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UK shares jumped to fresh three-month highs on Wednesday as data showed China's services sector returned to growth in May, bolstering hopes of a faster global rebound from a coronavirus-driven slump.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in charge of the government's coronavirus response and always has been, a junior minister said on Wednesday after a report that Johnson was taking control of the crisis.

Renault finalised on Wednesday a 5 billion euro (4.45 billion pounds) loan from with the French government, strengthening the carmaker's finances in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic which has ravaged the auto industry.

Thelasko shares an excerpt from FiveThirtyEight: Researchers have spent 50 years studying the way crowds of protesters and crowds of police behave -- and what happens when the two interact. One thing they will tell you is that when the police respond by escalating force -- wearing riot gear from the start, or using tear gas on protesters -- it doesn't work. In fact, disproportionate police force is one of the things that can make a peaceful protest not so peaceful. But if we know that (and have known that for decades), why are police still doing it? There's 50 years of research on violence at protests, dating back to the three federal commissions formed between 1967 and 1970. All three concluded that when police escalate force -- using weapons, tear gas, mass arrests and other tools to make protesters do what the police want -- those efforts can often go wrong, creating the very violence that force was meant to prevent. For example, the Kerner Commission, which was formed in 1967 to specifically investigate urban riots, found that police action was pivotal in starting half of the 24 riots the commission studied in detail. It recommended that police eliminate "abrasive policing tactics" and that cities establish fair ways to address complaints against police. Experts say the following decades of research have turned up similar findings. Escalating force by police leads to more violence, not less. It tends to create feedback loops, where protesters escalate against police, police escalate even further, and both sides become increasingly angry and afraid. Anne Nassauer, a professor of sociology at Freie Universitat in Berlin, has studied how the Berlin Police Department handles protests and soccer matches. She found that one key element is transparent communication -- something Nassauer said helps increase trust and diffuse potentially tense moments. The Berlin police employs people specifically to make announcements in these situations, using different speakers, with local accents or different languages, for things like information about what police are doing, and another speaker for commands. Either way, the messages are delivered in a calm, measured voice. Communication is also a cornerstone of what police know as "the Madison Model," created by former Madison, Wisconsin, chief of police David Couper. His strategy for dealing with protesters was to send officers out to talk with demonstrators, engage, ask them why protests are made, listen to their concerns and, above all, empathize. The report notes that many police departments in the U.S. did try different strategies in the 1980s and 1990s, but they ultimately ended up responding with force anyway. "The 'negotiated management' model of protest policing called for officers to meet with protesters in advance to plan events together to specify the times, locations and activities that would happen, even when that included mass arrests," reports FiveThirtyEight. "But the era of negotiated management basically fell apart after the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999, when protesters blocked streets, broke windows and successfully shut down the WTO meeting and stalled trade talks. When protesters violated the negotiated terms, police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets and took away the wrong lessons, [said Edward Maguire, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Arizona State University]. 'What a lot of people took from that in policing is, we can't trust these people. We need to be smarter and overwhelm them to nip these things in the bud," he said. 'We sort of went backwards.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Latest Tor Browser iteration makes the dark web a bit more memorable

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Tens of thousands of people defied curfews to take to the streets of U.S. cities on Tuesday for an eighth night of protests over the death of a black man in police custody, as National Guard troops lined the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

TUI Group, Europe's biggest travel company, said it had struck a deal with aircraft maker Boeing for compensation and slower delivery of the 737 MAX plane, helping its finances during the coronavirus pandemic.

Global shares vaulted to a near three-month high on Wednesday as hopes of more stimulus and further easing in social restrictions around the world outweighed caution over a host of worries from the coronavirus to growing U.S. civil unrest.

A survey of U.S. businesses on Wednesday revealed deep fears for the future of their operations in Hong Kong if China imposes national security legislation that critics say could curb the financial centre's freedoms and fuel ongoing protests.

China's decision to impose national security laws on Hong Kong has exacerbated public and international concerns over the erosion of freedoms in the city and has rekindled anti-government protests in the financial centre.

Would you Adam and Eve it? Your words will end up teaching Microsoft AI to speak proper English

The BBC has launched a beta version of a Windows-only voice assistant that can only play the broadcaster's content – though it can understand strong British accents, we're told.…

The United Kingdom will not walk away from the people of Hong Kong if China imposes a national security law which conflicts with Beijing's international obligations under a 1984 accord, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday.

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Three teenagers were seen leaving the area after the man was injured

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The ASTERIA CubeSat, launched from the International Space Station into low-Earth orbit in 2017, has become the smallest satellite to successfully detect an exoplanet.…

A TEACHER has continued to teach his students during the lockdown - while renovating his home at the same time.

MORE than 1,000 people have signed a petition calling on the leader of Braintree Council to resign.

WEEKLY markets in both Braintree and Witham town centres are set to return.

Social network's engineers are so upset they're going to just keep on showing up for work

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A male suspected of shooting another male was shot dead by police in Brooklyn, New York on Tuesday in an incident that police said was not linked to mass demonstrations over the death of George Floyd and police brutality.