Lockdown in Moscow was lifted suddenly last week. The explanation is simple: the government wants people to have a breather before a constitutional referendum scheduled for July 1. Amid rising social disaffection, every weapon in the Kremlin’s armory has been deployed to secure a ‘yes’ result. All the constitutional changes at stake are a formality except one — ‘re-setting’ President Vladimir Putin’s term count allowing him to remain president until the mid-2030s.

The government is preparing a plan to rescue Aeroflot through a significant buyout of its new shares, Reurters reports , citing sources close to the deal. Among the buyers of the additional issue, two sources named the state and VTB. According to one of them, RDIF will also take part in the deal. A spokesman for the fund said RDIF and its international partners are "exploring the possibility of investing" in Aeroflot.

The government returned to the discussion of the progressive scale of personal income tax. They can increase taxes for people with a salary of 165 thousand rubles Before voting for amendments to the Constitution, the government returned to the idea of ​​raising taxes for secured Russians. According to sources of RBC and Forbes, an increase in personal income tax rate from 13% to 15% for people who earn more than 2-3 million rubles per year is being discussed.

The veterans, who will sit on the podium next to Vladimir Putin during the parade, have been sent to a two-week isolation in a sanatorium, Bloomberg reports , citing two officials familiar with the details of the parade preparations. Bloomberg notes that Putin himself has been largely isolated outside of Moscow since early April, working from his residence in Novo-Ogaryovo.

Mars Corporation is preparing to change the logo of its Uncle Ben's, a brand of slow-cooking rice and related foods, according to Reuters. This decision is connected with nationwide protests over systemic racism. Since 1946, the Uncle Ben's packaging logo has featured an African-American man wearing a bow tie, representing the image of "Uncle Ben". It is believed that the head waiter of one of the Chicago hotels Frank Brown became the prototype.

The main news about the spread of coronavirus in Russia and in the world is June 17. We made the main business media in the country, now we are doing better-subscribe to the email newsletter of The Bell! The main thing in the world There are already more than 8 million coronavirus accumulated cases in the world, the United States has long stepped over 2 million, Brazil is approaching a million.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov urged users to collect fraudulent Facebook ads using their name. He does not rule out that they "may be claimed in the framework of lawsuits." Durov's claims were caused by an advertisement on the social network of a trading platform for pensioners, allegedly developed by the Durov brothers. In the example given by Durov, the scammers received a loan of 180 thousand rubles for a pensioner.

The government has returned to the idea of ​​additional taxation of relatively wealthy Russians, Forbes reports citing sources. Personal income tax for them can be raised up to 15%. This is again about a progressive scale for individuals, and the return to this idea is associated with a “request for social justice” during a pandemic, sources say.

TikTok owner ByteDance, China, saw its revenue rise to 40 billion yuan ($5.64 billion) from January to March 2020. This is 130% more than in the first quarter of 2019, writes Reuters. The main part of ByteDance's revenue came from advertising in China, namely in the news aggregator Jinri Toutiao and the Chinese analogue of TikTok - Douyin, and not in TikTok itself, the agency's interlocutors noted.

Last year, law enforcement officers illegally opened 190 criminal cases against businesses, Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov said during his first report to the Federation Council. The state of health of business cannot be called satisfactory, the supervision of law enforcement agencies must be strengthened, he stated. The Prosecutor General also named another figure: 5% of decisions on criminal prosecution and detention of entrepreneurs were made illegally.

In Moscow, the summer verandas of restaurants opened, and they were personally advertised by the mayor Sergei Sobyanin. However, they simultaneously jeopardize “self -preservation” (as they prefer to call social distance the metropolitan authorities) and do not cancel the losses of restaurateurs. We made the main business media in the country, now we are doing better-subscribe to the email newsletter of The Bell!

Against the background of the weakening of quarantine measures in discounters in May, the average check decreased by 5.8% compared to April, in supermarkets - by 3.6%, writes Romir . This is due to the fact that customers have the opportunity to visit stores more often. In absolute terms, the average Russian check amounted to 597 rubles and decreased by 0.6% (by 4 rubles) compared to April in stores of all categories. The average check fell the most in May in the Urals Federal District (-3%).

The owners of the network "Children's World" - AFK "Sistema" Vladimir Yevtushenkov and the Russian-Chinese Investment Fund (RCIF) - sold almost 16% of the company on the stock exchange, this is approximately 118 million securities worth 10.95 billion rubles. The placement of Detsky Mir's shares was the first successful placement of Russian securities this year, said Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of RDIF and Co-CEO of RCIF. Demand far exceeded supply, the company claims. 63% of investors were foreigners.

While entrepreneurs in European countries are suffering losses due to the lockdown, Malaysia, which supplies about 65% of the world's latex gloves, has become a factory for the production of billionaires, writes Bloomberg. Now there are four of them in the country, and two of them fell into this category this year. A surge in demand for gloves due to the coronavirus outbreak has seen protective stocks suddenly turn latex plantations in Southeast Asia into a get-rich-quick scheme.

In St. Petersburg, a debate began on the case of the terrorist community "Network" (Part 2 of Article 205.4 of the Criminal Code). The prosecutor asks the court to find the defendants 25-year-old Viktor Filinkov and 28-year-old Yuliy Boyarshinov guilty and to sentence them to imprisonment for 6 and 9 years, respectively. Filinkov denies involvement and talks about torture by FSB operatives. They shocked him during the arrest, trying to get a confession, reports his words "Mediazona".