Morning Report

Thousands turned out in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch yesterday to protest against the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

But the large gatherings have angered some politicians. Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says the flouting of the Alert Level 2 rules at the marches has to be addressed by Cabinet today.

He says the breaching of mass gathering and social distancing rules should have resulted in prosecution for the organisers.

Peters has already publicised his difference of opinion with his Cabinet colleagues over the speed in which the country is moving alert levels.

He told political reporter Jo Moir that if police aren't going to enforce the rules then the country should move to Alert Level 1.

A man was shot and killed in Louisville, Kentucky, on Sunday night after police officers and National Guard troops began firing into a crowd. - but a tense confrontation in the middle of a crowded street was partially defused when a black woman stepped forward and offered a policeman in riot gear a hug.

They embraced for nearly a minute.

In Birmingham, Alabama protesters started to tear down a Confederate monument that the city had previously covered with a tarp amid a lawsuit between the state attorney general and the city.

In Boston, a police SUV was set ablaze near the State House. In Philadelphia, police officers in riot gear and an armored vehicle used pepper spray to try to repel rioters and looters.

A wall of officers blocked an entrance ramp to Interstate 676 in the city, where the mass transit system suspended service starting at 6pm as part of a citywide curfew.

In New York, demonstrators marched across the Brooklyn and Williamsburg Bridges, snarling traffic.

The Manhattan Bridge was briefly shut down to car traffic.

Chaos erupted in Union Square at around 10 pm, with flames leaping up two stories from trash cans and piles of street debris.

The night before in Union Square, the mayor's daughter, Chiara de Blasio, 25, was among the protesters arrested, according to a police official.

In Chicago, the police superintendent, David Brown, excoriated the looters on Sunday as Governor JB Pritzker activated the National Guard at the city's request.

News from the rural and farming sector.

Auckland's private tertiary institutes have put their hands up for a proposed trial quarantine system that would allow foreign students into the country.

The city's council has suggested piloting such a system with the University of Auckland.

But Paul Chalmers from Independent Tertiary Education New Zealand told our education correspondent, John Gerritsen, the city's private institutes are better placed to run a pilot.

A brief update from the business sector.

More than 30 percent of Kaikōura's GDP comes from tourism but with international borders shut business' are relying on domestic tourism.

Alpine Pacific Holiday Park owner Lee Boot says while they can have up to 200 people stay, they are lucky to even get one booking a day at the moment. 

She told RNZ reporter Meriana Johnsen they struggled in the aftermath of the Kaikōura earthquake, but this is more difficult.

Demonstrations over the death of African American man George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer have erupted across the US and around the world.

Dozens of American cities have introduced evening curfews, as violence and looting saw the deployment of the National Guard to at least 26 states and the District of Columbia.

In Minneapolis, where Floyd died, protestors defied an 8pm curfew to continue protests into their sixth day.

Brandt Williams, a reporter for Minnesota Public Radio in Minneapolis, speaks to Susie Ferguson.

Donald Trump tells governors to "dominate" as protests against police brutality and extrajudicial killings continue across the United States Black Lives Matter demonstrations continue across the US and around the world Winston Peters argues the flouting of level two rules at Black Lives Matter marches here raises the rationale for continuing with covid restrictions How well did the holiday weekend go for the country's tourist hot spots .. we'll cross to tourist operaters across the country.

It's Friday so we cross the ditch to Canberra to talk to our correspondent Kerry-Anne Walsh.

It's a missing persons notice of a very different kind. An Invercargill man has taken out an ad in the Southland Times calling for any sightings of his missing cow.

The "solid black Heifer", which is described as being "mildly agitated", was in the sale yard when it broke free from its enclosure and made a run for it.

Runaway cow owner Terry Cairns speaks to Susie Ferguson.