India 2nd in coronavirus cases
The 90,802 cases added in the previous 24 hours pushed the country’s totals to more than 4.2 million.
NEW DELHI — India’s increasing coronavirus caseload made the Asian country the world’s secondworst-hit behind the United States on Monday, as its efforts to head off economic disaster from the pandemic gain urgency.
The 90,802 cases added in the previous 24 hours pushed India’s total past Brazil with more than 4.2 million cases. India is now behind only the United States, where nearly 6.3 million people have been infected, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
India’s Health Ministry on Monday also reported 1,016 new deaths for a total of 71,642, the third-highest national toll.
The world’s second-most populous country with 1.4 billion people, India has been recording the world’s largest daily increases in coronavirus cases for almost a month. Despite over 2 million new cases in the past month and the virus spreading through the country’s smaller towns and villages, the Indian government has continued relaxing restrictions to try and resuscitate the economy.
On Monday, the Delhi Metro, which serves India’s sprawling capital, New Delhi, and adjoining areas, resumed operations after more than five months. The commuters were scarce and stations deserted. Only asymptomatic people were allowed to board the trains, with masks, social distancing and temperature checks mandatory.
New Delhi’s streets have already returned to their normal bustle, and people are again flocking to markets. The city’s bars are scheduled to reopen Wednesday.
The reopenings come after India’s economy shrank faster than any other major nation’s, nearly 24% in the last quarter.
Rochester police death:
Naked except for “spit hoods” in a reference to the killing of Daniel Prude, several protesters sat outside police headquarters in Rochester, New York, on Monday morning to push for police accountability, local news outlets reported.
Photos and video showed roughly a half-dozen demonstrators, naked or in minimal clothing and some with “Black Lives Matter” written on their backs, sitting silently with their hands behind them, on a rainslicked street outside the city Public Safety Building. The Democrat & Chronicle reported that after a time, the demonstrators were given blankets and left in cars.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump tweeted that Rochester was among cities that had “bad nights,” while Mayor Lovely Warren commended activist leaders, police and community elders on a night of calm protest Sunday.
Prude, a 41-year-old Black man, died after police found him running naked in a street March 23, put a hood over his head to stop him from spitting, then held him down for about two minutes until he stopped breathing. He died a week later after he was taken off life support.
South Africa ad: Protests over an advertisement viewed as racially offensive forced the closure Monday of at least 60 outlets of a chain of drugstores in South Africa.
Leaders of the leftist opposition party Economic Freedom Fighters led the protests against the nationwide retailer Clicks, in which some of its supporters vandalized some stores.
The advertisement that sparked the protests depicts two different types of hair. One shows a Black woman’s natural hair and one of a white woman’s hair. The Black woman’s hair is described in the ad as “dry, damaged hair,” while the white woman’s hair is described as “fine, flat hair.”
California wildfires: A couple’s plan to reveal their baby’s gender went up not in blue or pink smoke but in flames when the device they used sparked a wildfire that burned thousands of acres and forced people to flee from a city east of Los Angeles.
The fire prompted evacuations in parts of Yucaipa, a city of 54,000, and the surrounding area. Waterdropping helicopters were brought in, but the fire has proved stubborn — it grew to 11.5 square miles by Monday morning and more than 500 firefighters on the scene only had minimal containment. No homes have burned and no injuries reported.
The fire started Saturday morning at El Ranch Dorado Park. The unidentified couple chose the location to reveal their baby’s gender. They were accompanied by their young children and had a friend or relative videoing on a cellphone, said Capt. Bennet Milloy of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The family went into a field and fired off a device, which ignited 4-foot grasses, Milloy said.
Rohingya found: Almost 300 Rohingya Muslims were found on a beach in Indonesia’s Aceh province on Monday after months at sea, officials said.
The group arrived at Ujong Blang beach from one boat and were reported by local residents. Officials arrived and found that the Rohingya had dispersed into three groups after landing, Banda Sakti Subdistrict
Military Commander Roni Mahendra said.
“We persuaded them and asked the local residents to help until they gathered again,” Mahendra said.
The 181 women, 100 men and 14 children were given shelter and received help from local residents, police, military and health providers.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar due to a military crackdown, and many live in densely crowded refugee camps in Bangladesh. Rights activists fear large numbers of Rohingya have gone to sea, fleeing ongoing persecution in Myanmar and hardship in the camps in Bangladesh, where traffickers may promise them a better life abroad.
EU warns Serbia, Kosovo: The European Union warned Serbia and Kosovo on Monday that they could undermine their EU membership hopes by moving their Israeli embassies to Jerusalem, as President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement about the change left officials in Belgrade and Pristina scrambling to limit the political fallout.
In an unexpected move last week, Trump said Serbia and Kosovo agreed to normalize economic ties as part of U.S.-brokered talks that include Belgrade moving its embassy to Jerusalem, and mutual recognition between Israel and Kosovo.
It surprised the Europeans, who are leading complex talks between Serbia and its former territory of Kosovo on improving their long-strained relations, while Serbian officials appeared to be watering down their commitment to Trump, and Kosovo sought to allay concerns among Muslim countries.
The 27-nation EU’s longheld policy is that Jerusalem’s status should be worked out between Israel and the Palestinians as part of broader peace negotiations, and that Serbia — as a candidate to join the bloc — should respect that.