One-minute Reads

Haiti

Health authorities reported four deaths and 105 news cases of COVID-19 as Haiti became the first Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country to register more than 1,000 cases in total.

Haiti's Ministry of Health said in its daily bulletin that the pandemic is "accelerating throughout the national territory" and that the number of people infected in 24 hours "for the first time exceeds the bar of 100 cases to reach 105 new cases, for a total of 1,063".

As had been the case in previous reports, the Ministry of Health said that men continued to account for the majority of the cases with 60.3 per cent, while women were at 39.7 per cent.

United States

A black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was seen on a bystander's video pleading that he could not breathe as a white officer knelt on his neck during the arrest and kept his knee there for several minutes after the man stopped moving.

The death on Monday night after a struggle with officers was under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigations and state law-enforcement authorities. It drew comparisons to the case of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died in 2014 in New York after he was placed in a chokehold by police and pleaded for his life, saying he could not breathe.

Afghanistan

The Afghan government released hundreds of Taliban prisoners yesterday, its single largest prisoner release since the US and the Taliban signed a peace deal earlier this year that spells out an exchange of detainees between the warring sides.

The government announced it would release 900 Taliban prisoners as a three-day ceasefire with the insurgents draws to an end. The Taliban had called for the truce during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr that marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

United States

Chicago saw its deadliest Memorial Day weekend for gun violence since 2015, a jarring reminder that even a coronavirus pandemic and a statewide stay-at-home orders cannot halt shootings in the city.

"The violence throughout the city on Memorial Day weekend was nothing short of alarming," Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown told the media yesterday after the first major test of his tenure as the city's top officer ended with 49 people being shot, 10 of them fatally.

The figures included shootings that occurred from Friday afternoon to early Tuesday morning of the holiday weekend.

Grenada

Health Minister Nicholas Steele appealed to citizens yesterday to stop stigmatising persons whose jobs put them in a higher risk of being exposed to COVID-19, as well as those placed in quarantine.

"If we stigmatise persons who appear to have symptoms or have a job that is high risk, or they have just returned after doing their quarantine, what we are going to be doing is to create an environment where others will be afraid to come forward and say they feel sick," Steele told reporters.