Ukraine - Round-up: Zelensky in freed city, while Scholz says Putin remains undaunted

As Ukraine continued to wage its counter-offensive against Russia, President Volodymyr Zelensky went to the newly recaptured north-eastern city of Izyum on Wednesday.

During his visit to the city, a key logistics hub, Mr Zelensky thanked troops and oversaw a flag-raising ceremony.

He pledged that the Ukrainian flag would return to every city and village in the country.

 Read more at: Round-up: Zelensky in freed city, while Scholz says Putin remains undaunted - BBC News

Covid Updates From Around the World

Europe: Starting today, people in England will be able to see what the inside of a pub looks like for the first time in months thanks to an easing of restrictions. And countries including Greece and Portugal are gradually opening their borders for the all-important summer tourist season. But at least in England, officials are worried about the growing prevalence of the highly transmissible B16172 variant first found in India.

Southeast Asia: Despite early successes at taming the coronavirus, Singapore and Taiwan are clamping down aggressively to combat new outbreaks. Singapore is sending most kids back to Zoom school this week, and Taiwan is limiting indoor social gatherings to five people.

North America: The one-week average of new cases in the US hit its lowest level since June. Meanwhile, the Canadian government has started to discuss reopening the border with the US, which has been closed since March 2020.

Read more at: Covid Updates From Around the World

USA: Trump criticizes Covid lockdowns and falsely claims US 'doing very well'

Donald Trump used his White House coronavirus press conference on Monday to repeat his opposition to lockdowns as a means of bringing the contagion under control, claiming falsely that under his leadership the US has done “as well as any nation”.

On a day that the US had surpassed 4.7m confirmed cases of infection – more than a quarter of the global total – Trump tried to deflect criticism of his administration’s handling of the pandemic on to other countries.

Read more at:
Trump criticizes Covid lockdowns and falsely claims US 'doing very well' | Donald Trump | The Guardian

Coronavirus: Cases and Deaths in the U.S. | CDC

For the latest update click here: 
Cases and Deaths in the U.S. | CDC

Coronavirus latest developments: Donald Trump declares national emergency

Coronavirus Update (Live): 119,220 Cases and 4,299 Deaths from COVID-19 Wuhan China Virus Outbreak

Read more at: 
Coronavirus Update (Live): 119,220 Cases and 4,299 Deaths from COVID-19 Wuhan China Virus Outbreak - Worldometer

EU Economy: Strong 2018 economy forecast spurs Commission optimism- by Eric Maurice

EU finance commissioner Pierre Moscovici on Thursday (3 May) brushed aside concerns about a slowing down in the EU economic recovery.

"The lights are flashing green," he told reporters while presenting the European Commission's latest forecasts.

Read more: Strong 2018 economy forecast spurs Commission optimis

Microsoft: Windows 10 Downloads = Microsoft Update Silently Steals Gigabytes Of Storage Space - by Mke Brown

Microsoft has confirmed that it downloads Windows 10 files to computers just in case users decide to upgrade. The company wants to make the migration to Win10 as efficient as possible, but the files take up somewhere between 3.5 to 6GB of disk space.

The situation was first reported by an anonymous reader at The Inquirer, who found the "~BT" folder used for storing copies of Windows 10 had appeared on his system, despite the user not expressing any interest in upgrading.

"I know of two instances where people on metered connections went over their data cap for August because of this unwanted download," he said. "My own Internet (slow DSL) was crawling for a week or so until I discovered this problem."

Microsoft confirmed the problem in a statement to the publication. "For individuals who have chosen to receive automatic updates through Windows Update, we help upgradable devices get ready for Windows 10 by downloading the files they’ll need if they decide to upgrade," the statement read.

Read more: Windows 10 Downloads Secretly Onto PCs: Microsoft Update Silently Steals Gigabytes Of Storage Space