Trump administration under probe for not renewing housing aid before shutdown

Hundreds of thousands of people across the world are joining the anti-racism demonstrations days after the killing of George Floyd in United Sates. 

The protests are being held in cities including London, Manchester, Cardiff, Leicester and Sheffield.

Demonstrators attached ropes to the statue of Edward Colston before pulling it down to cheers and roars of approval from the crowd. Images on social media show the statue was eventually rolled into the city's harbour. 

It was not the only statue targeted on Sunday. In Brussels, protesters clambered onto the statue of former King Leopold II and chanted "reparations".

The word "shame" was also graffitied on the monument, reference perhaps to the fact that Leopold is said to have reigned over the mass death of 10 million Congolese.

In London, thousands of people congregated around the US embassy for the second day running.

While protests were mainly peaceful, there were some scuffles near the office of Prime Minister Boris Johnson and outside the Parliament gates.

In Hong Kong, about 20 people staged a rally in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement on Sunday outside the US consulate in the semi-autonomous Chinese city.

"It's a global issue," Quinland Anderson, a 28-year-old British citizen living in Hong Kong, told The Associated Press news agency.

"We have to remind ourselves despite all we see going on in the US and in the other parts of the world, Black lives do indeed matter."

Several dozen demonstrators took part in a Black Lives Matter protest held in Tel Aviv's central Rabin Square.

A rally in Rome's sprawling People's Square was noisy but peaceful, with the majority of protesters wearing masks to protect against coronavirus. Participants listened to speeches and held up handmade placards saying "Black Lives Matter" and "It's a White Problem".

In Spain, several thousand people gathered on the streets of Barcelona and at the US embassy in Madrid.

Many in Madrid carried homemade signs reading "Black Lives Matter", "Human rights for all" and "Silence is pro-racist".

"We are not only doing this for our brother George Floyd," said Thimbo Samb, a spokesman for the group that organised the events in Spain mainly through social media. "Here in Europe, in Spain, where we live, we work, we sleep and pay taxes, we also suffer racism."

London, Apr 12: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has thanked the medics and staff of the state-funded National Health Service (NHS) for saving his life after he tested positive for the coronavirus, saying he owed them his life.

In his first public statement since being moved out of the intensive care at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London on Saturday, the 55-year-old Johnson said, “I can't thank them enough, I owe them my life.”

Downing Street has said that Johnson, who completes a week in hospital on Sunday after being shifted there with persistent COVID-19 symptoms, continues to make “very good progress” while on the ward.

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He has been able to take short walks as his doctors monitor his recovery after being moved out of the intensive care and has been watching films and doing puzzles in his hospital bed.

Johnson's fiancee Carrie Symonds, who is pregnant with their first child, is said to have sent him letters and baby scans to lift his spirits during his time in the hospital.

Thousands of get-well-soon cards have also poured in for the prime minister since he went into self-isolation after testing positive for coronavirus over two weeks ago.

Asked about plans for his return to work, UK Home Secretary Priti Patel said on Saturday that the UK PM needed "time and space to rest, recuperate and recover".

The Indian-origin Cabinet minister, who led the daily Downing Street update on the pandemic on Saturday, revealed that the UK had recorded 917 new coronavirus deaths, taking the total deaths in the country to 9,875.

According to the Johns Hopkins University data, the country has nearly 80,000 coronavirus cases.

Patel urged people to stay at home over the Easter weekend to curb the spread of the virus, despite warm and sunny weather across parts of the UK.

“We have given the police powers to enforce the necessary measures we have put in place, including through enforcement fines," said Patel.

"If you don't play your part... our selfless police will be unafraid to act. You will be endangering the lives of your own family, friends and loved ones," she said.

Meanwhile, an Easter message posted on the official 10 Downing Street Twitter account on behalf of the prime minister also urged people to stay at home to save lives.

It read: “Wishing everyone a very happy Easter from Downing Street.

“This year across the country churches will remain closed, and families will spend the day apart. But by staying home, remember, you are protecting the NHS and saving lives.” 

Washington, Jul 7: The US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee will grill the CEOs of US tech giants Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon during an antitrust hearing on July 27.

Apple's Tim Cook, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Alphabet's Sundar Pichai and Amazon's Jeff Bezos will testify before the antitrust panel that is working on proposals to reform and regulate the digital market.

The hearing would mark the first time all four top executives testify together in front of Congress, virtually or in-person depending on the panel's call in the COVID-19 pandemic times.

"Since last June, the Subcommittee has been investigating the dominance of a small number of digital platforms and the adequacy of existing antitrust laws and enforcement," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline (D-RI) said in a statement on Monday.

"Given the central role these corporations play in the lives of the American people, it is critical that their CEOs are forthcoming. As we have said from the start, their testimony is essential for us to complete this investigation.”

The House Judiciary Committee announced its antitrust probe into the four tech giants in June last year.

Last month, the committee sent letters to technology giants Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Alphabet (Google's parent company), asking them to confirm if their chief executives will testify as part of the committee's tech competition investigation.

Committee chair David Cicilline said the documents that the investigators sought were "essential" to the probe and that requests like this were part of the "appropriate process" to obtain them.

"The only CEO who has expressed reservation about appearing, through a representative, has been Amazon," Cicilline said. "No one in this country is above the law ... nobody is above answering a congressional subpoena".

The lawmakers want the tech giants to furnish documents that have been produced in relation to other competition probes and internal communications.

The letters that the committee sent also posed questions related to possible harms to competition in the market.

In addition to the antitrust probe, Apple's App Store policies are also facing scrutiny from the US Department of Justice.