🌎  7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW

• Taliban bans women's sports: The Taliban has forbidden women and girls from playing sports, especially those where their bodies might be seen. The Islamist group, back in power after 20 years, has agreed to the evacuation of the remaining 200 or so Americans and other foreigners who remain in Afghanistan.

• UK to send migrant boats back to France: The United Kingdom has approved plans to turn away any boats that are illegally carrying migrants to its shores, back to France. The decision is said to deepen the diplomatic rift between the two countries over how to deal with the surge of people attempting to cross the English Channel.

• Hong Kong police raid Tiananmen museum: Hong Kong authorities have raided the city's Tiananmen massacre museum a day after they arrested four members of the civil society group that ran it. The June 4th Museum is run by the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which has been accused of foreign collusion under Hong Kong's national security law.

• Free contraception for women in France: Access to birth control in France will be free for women aged up to 25 years old from January 1 onwards, as announced by the French Health Minister Olivier Véran. Until now, the age limit was 18. The new measure will cost the state 21 million euros per year.

• Elizabeth Holmes trial: Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes "lied and cheated" for money and fame, prosecutors alleged on the first day of the former Silicon Valley star's trial. Holmes faces 12 charges of fraud and is accused of deceiving investors and patients by claiming her company could detect illnesses from only a few drops of blood.

• There goes Robert E. Lee: The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, which had towered over Richmond in Virginia for 131 years, was removed amid an ongoing nationwide movement to take down symbols of the Confederacy following the killing of George Floyd.

A MESSAGE FROM INTERNATIONS

🗞️  FRONT PAGE

Daily El Sol de México reports on the devastation caused by severe flooding in central Mexico and a 7.0 magnitude earthquake near the famed Acapulco beach resort. At least 17 patients died after a hospital flooded with torrential rain in Hidalgo state.

💬  LEXICON

Звезда

A smoke alarm went off during an automatic battery charging operation in the Russian section of the International Space Station, the latest in a string of safety concerns over the condition of the ISS's Звезда (Zvezda, Russian for "star") module.

📰  STORY OF THE DAY

Hide or flee? LGBTQ Afghans fear Taliban will kill them

While life was not easy under the former Afghan government, members of the LGBTQ+ community had relatively more freedom and formal support groups that helped them. That has changed now, with potentially grave consequences, reports Dr. Ritu Mahendru, who has been working in Afghanistan for over a decade, on Indian news website The Wire.

🏳️🌈 People from the LGBTQ community are one of the most vulnerable groups in Afghanistan. They didn't have an easy life in the pre-Taliban era but there were underground organizations that supported LGBTQ networks in certain parts of the country. The underground networks have shut since the Taliban takeover. LGBTQ communities and groups are gripped by fear so much that many of these organizations refused to speak even anonymously. They fear being killed by the Taliban, which will be justified by citing their strict interpretation of Sharia law.

🚫 Members of the LGBTQ community face insurmountable barriers in a country where heterosexuality is often presented as the only acceptable sexual orientation. Queer citizens are regarded as deviants, especially by the Taliban. While the rights of women have rightly come under discussion, the same has not happened with queer people, who also face severe threats. When I asked the LGBTQ group what their options are, they were unsure. The usual responses were "I don't know," "Hide," "Escape." Some even disclosed they were contemplating suicide.

⚠️ With Afghanistan falling in the hands of the Taliban, it is clear that the LGBTQ community feels terrified, and abandoned by the international community. Western governments are still in the process of forming policies for the "priority groups" who will be given refugee status. It is not yet clear what the priority group will consist of. These countries need to step up their game and adhere to the UN's Leave No One Behind agenda and support the Afghan LGBTQ community.

➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com

#️⃣  BY THE NUMBERS

0.1%

That is the dismal rate of full vaccination of Haiti, which like other poorer countries is in desperate need of the COVID-19 vaccine. The comparison to such wealthy nations as the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, which have fully vaccinated more than 75% of their populations, has been noted in the recent exchange between the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the White House over the distribution of vaccine doses.

The U.S. decision to move forward with a policy of a third jab was criticized by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom, who said wealthy nations should not go ahead with a third dose until every nation is able to vaccinate 40% of its population. White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki responded to Tedros: "Our view is that this is a false choice."

📣. VERBATIM

I apologize that I could not make it end differently.