News Headlines - 24 May 2020

▽Pressure on Dominic Cummings to quit over lockdown breach | The Guardian

Police spoke to Dominic Cummings about breaching the government’s lockdown rules after he was seen in Durham, 264 miles from his London home, despite having had symptoms of coronavirus, the Guardian can reveal.
Officers approached Boris Johnson’s key adviser days after he was seen rushing out of Downing Street when the prime minister tested positive for the virus at the end of March, a joint investigation by the Guardian and the Mirror has found. There are now calls for his resignation.

▽Despite Coronavirus, Hong Kong Protesters Rally Against China - The New York Times

Thousands of protesters swarmed some of Hong Kong’s busiest neighborhoods on Sunday, singing, chanting and erecting roadblocks of torn-up bricks and debris, as the police repeatedly fired tear gas, pepper spray and a water cannon during the city’s largest street mobilization in months.
The protest, the first since China announced plans to tighten its control over Hong Kong through security legislation, was planned as a march between the city’s bustling Causeway Bay and Wan Chai neighborhoods.

▽Wuhan lab denies links to SARS-CoV-2 virus strains - The Hindu

The Chinese virology institute at the centre of U.S. allegations that it may have been the source of the COVID-19 pandemic has three live strains of bat coronavirus on-site, but none match the new global contagion, its director has said.
Scientists think COVID-19 originated in bats and could have been transmitted to people via another mammal.
But the director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology told state broadcaster CGTN that claims made by U.S. President Donald Trump and others the virus could have leaked from the facility were “pure fabrication”.
In the interview filmed on May 13 but broadcast on Saturday night, Wang Yanyi said the centre has “isolated and obtained some coronaviruses from bats”.

▽At least 80 dead as Pakistan plane crashes into Karachi houses

A Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane carrying 99 people aboard crashed into a densely populated residential area near Jinnah International Airport in Karachi on Friday afternoon.
At least 80 people were confirmed to have died, provincial health authorities said, but it was not immediately clear whether they included casualties on the ground.

▽Afghan Sides Agree to Rare Cease-Fire During Eid al-Fitr - The New York Times

The Taliban and the Afghan government announced a cease-fire for the three days of the Islamic festival Eid al-Fitr, which starts on Sunday in Afghanistan, offering the war-torn nation a rare respite from violence that has been intensifying.
The insurgents, in a statement late Saturday, said they had instructed their fighters to attack only if their positions were hit. Hours later, President Ashraf Ghani, who recently ordered his troops to move into offensive operations amid the increasing Taliban attacks, said Afghan security forces would comply.