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More than 20,000 National Guard troops fanned out across 29 states and the District of Columbia, while more than 50 cities extended curfews into Wednesday morning. More than a week after the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, the U.S. continues to be gripped by political paralysis and infighting as leaders struggle to confront racism and police brutality.
President Donald Trump is increasing pressure on state and local governments to crush the demonstrations. Trump’s own harsher measures – including the teargassing of a peaceful crowd in Washington to clear a path for a presidential photo-op – are meeting with widespread condemnation.
The largest uprising in the U.S. in five decades has spurred no consensus on either the reforms necessary to address protesters’ demands or how to handle demonstrations that have often included property destruction and arson. And efforts to shut the protests down are serving to further inflame them, with police measures only proving to demonstrators the need for reform.
Biden counters with blistering broadside on Trump
Joe Biden mounted one of his most aggressive attacks against Donald Trump yesterday, deriding the commander in chief’s disregard of core constitutional values and accusing him of being “more interested in power than in principle.”
“He thinks division helps him,” the presumptive Democratic nominee said in a speech at Philadelphia’s City Hall. “This narcissism has become more important than the nation’s well-being.”
Biden said Trump “might also want to open the U.S. Constitution. If he did, he’d find the First Amendment. It protects the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
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A cautious return to the classroom in B.C.
Just one-third of British Columbia’s students from kindergarten to Grade 12 have returned to the classroom for the final month of the school year, despite assurances from public-health officials that pandemic safety measures in schools will keep children safe. The uneasy reopening of in-class instruction this week is voluntary and part-time. It will provide the framework for the next school year.
Government tables $87-billion in spending estimates to cover pandemic expenses
The federal government has outlined $87-billion in planned spending, most of which is related to the pandemic. The government is facing criticism over this year’s estimates process, which will limit MPs to no more than four hours of debate on the floor of the House of Commons on June 17 to review and approve the spending detailed in yesterday’s report.
Chinese officials delayed releasing coronavirus information, frustrating WHO
While the World Health Organization spent January publicly praising China for its response to the new coronavirus, Chinese officials were in fact sitting on releasing the genetic map, or genome, of the deadly virus for more than a week after a number of government labs had fully decoded it, not sharing details key to designing tests, drugs and vaccines.
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
BCE, Telus pick European suppliers for 5G network gear, leaving Huawei role unclear
Two of Canada’s biggest wireless carriers announced they’re turning to European suppliers for gear to build their 5G networks. BCE Inc.'s Bell Canada announced it has struck a deal with Swedish supplier Ericsson and said it won’t be using Huawei equipment unless Ottawa permits it. Telus Corp., which said in February that it would launch its 5G service with Huawei gear, announced partnerships with Ericsson and Finland-based Nokia Corp. but did not back away from the Chinese company.
Commercial rent relief program generates underwhelming response so far
The federal government says landlords for only 16,000 of Canada’s nearly 1.2 million small businesses applied for its rent-relief program in the first week, adding fuel to weeks of criticism that the program’s structure is unfair to commercial tenants.
The program asks entrepreneurs to pay only a quarter of their rent for April, May and June, with their landlord absorbing a quarter of the costs and the rest subsidized by Ottawa and the provinces. But the program requires landlords to apply, not tenants. Many small-business owners have said that their landlords have not been interested in the program because it necessitates them to take a financial loss.
RCMP ask outside force to investigate officer after video shows Mountie drive truck into man
Late Monday night in the small Nunavut community of Kinngait, a man is swaying and lurching on a slippery road. Video shows the arrival of a white truck with its driver’s door open. The open door strikes the man hard, and he falls. Five officers emerge from the truck and from off-screen. The man is on the ground while three officers crouch over him. The man screams. Within seconds the officers raise the man to his feet and shove him into the back seat, while he shouts, “Why? Why?” When bystanders move toward the truck, the officers scream “get away.”
MORNING MARKETS
Global shares hit three-month highs: World shares hit three-month highs on Wednesday and the U.S. dollar fell for the sixth day running as easing lockdowns and hopes for more monetary stimulus gave investors confidence, despite civil unrest in the United States and rising COVID-19 tolls. Just before 6 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 1.44 per cent. Germany’s DAX gained 2.24 per cent. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei ended up 1.29 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 1.37 per cent. New York futures were higher. The Canadian dollar was trading around 74 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
Donald Trump just wants to watch the world burn
Andrew Coyne: “Elect someone to blow up the system, it turns out, and you will be picking up the pieces for years.”
Donald Trump’s journey to authoritarianism is a well-worn path
Lawrence Martin: “Mr. Trump’s modus operandi, with rare exception, is unflinching confrontation, partisanship taken to vile extremes.”
Protests against police brutality show there’s more than one public health crisis
André Picard: “This is a time for public health to highlight what really matters to health – the socio-economic determinants, of which race is one. More than anything, this pandemic has shone a spotlight on long-standing inequalities in society.”
June 3: Live Q&A with political scientist Ian Bremmer, tonight 8 p.m. (ET): How the impact of COVID-19 helped set the stage for the protests gripping America.
June 4: Join André Picard for a live Q&A on masks, testing and social etiquette during a pandemic. Submit a question to audience@globeandmail.com.
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
By Brian GableBrian Gable/The Globe and Mail
LIVING BETTER
Critic’s notebook: For fans of live music, home is not where the heart is
Brad Wheeler turns a critical eye to the flood of remote live performances, often shot in the performers’ homes, that have tried to be a substitute for the live concert experience during the lockdown. These range from the televised “concert” series, Budweiser Stage at Home, a professionally shot, pretaped show, to more intimate performances, streamed in real time.
MOMENT IN TIME: JUNE 3, 1920
Sir Ernest Rutherford (1871 – 1937) was a New Zealand-born British physicist who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Rutherford of Nelson, of Cambridge in the County of Cambridge in 1931, a title that became extinct upon his unexpected death in 1937.Library of Congress
At a time when physicists were groping for the correct description of matter, Ernest Rutherford had his hands on the building blocks. Beginning in 1898, Rutherford, a New Zealander, conducted investigations on radioactivity at McGill University that would later earn him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. By 1920, he was at the University of Cambridge and one of the world’s leading experimentalists. His work had led him to a picture of the atom that consisted of positively charged protons held together in a central nucleus, which were electrically balanced by the negatively charged electrons buzzing around the perimeter. But the picture was incomplete. Some atoms were known to have isotopes of differing weight despite having the same number of protons. While delivering a lecture to the Royal Society in London, Rutherford proposed a solution: Inside the nucleus, electrons and protons might combine somehow to form a new entity, which he called a “neutral doublet." Heavier isotopes simply had more of them. Rutherford was right – though by the time it was discovered in 1932, his doublet was understood to be a single particle dubbed the neutron. It was the missing key that would open the door to the atomic age. – Ivan Semeniuk
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