Briefly

UNITED STATES

$4m settlement over black man's death

The family of Manuel Ellis, a black man killed by police two years ago as he pleaded for breath, has reached a $4 million proposed settlement with one of the two government agencies it named in a wrongful-death lawsuit. The Pierce County Council was scheduled to vote on Tuesday on whether to approve the settlement, reported The News Tribune. Ellis, 33, died on March 3, 2020, just weeks before George Floyd's death triggered a nationwide reckoning on race and policing.

SWEDEN

2 women killed in attack on school

Two people were killed in an attack on a school in the Swedish city of Malmo on Monday. An 18-year-old man was arrested at the scene, but police have not released any details about the incident, which claimed the lives of two women in their 50s. Approximately 50 other people were in the building when the attack took place late in the afternoon, many of them high school students rehearsing a musical, according to local media. Local media also reported that the arrested man was a student at the school, although police have yet to confirm the detail. Police will release more information at a news conference on Tuesday.

JAPAN

Parliament approves record $900b budget

Japan's parliament on Tuesday approved a record 107.6 trillion yen ($900 billion) budget for fiscal 2022 to cater to ballooning social security and defense costs as well as for provisions to counter COVID-19. The budget for the year starting on April 1 was passed by the upper house of Japan's bicameral parliament, after it was approved in late February by the lower house and has hit a record level for the 10th successive year. The allocation for spending on social security, which comprises a third of total spending is the largest-ever at 36.27 trillion yen, compared to 35.83 trillion yen in the previous year.

AUSTRALIA

Over 9m people have insufficient childcare

More than 9 million Australians have insufficient access to childcare facilities, according to an analysis released on Tuesday. The report from Victoria University's Mitchell Institute found that 28 percent of metropolitan and 52 percent of regional Australians lived in regions deemed "childcare deserts", where three or more children aged under 4 were vying for every available vacancy, while a million more people were even worse off not having any access to childcare. The report found that the facilities, which are run privately to make profits, were concentrated around the nation's wealthiest areas.

Xinhua - Agencies