Weekly Review
A spokesperson for the Detroit police said that an officer who drove through a crowd of protesters was trying to escape, and a Seattle man struck two Black Lives Matter demonstrators on a closed section of interstate, killing 24-year-old Summer Taylor and leaving 32-year-old Diaz Love in serious condition.1 2 Chinese security officials were stationed across Hong Kong in order to quell opposition to the Chinese Communist Party; a new security law gave agents the ability to investigate anyone attempting to “split” Hong Kong from China, and to prosecute political offenses that were committed abroad.3 4 Following Mike Pompeo’s threat that TikTok would be banned in the United States because it is owned by a Beijing-based company, the app announced that it would cease operations in Hong Kong; it is unclear whether the Chinese version of the app, Douyin, will be made available to Hong Kongers.5 6 It was reported that, since February, at least 10 Egyptian doctors and six journalists have been arrested for commenting on the progression of COVID-19 through the country, which has the highest death toll in the Arab world.7 In an official statement, Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has ordered $44 to $76 monthly bonuses for health care workers, called critics of his government’s handling of the virus “enemies of the state.” After reassuring his supporters that his lungs were “clean,” Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, a COVID-19 skeptic who had been ordered by a federal judge to wear a mask in public, tested positive for the virus.8 9 10 “They’re of the belief that people will get over it or if we stop highlighting it, the base will move on, and the public will learn to accept 50,000 to 100,000 new cases a day,” said a former Trump Administration official of the coronavirus.11 racist fish was written on a bronze statue of the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen, Denmark.12
Several days after a bronze-painted mannequin that represented billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein appeared in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico, Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime companion and an oceanic conservator, was arrested at Tucked Away, her home in New Hampshire, by more than 20 armed law-enforcement officials and charged with sex crimes, conspiracy, and perjury.13 14 15 “I believe that she is a victim of Jeffrey Epstein,” said Laura Goldman, who received probation for stalking, harassing, extorting, and threatening to kill a man she’d had an affair with and alleges that she is a friend of Maxwell.16 17 Deutsche Bank agreed to pay a $150 million penalty for failing to properly scrutinize transactions made by Epstein after he was convicted of sex crimes in 2008, which included over $800,000 in cash withdrawals over a four-year period and payments to law firms totaling over $6 million for himself and his coconspirators.18 It was reported that lawyers from Blackfords, a London-based firm, consulted with Robert Stryk, a K Street lobbyist and former informal Trump campaign adviser, on behalf of Prince Andrew, who has been accused of having sex with a girl trafficked by Epstein.19 20 21 Standing before Mount Rushmore, the president, who recently fired the federal prosecutor who oversaw the 2019 case against Epstein, announced the creation of a “National Garden of American Heroes,” a vast outdoor park that would include tributes to Ulysses S. Grant, Billy Graham, and others.22 23 A new study revealed that 43 percent of Harvard’s white students were legacies, recruited athletes, or related to donors or staff members; Princeton offered 10 percent off tuition for the 2020–21 school year; and ICE announced that international students whose colleges were operating entirely online would be deported if they remained in the country this fall.24 25 26
It was revealed that a member of the East Baton Rouge Parish school board in Louisiana had been shopping online during a meeting about renaming Lee High School, which was named after Confederate general Robert E. Lee.27 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s finance director was charged with three counts of indecent exposure after his neighbor posted photographs on Facebook showing him gardening naked.28 Dubai reopened for tourism; Taiwan’s Songshan Airport allowed 60 people to go through security, board an aircraft, but not take flight; and an airplane lessor canceled its order for 27 reprogrammed Boeing 737 MAXes.29 30 31 32 The Ayn Rand Institute in Santa Ana, California, which promotes “laissez-faire capitalism,” was approved for a Paycheck Protection Program loan from the Trump Administration.33 It is believed that taxidermy enthusiasts are responsible for a spate of headless sea lions washing ashore in British Columbia.34 “Right now, there’s a big demand. And there’s no legal supply,” said a member of the Kwakwaka’wakw Nation.
