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Good morning, I’m Mattha Busby with today’s essential stories.

Trump gets 2020 campaign under way with familiar attacks

And so “Make America Great Again” became ‘ “Keep America Great”. Five hundred days out from the election, President Donald Trump launched his campaign to stay in the White House in the key swing state of Florida, firing up resentment and distrust. Amid protests outside the stadium, Bernie Sanders swiftly rebutted Trump’s speech, denouncing it as “lies, distortions, and total absolute nonsense” and criticising him for hardly mentioning the climate crisis, or that “half of the people in this country are working paycheck to paycheck”. Here are the key takeaways.

No apology. En route to the rally, Trump again suggested the wrongfully convicted teenagers in the Central Park Five case were guilty and declined to apologise for taking out print ads in 1989 calling for their execution.

Coates to revisit case for reparations in congressional hearing

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ta-Nehisi Coates appears on NBC’s Meet the Press. Photograph: NBC NewsWire/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

The first congressional hearing on reparations in a decade will take place on Juneteenth, the 19 June holiday celebrating the emancipation of slaves in the US. The author Ta-Nehisi Coates propelled the debate over financial compensation for the descendants of slaves to the forefront of US discourse in his landmark essay The Case for Reparations, published in June 2014, and will testify at the hearings. Several Democratic presidential candidates have expressed support for the idea, but there is little consensus on how it should be pursued.

Mainstream idea. “I think people have stopped laughing, and that is really, really important,” Coates told the New Yorker. “Does it mean reparations tomorrow? No, it doesn’t. Does it mean end of the fight? No, it doesn’t.”

Crisis of confidence in vaccines in parts of Europe – survey

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A nurse mixes the MMR injection. Photograph: Alamy

Only 59% of people in western Europe and 50% in the east of the continent think vaccines are safe, compared with 79% worldwide, and 72% in North America, according to a global survey of attitudes towards science. France has the highest level of distrust, at 33%, despite having a good healthcare system. A recent Guardian investigation explored the links between anti-vax sentiment and anti-establishment populist politics.

Misinformation. Experts say social media acts as an amplifier of doubt, with false information disseminated within private groups and inaccessible forums. “Social media is highly volatile. It has totally changed the landscape.”

70 million people fleeing conflict and oppression worldwide

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A woman holds a child in front of Greek riot police outside a refugee camp near Thessaloniki. Photograph: Sakis Mitrolidis/AFP/Getty Images

The UN’s refugee agency has warned the number of people around the world forced to flee their homes has passed 70 million, one in every 108 people, for the first time since records began. The figure, about half of whom are children, is a conservative estimate because the full impact of the crisis in Venezuela is still not known. However, more than 4 million Venezuelans have fled their country, according to the UN, with many heading for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Country of origin. Five states account for more than two-thirds of all refugees: Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar and Somalia, according to the report, which did not include long-term Palestinian refugees.

Crib sheet

Hundreds of Roma people were forcibly evicted from a village in western Russia, the head of the village council has admitted. Ninety homes were abandoned after a deadly brawl along racial lines led to the exodus.

The benefits of employment on mental health might be gained from just one day’s work a week, with research suggesting there is no extra mental benefit to be earned from working longer than eight hours a week.

Women in Japan outperformed their male peers in entrance exams for a medical school in the first year since it made changes after admitting to rigging procedures that gave men an unfair advantage.

Permafrost at outposts in the Canadian Arctic is thawing 70 years earlier than predicted, an expedition has found, with experts indicating it shows the climate is warmer than at any time in the last 5,000 years.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A gay power protest in New York’s Times Square in 1969. The demonstration later turned into a riot. Composite: Richard Corkery/New York Daily News/Getty Images

Must-reads

Stonewall: a journey into the night that unleashed gay liberation

Today we launch our Stonewall 50th anniversary series, which will continue through next week. Sick of vigilante threats, police harassment and random violence in the street, gay men and their trans and lesbian peers met on 28 June 1969 in Greenwich Village, in a bar called the Stonewall Inn. What followed changed the face of America and the world at large, reports Ed Pilkington.

Female drivers feel abandoned by Uber and Lyft after reporting sexual assault

Drivers who have experienced a range of safety issues say the ride-hailing companies offer little to no support. One woman said a rider demanded sexual favours and grabbed her thighs and front area, before fleeing when someone came to her aid. He was arrested and issued with a restraining order after harassing her on social media, but Lyft did little else but deactivate his account.

The 14 things you need to know before you go vegan

The health, environmental, and ethical benefits of veganism are indisputable, but it is hard to know where to start. Some tips: good sources of protein include chickpeas, peanut butter and pumpkin seeds, you can get B12 from yeast extract, steer clear of processed foods if you’re on a limited budget, try jackfruit or seitan if you start craving meat and don’t give up if you slip – not every vegan can be perfect.

Later-in-life virgins – ‘At my age, it becomes a red flag’

Taboos are being vanquished but even in this seemingly open-minded era, one has endured – never having had sex at all. Elle Hunt speaks to four thirtysomething virgins who explain how they deal with the stigma, and indeed, what has led to their abstention. The reasons are often complex, but being a virgin “still seems to be something that can be only mocked or shamed,” says Richard.

Comment

Fifty years ago, the author Edmund White witnessed the Stonewall riots. He writes about how African Americans and Puerto Ricans were among those leading the fight, but that the first group to benefit from the freedoms won were white men.

The struggle continues among young lesbians, people of color, the trans population, and all those living under dangerously rightwing, hostile religious regimes.

Sport

As the dust settles upon the Raptors’ NBA championship victory, bringing home Toronto’s first major league title, attention turns to how fandom can impede upon the quest to be the “good” Canadian sports fan.

The time has come for Manchester United to sell Paul Pogba – we have already heard far too much about the French player’s hopes and desires, writes Paul Wilson.

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