USA - Texas has reported two consecutive days of record-breaking Covid-19 hospitalizations as the state continues to open businesses and resume activities that were temporarily shuttered due to the coronavirus. There are currently 2,056 patients sickened with Covid-19 in hospitals across the state as of early Tuesday afternoon, up from a record 1,935 patients Monday, according to updated data from the Texas Department of State Health Services. Texas was among the first states to relax its statewide stay-at-home order, allowing it to expire April 30 and some businesses to resume operations May 1.

UK - Oxford University Chancellor Lord Patten questioned protests demanding the removal of a statue honouring mining magnate Cecil Rhodes amid ongoing Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Oxford University has come under fire after students and protesters demanded the removal of a statue commemorating imperialist Cecil Rhodes. Demonstrators brought Oxford to a standstill on Tuesday as they sat down in the middle of the road urging the university to take down the statue from outside Oriel College.

AFRICA - Although Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) and Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902) were not contemporaries, they both played important roles in South African history. Mandela, of course, survived imprisonment for nearly 27 years for his struggle against the apartheid regime in that country to become its president and a world-renowned figure. Rhodes was an Englishman who earned a fortune from mining diamonds (De Beers Consolidated Mines) in that country and neighboring Zimbabwe (f/k/a Rhodesia) and who served as Prime Minister in the Cape Colony. In 1903 his will established the Rhodes Scholarships at Oxford University in England.

EUROPE - Since the beginning of the year, the corona crisis has monopolized news coverage to the extent that a lot of very important stories and developments either went underreported or were ignored altogether. One such example was the very surprising ruling that came out of the German Constitutional Court in early May, which challenged the actions and remit of the European Central Bank (ECB).

USA - Have the events of 2020 caused you to consider moving somewhere else? If so, you are definitely not alone. The COVID-19 pandemic, a historic economic downturn and extremely violent riots in major cities all across America are fueling a sudden surge in interest in rural and suburban properties. This represents a major shift, because prior to 2020 we had seen a tremendous boom in real estate prices in large cities such as New York, San Francisco and Seattle.

Now a lot of those buyers have become very motivated sellers, but there just isn’t a lot of demand for tremendously overpriced homes in core urban areas that are currently being torn to pieces by rioters. Meanwhile, prices for rural and suburban homes are being pushed up as an increasing number of Americans seek to get away from the major cities. In fact, one poll found that approximately 40 percent of all city dwellers “are considering leaving”…

AFRICA - Billions upon billions of voracious desert locusts are ravenously devouring crops over a vast portion of the globe that stretches from eastern Africa all the way to India. This unprecedented plague was supposed to be subsiding by now, but instead a fourth generation of locusts has emerged that is producing swarms that are “up to 8,000 times larger” than what we witnessed earlier this year.

Some of these swarms are the size of major cities, they can travel up to 150 kilometers a day, and when they descend upon a farm they can literally eat everything there in as little as 30 seconds. Because these swarms are not affecting the United States, most Americans don’t understand the immense devastation that is happening on the other side of the globe right now. The UN is warning that mass starvation is coming, and we are being told that it is going to begin by the end of this calendar year.

USA - National Public Radio (NPR) posted a tweet Saturday urging every reader to begin “decolonizing your bookshelf.” According to NPR, “white voices have dominated what has been considered canon for eons.” The public broadcaster advises fans to begin “decolonizing your bookshelf” by removing the works of white authors. NPR suggests that “decolonizing your bookshelf” is about “actively resisting and casting aside the colonialist ideas of narrative, storytelling, and literature that have pervaded the American psyche for so long.”

SUDAN - Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia will resume negotiations on Tuesday over the filling of a controversial mega-dam Addis Ababa is building over the Nile, Khartoum said. Irrigation and water ministers from the three Nile basin countries will meet via videoconference, Sudan's irrigation ministry said in a statement.

USA - The coronavirus pandemic inflicted a "swift and massive shock" that has caused the broadest collapse of the global economy since 1870 despite unprecedented government support, the World Bank said Monday.

USA - Have you been watching the madness that has been unfolding on Wall Street? Even though we are in the middle of the worst global pandemic in 100 years, and even though rioters and looters have been turning our major cities into war zones, stock prices have been going up day after day. In fact, the Nasdaq closed at an all-time record high on Monday. Sometimes people ask me to explain this rationally, and I can’t, because the Federal Reserve has transformed our “financial markets” into a total mockery at this point.

GERMANY - While some in the German establishment fumed over the US presumably keeping Berlin uninformed about plans to withdraw thousands of troops, others envisioned it as a chance to loosen ties with their turbulent NATO ally. Washington didn’t bother to inform Berlin of its intent to redeploy thousands of troops from Germany to other locations, with the news coming out of the blue for the government, German media reported on Saturday.

UK - Boris Johnson has ordered ministers to lift the lockdown quickly to avoid the possible loss of three million jobs. In a significant shift in the government’s approach to Covid-19, the prime minister signed off new measures to open up the economy at a meeting with Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, on Friday night. Johnson stepped in after a crunch meeting on Tuesday where he was warned by Alok Sharma, the business secretary, that failure to reopen the hospitality sector in time for the summer could cost up to 3.5 million jobs. It came as Britain’s death toll rose by 77, the lowest jump since lockdown began on March 23, although reporting of deaths is often lower on weekends.

USA - Residents in Solano County, California have been ordered to flee their homes after a large vegetation fire broke out just miles from two cities. Firefighters are using aerial retardants to protect neighborhoods. The blaze broke out Saturday near the cities of Winters and Vacaville, and quickly doubled in size to 1,200 acres, authorities told local media. Officials said the fire has been five percent contained. Those living in the fire’s direct path have been ordered to evacuate to a center in Vacaville. Firefighter units have deployed planes to drop aerial retardants in an effort to protect residential areas. So far there have been no reports of casualties.

USA - Suffocated to death for the color of your skin: That is "the terrifying reality of what it really means to be black in America right now," said Piers Morgan at the Daily Mail (UK). The entire world has seen the video of the arrest and killing of George Floyd. For nearly nine excruciating minutes, white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin crushed the life out of the handcuffed, defenseless Floyd. "Even by the dreadful standards of police violence against black people in America," this heartless murder was a new low.

UK - Japan and the UK are poised to begin talks aimed at thrashing out the details of a bumper post-Brexit trade deal to come into effect by the start of next year, in what would be a massive boost to Boris Johnson as negotiations with the EU drag on. International Trade Secretary Liz Truss and Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi will begin their discussions on Tuesday, Japanese newspaper Nikkei claimed.

The ministers, who will speak via video conference, intend to strike a deal which would come into force from the start of 2021, Nikkei said. Japan is hoping to clinch favourable deals in areas including automobiles, while the UK is keen to focus on the financial sector, the paper added. Speaking at the time, Ms Truss said: "Japan is one of our largest trading partners and a new trade deal will help to increase trade, boost investment and create more jobs following the economic challenges caused by coronavirus.