Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput, 34, was found dead in his Mumbai home Sunday.Citing police sources, local media reported that the actor was found hanging in his apartment in an apparent suicide, but that no note was found.“It pains us to share that Sushant Singh Rajput is no longer with us,” Rajput’s publicist wrote in a statement, asking for privacy.Rajput, originally from Patna, Bihar, made his Bollywood debut in the film “Kai Po Che” (I have cut) in 2013. He notably portrayed former Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the film “M.S. Dhoni” in 2016.Rajput attended New Delhi University to study engineering before dropping out to pursue acting.Indian social media was flooded with messages from politicians, athletes, and fellow Bollywood stars in remembrance of Rajput.“I can’t believe this at all… it’s shocking… a beautiful actor and a good friend,” Nawazuddin Saddiqui wrote on Twitter.  
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During the coming week, the U.N. Human Rights Council will be faced with many important issues left hanging when its 43rd session was suspended in March because of COVID-19.  The meeting, which opens Monday, will employ a so-called hybrid approach, with a mix of both real and virtual presentations.To ensure the safety of participants during this time of coronavirus, U.N. officials say social distancing measures will be strictly enforced.  Delegations will have a reduced number of representatives attending the session and hundreds of side events by nongovernmental organizations will not take place on U.N. premises.Presentation of reports and interactive dialogues on human rights issues will involve experts who are either physically present or speaking by video conference.  Countries that will come under review include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Ukraine, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Central African Republic.One of the highlights of the weeklong meeting will be an urgent debate on institutionalized racism in the United States underlined by the killing of African American George Floyd while in police custody.Geneva director of Human Rights Watch John Fisher calls this a moment of reckoning for the United States.  He said the event will likely be used by some countries to advance their own agendas.“We are also very concerned that China is seeking to exploit this moment of global chaos and the disarray within the U.S. to crack down on rights and freedoms in Hong Kong … And, we are calling upon states to take this moment to bring more attention to Hong Kong, as I mentioned.  We feel this is a time when China will be watching the international response, and, if that response is muted, will feel emboldened to go even further down the track,” he said.A year ago, the special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Agnes Callemard, presented her report on the killing of Saudi columnist for the Washington Post Jamal Khashoggi, which she claimed was by agents of the Saudi government.  While this issue is not formally on the council agenda, Fisher believes it should be given renewed attention.“In addition to, of course the murder of Khashoggi, while a number of women human rights defenders have been released from prison, a number remain.  There are still allegations of torture.  They still face criminal charges …There continues to be use of the death penalty, flogging, a crackdown on dissent, new waves of arrests,” he said. At the end of the week, the council will take action on decisions and the adoption of more than 40 resolutions.  They include recommendations on improving human rights in countries such as Libya, Iran, Nicaragua, South Sudan, and Myanmar. 
  
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Black Lives Matter protests attracted large crowds in Australia on Saturday in defiance of government warnings about the coronavirus. The marches have been inspired by mass gatherings in the United States following the death in police custody of George Floyd.Across Australia, thousands of anti-racism demonstrators rallied against high rates of indigenous incarceration, deaths in custody and the removal of indigenous children from their families. Aboriginal Australians make up about 3 percent of the population but almost a third of prison inmates are indigenous.“We are here to support our future as indigenous people and to walk against injustices of what happened to our people,” one aboriginal woman said.In Perth, Western Australia, protesters defied calls by the authorities Saturday not to attend because of coronavirus fears. Organizers handed out masks and hand sanitizer.An earlier march in Sydney was ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court on public health grounds, but hundreds of people joined the protest.“I am here because there have been 437 deaths in custody since 1991,” a protester in Sydney said. “So I am here to make a stand, and I do not care that the government has said this is illegal.”New South Wales Assistant Police Commissioner Mick Willing was not happy protesters had ignored coronavirus health orders.“It is disappointing to acknowledge that around 300 people chose to ignore the warnings that had been given by police in terms of coming to this public gathering,” he said.There have been separate rallies in Australia by groups protesting the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees.The government had urged demonstrators to stay home because of concerns that mass gatherings could spread the coronavirus, which has been mostly contained in Australia.Two women were arrested after a statue of the British explorer, Captain James Cook, was defaced in Sydney.  Another was damaged in Perth.  However, Peter Dutton, Australia’s Home Affairs minister, criticized calls to remove statues of European colonists in Australia as an “obscure left-wing cause.”This year has marked the 250th anniversary of Cook’s voyage to Australia. British settlement would begin 17 years later.Historical monuments across the world have been torn down in recent weeks by anti-racism campaigners following the death of George Floyd, an African American man, in U.S. police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last month.  
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Officials in two Southern California communities are investigating the hanging deaths of two African American men.The body of 24-year-old Robert Fuller was found last week in Palmdale, hanging from a tree near City Hall.Late last month, the body of Malcolm Harsch, who was 38, was also found hanging from a tree in Victorville, near a homeless campsite.Authorities in both locations initially suspected the men had committed suicide but are now reserving final decisions in response to community uproar and pending further investigation.Thousands of people turned out Saturday in Palmdale for a memorial for Fuller. Diamond Alexander, Fuller’s sister, said, “We just want the truth. My brother was not suicidal. He was a survivor.”One woman told the Los Angeles Times that while officials suspected “suicide,” she suspected “a lynching.”The Harsch family has issued a statement, saying that they “want justice, not comfortable excuses.” They added, “There are many ways to die but considering the current racial tension, a Black man hanging himself from a tree definitely doesn’t sit well with us right now.”The U.S. has experienced protests across the country recently in response to the death of George Floyd, an African American man who died after a police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes.America has a long history with hanging or lynching black people. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, a museum in Montgomery, Alabama, says it is a “national memorial acknowledging the victims of racial terror lynchings.”The museum says on its website that the memorial “is a sacred space for truth-telling and reflection about racial terror in America and its legacy.”
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Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido on Saturday said the opposition would not recognize a “false” electoral body named by the government-friendly supreme court, while his allies pledged to extend the term of the current legislature.An extension past the January 2021 end date would allow Guaido, who is recognized by dozens of countries as Venezuela’s rightful leader due to his position as president of the opposition-held National Assembly, to remain in the role even if the opposition boycotts parliamentary elections due by the end of the year.“We do not recognize any false national electoral council,” Guaido told reporters during a virtual news conference.Venezuela’s constitution grants the power to appoint members of the national electoral council to congress, but the Supreme Court — widely viewed as loyal to President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government — on Friday named its own board after ruling the legislature had failed to do so.Opposition leaders denounced the move as an attempt to rig the election, and some prominent Guaido allies said in response the current legislature should extend its term.“The current legitimate National Assembly will continue as long as no valid constitutional electoral process to substitute it has been held,” Henry Ramos, a senior lawmaker from the large Democratic Action block, wrote on Twitter on Friday night.Asked about a possible extension of the legislature’s term, Guaido said his priority was ousting Maduro before the end of the year, and that the National Assembly would move forward with naming its own electoral rectors.“For us, 2021 is very far away,” he said.Venezuela’s information ministry did not respond to a request for comment.The court’s decision to name its own council has raised the likelihood that opposition parties would boycott the parliamentary election as they did Maduro’s reelection in 2018. 
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Faulty software or poorly calibrated vote-tabulation scanners used to count mailed-in ballots in this week’s chaotic Georgia primary may have prevented thousands of votes from being counted, election officials and voting integrity activists said.The issue was identified in at least four counties, DeKalb, Morgan, Clarke and Cherokee, according to officials who discovered them, including activists who have sued the state for alleged election mismanagement.“The fact that it is in multiple counties tells me that it’s probably systemic,” said Richard DeMillo, a Georgia Tech computer scientist who has testified for the plaintiffs, because identical scanners and software were used to count all absentee ballots across the state. DeMillo said the only way to know for sure is through audits.A top Georgia voting official, voting implementation manager Gabriel Sterling, said Friday that he had seen no evidence yet of the issue and found it difficult to believe the reports were “an active description of what is happening on the ground.”“These are activists who have an ax to grind,” he said.Nearly 1.1 million Georgians voted by mail for Tuesday’s primary, which had been delayed twice due to the coronavirus pandemic.In-person voting Tuesday was beset by cascading failures. Voters waited up to five hours to cast ballots at some polling places due to equipment problems, poll worker unfamiliarity with a new voting system and social distancing measures taken because of the virus. Many voters also showed up to vote in person because absentee ballots they requested never arrived by mail.People vote at voting booths in the Georgia’s primary election at Park Tavern on June 9, 2020, in Atlanta.The scanners and ballot-marking devices used in all 159 Georgia counties Tuesday are part of a voting equipment package the state purchased for $120 million from Dominion Voting Systems after a federal judge ordered it to scrap an outdated, untrustworthy system.In post-election reviews Wednesday, election panels in all four counties detected unregistered votes while examining ballot images flagged by the vote-tallying scanner’s software for anomalies.In Morgan County, Republican-dominated and just southeast of Atlanta, panelists discovered at least 20 votes on scanned ballot images that the program had not recorded, said Jeanne Dufort, a Democrat on the panel. She said it appeared the votes did not register because ovals that were supposed to be filled in were instead checked or marked with X’s.All three panelists agreed to add the unregistered votes to the electronic tally, said Dufort. But on Thursday, the county elections board voted 3-2 not to audit the rest of the roughly 3,000 absentee ballots. The other two panelists, both Republicans, did not return emails and phone calls seeking comment.“It is a head-in-the-sand approach,” Dufort complained.In Clarke County, vote review panelist Adam Shirley estimated at least 30 ballots out of about 300 flagged for anomalies had votes that “the system had not marked at all, that had not processed at all.”Shirley, a Democrat, recommended a review of all 15,000 absentee ballots.In an email Friday to fellow board members, county election board chair Jesse Evans said the problem should be addressed before results are certified.People wait in line to vote in the Georgia’s primary election at Park Tavern on June 9, 2020, in Atlanta.He quoted Shirley as saying “it’s not just possible but probable that a ballot whose voter had clearly but not completely marked their vote would not have its votes counted by the software” and that he was disturbed the software did not flag the uncounted votes.“We only noticed them by sheer luck as we were adjudicating other, flagged contests on ballots,” Shirley wrote to Evans.In Cherokee County, the problem was detected in less than 5 percent of the flagged ballots, said an elections official who spoke on condition they not be further identified, citing fear of political harassment. The official said the number of flagged ballots was in the hundreds.In DeKalb, County, review panel member Elizabeth Burns estimated finding between 20-50 uncounted votes on 530 flagged ballots and said her team had so far only reviewed half its 100,000 absentee ballots. Like Shirley, she said her team had stumbled upon the issue. She said she wondered if other counties were even aware of it.“Maybe not everyone has been as thorough as us and noticed this,” she said.“The detection of this major problem was only because of diligent citizen oversight. The officials charged with the duty to fully test the equipment recklessly failed to responsibly do so, or to audit it,” said Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, which is demanding in court that the state scrap the ballot-marking devices.Dominion spokeswoman Kay Stimson referred questions to the state but said in an email that her company’s systems “are designed to support robust post-election audits, and we support them as a recommended best practice for elections.”A Cobb County absentee ballot is seen May 5, 2020, in Kennesaw, Georgia.Sterling, the state official, said authorities are willing to consider audits if merited.Voting security expert Harri Hursti said inadequate preelection testing may be the cause of the issue. A fix could be as simple as adjusting the contrast settings in the image-capturing software. Or it could be a different coding issue.Amber McReynolds, CEO of the nonprofit Vote at Home that promotes voting by mail, said it may have been possible to avoid the unregistered vote issue by placing the software at the highest sensitivity for discerning markings. The Dominion election system used in Georgia is used in many states with tough standards like Colorado, she said.It was, however, denied certification by Texas, which cited “multiple hardware and software issues” identified by state-appointed examiners. They cited a complex installation process and one called the suite “fragile and error prone.”The system is proprietary, however, and Hursti said it has never been subjected to an independent security review. 
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Atlanta’s police chief resigned Saturday hours after a black man was fatally shot by officers in a struggle following a field sobriety test. Authorities said the slain man had grabbed an officer’s Taser but was running away when he was shot.Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced the resignation of Police Chief Erika Shields at a news conference as roughly 150 protesters marched outside the Wendy’s restaurant where Rayshard Brooks, 27, was fatally shot late Friday. The mayor also said she called for the immediate firing of the officer who opened fire at Brooks.“I do not believe that this was a justified use of deadly force and have called for the immediate termination of the officer,” Bottoms said.She said it was Shields’ decision to step aside as police chief and that she would remain with the city in an undetermined role. Interim Corrections Chief Rodney Bryant will serve as interim police chief until a permanent replacement is found.The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is investigating the shooting, said the confrontation started with officers responding to a complaint that a man was sleeping in a car blocking the restaurant’s drive-through lane. The GBI said Brooks failed a field sobriety test and then resisted officers’ attempts to arrest him.The GBI released security camera video of the shooting Saturday. The footage shows a man running from two police officers as he raises a hand, which is holding some type of object, toward an officer a few steps behind him. The officer draws his gun and fires as the man keeps running, then falls to the ground in the parking lot.Taser apparently pointed at officerGBI Director Vic Reynolds said Brooks had grabbed a Taser from one of the officers and appeared to point it at the officer as he fled, prompting the officer to reach for his gun.“In a circumstance like this where an officer is involved in the use of deadly force, the public has a right to know what happened,” GBI Director Vic Reynolds told a news conference.The security camera video does not show Brooks’ the initial struggle with police.The officers involved in the shooting were not identified.Brooks died after being taken to an Atlanta hospital. One of the officers was treated and released for unspecified injuries.The shooting came at a time of heightened tension over police brutality and calls for reforms across the U.S. following the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Atlanta was among U.S. cities where large crowds of protesters took to the streets.A crowd of roughly 150 demonstrators, including members of Brooks’ family, gathered Saturday outside the restaurant where he was shot. Police shut down streets for several blocks around the restaurant as protesters marched peacefully in the streets.Among them was Crystal Brooks, who said she was Rayshard Brooks’ sister-in-law.“He wasn’t causing anyone any harm,” she said. “The police went up to the car and even though the car was parked they pulled him out of the car and started tussling with him.”She added: “He did grab the Taser, but he just grabbed the Taser and ran.”’The people are upset’Gerald Griggs, an attorney and a vice president of Atlanta’s NAACP chapter, estimated there were 150 people protesting at the scene as he walked with them Saturday afternoon.“The people are upset,” Griggs said. “They want to know why their dear brother Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed when he was merely asleep on the passenger side and not doing anything.”Even though Brooks struggled with officers, Griggs said, “they could have used nonlethal force to take him down.”Reynolds said his agents worked through the night interviewing witnesses and reviewing video. He said their findings showed that Brooks tried to fight off two officers when they tried to arrest him and at one point managed to take a Taser away from one of them.A security camera recorded Brooks “running or fleeing from Atlanta police officers,” Reynolds said. “It appears that he has in his hand a Taser.”During a short foot chase, Brooks “turns around and it appears at that time he points a Taser at an Atlanta officer,” Reynolds said. That’s when the officer drew his gun and shot Brooks, he said, estimating the officer fired three times.Atlanta Deputy Police Chief Timothy Peek told reporters late Friday that both officers deployed their Tasers in an attempt to subdue the suspect but were unable to “stop the aggression of the fight.”District attorney’s involvementReynolds said his agents would turn over results of their investigation to Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, whose office will decide whether criminal charges are warranted against either of the officers.Howard said Saturday his office had already gotten involved.“My office has already launched an intense, independent investigation of the incident,” Howard said in a statement, saying members of his staff “were on scene shortly after the shooting, and we have been in investigative sessions ever since to identify all of the facts and circumstances surrounding this incident.”
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Five days of protests have shaken Syria’s usually peaceful Druze enclave of Suweida, as rising prices and a falling domestic currency have pushed ordinary Syrians hurt by the crisis to vent their anger.Amateur video has shown scores of people demonstrating and chanting against the government.In Damascus, many shops and businesses reportedly have closed as exchange rates fluctuated wildly. Factories that produce pharmaceutical goods also have closed because of shortages of raw materials, while fuel shortages have forced the government to buy gasoline from Lebanon.Atop these developments, new U.S. economic sanctions on people and businesses trading with the Syrian government are set to take effect June 17.FILE – Syria’s then-Water Resources Minister Hussein Arnous attends a trade show in Damascus, Oct. 2, 2018. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on June 11, 2020, named Arnous interim prime minister.As the crisis intensified, President Bashar al-Assad replaced Prime Minister Imad Khamis on Thursday with Water Resources Minister Hussein Arnous.Several factors — including a major economic crisis in neighboring Lebanon, U.S. economic sanctions on Syria’s top regional ally, Iran, and an internal spat between Assad and his cousin and oligarch, Rami Makhlouf, have added to the decline of the Syrian pound.Makhlouf has said on social media that he has not done anything improper in his business dealings as head of the Syrian mobile phone network Syriatel and insists he has been a top supporter of the government since 2011.Syrian economic analyst Dr. Oussama al Qadi told Arab media the feud between Assad and his cousin had caused the Syrian pound to lose at least a third of its value. A government decision to outlaw black market sales of foreign currency, he said, also inflamed the crisis.Joshua Landis, who heads the Middle East program at the University of Oklahoma, told VOA the unprecedented fall in the value of the Syrian pound has made almost everyone desperate.’Tons of pressure'”There is tremendous discontent in Syria today,” he said. “Everybody I know in Syria is in desperate economic shape. There’s tons of pressure, and these demonstrations are an expression of the pain that Syrians are feeling from the collapse of the Syrian pound.”Despite the desperation, Landis doubts the present crisis is going to cause the Assad government to fall, since he no longer sees any organized opposition inside the country.”The opposition,” he said, “is fragmented and has been driven out of the country,” except for opponents in the Turkish-protected enclave of Idlib.Landis also said the new U.S. sanctions on the Syrian government, “while being framed in humanitarian terms,” are mostly aimed at hurting Russia and Iran “and depriving them of the fruits of their victory.” U.S.-Syria coordinator James Jeffrey explained recently that his job is to make Syria “a quagmire” for Russia.
 
Khattar Abou Diab, who teaches political science at the University of Paris, told VOA that Assad’s administration “has been seriously weakened” by the decline of the pound and that things are fast becoming “intolerable” for many people. He added that U.S. pressure on Lebanon might have contributed to the crisis.Diab said Lebanon was Syria’s economic lungs. More than $3 billion or $4 billion used to transit annually between Lebanon and Syria in various economic dealings.
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Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar, one of the world’s oldest and largest, is open for business after being closed for 70 days as part of Turkey’s COVID lockdown. The reopening early this month is an important symbolic step in what the government calls its normalization efforts, a move that cannot come soon enough for the 30,000 people working at the bazaar. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.Producer: Rod James. Videographer: Berke Bas.
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The World Health Organization says lessons learned from previous outbreaks of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo and effective therapeutics will allow it to more quickly contain a new outbreak of the deadly disease in Equateur Province.U.N. health officials report there is no link between the Ebola outbreak declared June 1 in Mbandaka, Equateur Province, and the epidemic, which broke out nearly two years ago in DR Congo’s North Kivu and Ituri provinces.   
 
They say the experience gained, however, and lessons learned from tackling this deadly disease in eastern DRC will help them to more quickly stop the spread of the virus in Equateur Province in the western part of the country.
 
WHO Emergency Operations Manager Michel Yao says the World Health Organization has more than 20 staff on the ground and is ready to send in more, if necessary.  He tells VOA that the WHO is working with partners to set up treatment centers, to monitor risks and respond promptly to identify and trace new cases.    “Our objective this time is to work through local authorities that were already trained,” Yao said. “They had some experience.  So, we have just to refresh and we have to remain behind coaching them.  Lesson learned remain the critical one is to work through the community.”    The epidemic in eastern DRC, which has infected more than 3,460 people and killed 2,280, finally appears to be winding down.  The latest reports from western DRC, where the outbreak has just started, put the number of confirmed and probable cases at 12, including nine deaths.
 
Two years ago, the same region was stricken with Ebola.  It took less than four months to contain the outbreak with the help of an experimental vaccine, which provided protection against the virus.
 
Yao says the vaccines, which since have proven to be safe and effective, will help to speedily contain the virus.  So far, he says, more than 600 people have been vaccinated in Mbandaka and Wangata health zones.  He says 3,000 doses of the vaccine are in place and more are expected to be delivered soon.
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Every day for the past two weeks, roughly 900 people have died of COVID-19 in the United States. The case count has been stuck at about 20,000 per day.
That’s down from the peak in mid-April, when more than 2,000 were dying and more than 30,000 were testing positive every day.
But progress on controlling the epidemic has stalled.  
Stay-at-home orders; closing restaurants, bars and theaters; and canceling large gatherings succeeded in slowing the spread of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.  
In epidemiological terms, the curve flattened. But as the country comes out of lockdown, the curve is staying flat, at a time when health officials say it needs to be curving downward.  Summer headwinds
Weather is working against the virus for now. Summer’s warmth and humidity seem to tamp down, but not eliminate, the risk of infection.  
The trend will reverse beginning in late August and September. Climate conditions will begin to tilt in favor of the virus, and the expected second wave will begin.  
“It’s very important during the summer season, when the seasonality is going to our advantage, to make sure we do it right,” said health metrics sciences professor Ali Mokdad at the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.  
That means “that we keep our guard (up) and we reduce the circulation of the virus to as low as possible,” he said in an interview.
Much of the United States is lowering its guard, however.  Reopening and resurgence
 People sit in an outdoor restaurant area in Christchurch, New Zealand, June 8, 2020.All 50 states have begun relaxing restrictions and reopening businesses.  
At the same time, several states have seen increases in the number of new cases.  
But not every state that has reopened has seen an uptick. Experts don’t know why cases in Arizona have spiked while cases in Georgia have plateaued, for example.   
“Somehow, states that have reopened and have not seen a resurgence are doing something right,” University of Arizona associate professor of public health policy management Joe Gerald said in an interview.
“If we just knew what that was, then we could replicate it in other states and maybe get on with our lives and do as little economic damage to our economy as possible,” he added. “I just don’t think we have it yet.”Wear a maskUS Health Officials Encourage Face Masks at Big Gatherings The advice follows more than a week of protests sparked by the death of George Floyd, a black man in police custody Masks could be one factor.  Evidence keeps piling up that they can make a significant dent in transmission rates.  
Wearing a mask is the “simplest, most effective option” for keeping infection numbers down, Harvard University epidemiology professor Michael Mina said in a briefing for reporters. “There’s no doubt about that.”
But masks – even masks – have become a political issue.One poll found Democrats are nearly twice as likely as Republicans to wear one every time they leave the house. Testing and tracing
To control the disease, public health officials must know who has it. After a botched start, testing for coronavirus infection has ramped up over the past few months.  
But capacity is patchy across the country. Experts suggest that states are doing enough testing when 5% come back positive, but nearly half of states have not reached that threshold.
When patients test positive, health officials then need to find out who else they may have infected and get those people tested and isolated, too. Public health officials called for an army of more than 100,000 contact tracers to do the job. 
Despite a wave of hiring in the past month, “we’re nowhere near the levels” needed, said government affairs chief Adriane Casalotti at the National Association of County and City Health Officials.  Vaccines
Ultimately, a vaccine will be needed to bring the pandemic to an end. Scientists are racing to produce a safe and effective vaccine by early next year, an unprecedented pace.
The World Health Organization tallies 10 candidates currently in human testing and 126 in preclinical studies. One vaccine, from the University of Oxford, is beginning late-stage testing. Biotech company Moderna says it will start its final stage of testing next month.
To make a vaccine available as soon as possible, several companies, with backing from various governments and public-private partnerships, are scaling up manufacturing before they know if any of them work.  A mask-wearing shopper gets her temperature checked before entering a store in a downtown shopping district in Sao Paulo, Brazil, June 10, 2020.Treatments
Only one drug so far has worked against COVID-19, and its benefits are limited. Remdesivir, from pharmaceutical company Gilead, shortened hospital stays for COVID-19 patients in one study. It did not have a significant impact on saving lives, however.  
The anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine gained attention early in the pandemic, but it has not yet proved its usefulness.  
Small, preliminary studies of patients in France and China showed some promise. With nothing else available to treat COVID-19, doctors around the world have given thousands of patients the drug without knowing if it works.
Though experts cautioned that the research was far from conclusive, U.S. President Donald Trump and some of his conservative allies said hydroxychloroquine could be a “game changer” based on the early research. Trump said he took it to prevent infection.
But a study found it did no better than a placebo at preventing health care workers and others at high risk of infection from developing COVID-19.  
Whether it helps to treat the disease remains an open question. One recent study suggested it does not, but it was retracted after the data came under question. Other research is under way in the United States and internationally.  
Several other treatments are under study, including anti-HIV drug combination lopinavir–ritonavir, and antibodies from COVID-19 patients who have recovered. 
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Professional soccer has resumed in Italy after a three-month stoppage caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Juventus played against AC Milan in Turin in the second leg of the Italian cup semi-final. To the happiness of football fans all over Italy, matches in the country’s top league will resume June 20. However, stadiums remain empty of fans for the time being.When the Italian government took the difficult decision to suspend the football season on March 9 due to COVID-19, it was a sad moment for fans across the country. The indefinite suspension of the national sport was tough for many to digest. The resumption of matches Friday night was a moment of joy, despite the fact the game was nothing to write home about. Playing at the Allianz Stadium in Turin were host Juventus and AC Milan – in a game that would qualify one of the teams for the final of the Italian Cup to be played in Rome Wednesday. The atmosphere was surreal with no one in the stands and quality on both sides after such a long break from the field clearly lacking.Juventus defender Leonardo Bonucci spoke after the game.Bonucci said his emotions are strange, playing in an empty stadium after 90 days of no competition. He said it was difficult at the beginning and AC Milan played well despite only having a 10-man team, but said Juventus managed to reach their objective to play in the final.Italy’s top football division, Serie A, will get underway again on June 20. Before the season can end, there are still 110 regular-season games left to play and 4 make-up games. Italian soccer authorities are hoping and working towards re-opening stadiums in July and allowing at least some fans to watch the games live.But until then, most fans will be watching the games from home because even at sports bars social distancing rules are in place. Some soccer teams have thought up innovative ways to avoid the sadness of having to play in front of empty seats.Lazio, one of the two top-division teams in Rome, launched the idea of fans purchasing cardboard cutouts of their image to be placed in the stands when the team is playing. The proceeds will go to the Red Cross. Other teams will play recorded cheers after a team score. The aim is to maintain a semblance of the enthusiastic atmosphere at Italian football games. Inter Milan has said it will be using lights and graphic effects during their matches.       
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Botswana’s director of health services, Dr Malaki Tshipayagae, announced Friday that the capital, Gaborone, will return to extreme lockdown after eight new COVID-19 cases at a private hospital.“We are concerned because we did not know if it is a communal infection or a hospital-acquired infection, or [it] indicates significant local transmission, or whether there is some form of contamination at the facility,” Tshipayagae said. “As a result, because of those factors, or unknowns, we have decided to shut down or lock down Greater Gaborone.” A further four imported cases were reported Friday, bringing the country’s COVID-19 tally to 60.Tshipayagae said the army and police would resume patrols, effective Friday midnight.“Movement of people will be through a permit and there would be patrols to ensure that rules are adhered to.” People going about their activities in Gaborone, Botswana, before authorities announced the city’s return to lockdown on June 12, 2020. (Mqondisi Dube/VOA)Most economic activities had resumed as the diamond-rich country emerged from a seven-week lockdown that ended May 21.Schools had reopened but will now close in Gaborone and surrounding areas until further notice.Gaborone resident Mpho Marumo said the latest development is a drawback.“It’s quite disappointing really,” Marumo said. “We were looking forward to… the schools, the kids. It’s a really big setback, the schools had reopened and now closed.”Prior to Friday’s 12 cases, Botswana only had one active case. The country has recorded one COVID-19 death.
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India reported its largest surge in new COVID-19 cases in a 24-hour period Saturday.  The 11,458 new infections surpassed the previous record of 10,956 cases reported Friday.The surge comes as India has reopened stores, shopping malls, manufacturing plants and places of worship. The country’s two-month lockdown that began in March has been eased, with restrictions remaining largely intact in high-risk areas.India’s record surge of new cases propels the massive South Asian nation to fourth place worldwide, surpassed only by the U.S., Brazil and Russia.China’s National Health Commission reported 11 new cases Saturday. The agency said five of the new infections were detected in people who had traveled overseas, while the remaining six were locally transmitted in Beijing. The coronavirus emerged in China late last year.U.S. President Donald Trump is delivering the commencement address at the West Point Military Academy Saturday. The graduation ceremonies will be held on the academy’s parade grounds instead of the football stadium so the cadets can be seated 2 meters apart, in the school’s efforts to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.  Family and friends will not be allowed to attend.The cadets can remove their masks, if they want, once they are seated. The president does not like to wear a mask.Norway said Friday it would maintain travel restrictions for visitors from Sweden. Unlike other European countries, Sweden did not impose lockdown measures, opting only to advise social distancing and banning gatherings of more than 50 people.Paramilitary police stand guard near the Xinfadi wholesale food market district in Beijing, June 13, 2020. Beijing closed the market after the discovery of at least six more coronavirus cases.While new infections are slowing in most of Europe, the European Union’s health commissioner, Stella Kyriakides, said Friday that countries should be prepared to reimpose restrictions if they see a rise in infections.A major study forecasts millions sinking into extreme poverty because of the coronavirus pandemic.A report by the United Nations University says the economic fallout could plunge 395 million people into conditions in which they are forced to live on $1.90 a day or less – the definition of extreme poverty.A separate World Bank report this week put that number between 70 million and 100 million people.“The outlook for the world’s poorest looks grim unless governments do more and do it quickly and make up the daily loss of income the poor face,” one of the U.N. report’s authors, Andy Sumner, said. “The result is progress on poverty reduction could be set back 20-30 years and making the UN goal of ending poverty look like a pipe dream.”The U.N. report says South Asia – India in particular – will see the largest number of people sinking into extreme poverty, followed by sub-Saharan Africa.Experts are appealing to economically powerful nations, such as the United States, to forgive the debts of developing countries that would take a strong hit from the pandemic.
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Joe Biden’s search for a running mate is entering a second round of vetting for a dwindling list of potential vice presidential nominees, with several black women in strong contention.Democrats with knowledge of the process said Biden’s search committee has narrowed the choices to as few as six serious contenders after initial interviews. Among the group still in contention: Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kamala Harris of California, as well as Susan Rice, who served as President Barack Obama’s national security adviser.Those with knowledge declined to name other contenders and said the process remains somewhat fluid. Additional candidates may still be asked to submit to the extensive document review process now underway for some top contenders. Those familiar with Biden’s search spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the process.The campaign dismissed the idea of a shortened list as early speculation. “Those who talk don’t know and those who know don’t talk,” said Andrew Bates, a Biden spokesperson.Calls for a woman of colorBiden, who has already said he will pick a woman as his running mate, is facing increased calls from Democrats to put a woman of color on the ticket — both because of the outsize role that black voters played in Biden’s road to the nomination and because of the reckoning over racism and inequality roiling the nation following the death of George Floyd. The black Minneapolis man died after a white police officer pressed his knee on his neck for several minutes, an episode that was captured on video.Terry McAuliffe, the former Virginia governor and former Democratic National Committee chairman, said that while Biden’s choice was likely to be “all about personal chemistry,” it would be “exciting for the party” to have a black woman on a major party presidential ticket for the first time.The campaign’s list includes several black women, including Harris and Rice. Advisers have also looked closely at Florida Rep. Val Demings and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, both of whom are black, and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Latina.Biden’s vetting committee had conversations with a larger group of women earlier this spring; those continuing on in the process have been asked to turn over financial records, past writings and other documentation. Biden has had various public and private interactions with many of the women his vetting committee has considered thus far but has not yet had any formal one-on-one interviews expressly to discuss the No. 2 spot on the ticket. Those aren’t expected for several weeks.Rice, who worked closely with Biden during his time as vice president, has emerged as a favorite among some former Obama administration officials and is personally close to the former president. She has never held elected office but has extensive foreign policy experience, including as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. She’s also been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration since leaving the White House and considered running for U.S. Senate in Maine.Rice has long been a target of Republicans, including for statements she made after the deadly 2012 attacks on Americans in Benghazi, Libya. Republicans have also accused her of spying on Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, though records declassified by the Trump administration show no evidence of Rice improperly accessing any information.A surprising bondHarris and Warren have been seen as top contenders for the No. 2 spot since ending their own presidential campaigns.Warren and Biden have forged a surprising bond in recent months and talk regularly about the progressive policy ideas the Massachusetts senator put at the forefront of her campaign. Biden already has adopted her proposed bankruptcy law overhaul. And now, with the coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic slowdown elevating the nuts-and-bolts of governing, some Democrats see Warren’s policy credentials as an asset to the ticket.A Biden-Warren pairing would mean both Democrats on the ticket are white and in their 70s. Biden is 77, and Warren is 70.Harris is the lone black contender who has won statewide office, notable experience given Biden’s emphasis on wanting a partner “ready to be president.” She and Biden have also demonstrated a comfortable manner with each other in online fundraisers. Harris is an expert voice in discussions of criminal justice, but some black progressives view her background as a prosecutor skeptically.One contender whose standing does appear to have fallen is Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who was a prosecutor years ago in the county that includes Minneapolis. During that period, more than two dozen people — mostly minorities — died during encounters with police.While the people with knowledge of Biden’s vetting process did not rule Klobuchar out, she is widely viewed among Democrats with close ties to the Biden campaign as less likely to be tapped given recent events. 
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