Bedugul Coffee: April 2021

Friday, April 30, 2021

by Linda Noakes

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How Trump scored a big tax break for conserving a golf range, Apple could face a hefty EU fine, and high anxiety in Portugal

Today's biggest stories

A worker clears front steps as morning rises over the U.S. Supreme Court building, April 26, 2021. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

U.S.

The U.S. Supreme Court offered new hope to thousands of long-term immigrants seeking to avoid deportation in a ruling that faulted the federal government for improperly notifying a man who came to the United States illegally from Guatemala to appear for a removal hearing.

Asian-American business and community leaders, including billionaire Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, have quietly lined up what they aim to be the largest private investment in Asian American and Pacific Islander causes in U.S. history following a rise in anti-Asian bigotry.

Donald Trump abandoned plans to build homes around his seaside golf course near Los Angeles and turned to the tax code to offset the lost profits. In a special report, we examine the $25 million tax deduction he got for promising not to develop the land.

Rudy Giuliani has denied he had ever represented a Ukrainian national, a day after federal agents searched his Manhattan apartment and office as part of a probe into his business dealings in Ukraine. We explain what's next in the criminal investigation into Trump's former personal lawyer.

Rescue workers take a dead body into an ambulance on Mount Meron, Israel, where fatalities were reported among thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews gathered at the tomb of a 2nd-century sage, April 30, 2021. REUTERS/ Ronen Zvulun

WORLD

At least 44 people have been crushed to death at an over-crowded religious bonfire festival in Israel. Witnesses said people were asphyxiated or trampled in a tightly packed passageway, some going unnoticed until the PA system sounded an appeal to disperse, as crowds packed the site in Galilee in defiance of COVID-19 warnings.

Several Indian states have run out of COVID-19 vaccines a day before a planned widening of a nationwide inoculation drive, as new infections in the crisis-hit country hit another daily record. Here's what we know about the coronavirus variant that may be behind the surge in cases.

When Neldjibaye Madjissem graduated with a mathematics degree in 2015, he began searching for work as a school teacher. Six years on, he is still looking - and is angry. We examine the real threat to Chad's military rulers: unemployed youth.

Malaysian teenager Ain Husniza Saiful Nizam came home from school last week and posted a video on TikTok, taking a male teacher to task over an alleged joke about rape. The video went viral overnight, sparking a nationwide debate on misogyny and sexual violence in a country where such subjects are often considered taboo.

BUSINESS

Amazon.com posted record profits and signaled that consumers would keep spending in a growing U.S. economy. While brick-and-mortar stores closed, Amazon has attracted more than 200 million Prime loyalty subscribers, and recruited over 500,000 employees to keep up with surging demand.

EU regulators have accused Apple of distorting competition in the music streaming market, siding with Spotify in a case that could lead to a hefty fine and changes in the iPhone maker's lucrative business practices.

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has frozen pay raises for senior executives in 2021 and is instead giving junior staff bigger salary increases, sources say, in an effort to preserve its workforce amid a regulatory clampdown.

The automobile arm of Vietnam's largest conglomerate, Vingroup, is betting big on the U.S. market with its VinFast line of cars and hoping that electric SUVs and a battery leasing model will be enough to woo consumers away from homegrown market leaders like Tesla and General Motors.