state COVID-19 restrictions, yet officers in a passing squad car didn’t even slow down to reprimand them.  
Icy beer provided relief from the sweltering heat, and tropical insects had begun sounding their pre-dusk drone. The men, too, were getting worked up.  
“Put on your mask!” yelled one friend.
“I don’t need one!” screamed another, Henrique Noronha.
 
Noronha, 52, argued that only the elderly and those with health problems should stay home – as Bolsonaro affirms — and the fit should return to normal. Despite his age and full figure, Noronha didn’t believe he’s at risk.  
“This virus came to clean things up,” he said. “But I’ll be fine.”
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The evergreen hills of northeast Myanmar’s section of the Golden Triangle are sparse, making it easy to hide out in the open a set of machines that look like squat robots, but are in fact pressure reactors that cook drug chemicals. Authorities revealed last week they had seized the reactors, along with opioids, 193 million meth tablets and other narcotics in what the United Nations called one of the biggest drug busts in Asian history. A new type of drug for the region Burmese and foreigners were among the 33 people arrested in the raid, said to be unprecedented for not only the volume of drugs confiscated, but also the presence of fentanyl. This appears to be the first time officials in the region have seized fentanyl and related opioids, which are the substances linked to hundreds of thousands of deaths in the North American opioid crisis. The Golden Triangle of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos is historically known for rivaling Afghanistan for its heroin trade, but this month’s drug bust marks a potential shift toward synthetic opioids. Colonel Zaw Lin, law enforcement chief at Myanmar’s Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control, said he was “pleased” at the success of the joint operation with the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. It gives the Southeast Asian government a legal victory at a time when it is otherwise weighed down by an onslaught of crises, including COVID-19, Rohingya Muslim refugees and journalists’ imprisonment.  However there is more work to be done following the drug raid, according to the colonel. “We are well aware of the challenges we face,” Colonel Zaw Lin said. “Criminal groups, traffickers and corrupt accomplices must and will be brought to justice.” Rainbow of drugs Myanmar’s military and police worked with the U.N. office on the investigation, which they said was linked to organized crime and militias. On the fawn grasses of Shan State, law enforcement laid out a rainbow of their findings: crystal methamphetamine disguised in neon green tea bags, yellow sacks of meth pills, a field’s worth of blue plastic barrels of chemicals. Officials fear the findings, which include 3,700 liters of methyl fentanyl, suggest Asia could be on the cusp of its own synthetic opioid problem. “What has been unearthed through this operation is truly off the charts,” Jeremy Douglas, the regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific at the UNODC, said of the volume of narcotics. “We have been projecting this scenario for a few years, and we are now able to say it is happening,” he said. Authorities seized guns, as well as lab equipment and 39 kinds of chemicals they said had been routed through China, India, Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. They also said that they seized heroin, opium and morphine, but that the farming of poppy flowers used to make those products has been on the decline for years, suggesting a shift to synthetic drugs instead. What began with a relatively small discovery of meth pills, the UNODC said in a press release, ultimately led to a series of raids from February to April, ending with tons of narcotics seized and dozens arrested.  Colonel Zaw Lin said that he hopes neighboring nations would take equally aggressive action and that his message to traffickers is that “their days of operating in Myanmar are numbered.” 
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