While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, July 30

Google and Facebook took the sharpest jabs for alleged abuse of their market power from Democrats and Republicans on Wednesday in a much-anticipated congressional hearing with four of America's most prominent tech chief executive officers in the hot seat.

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos, Alphabet-owned Google's Sundar Pichai and Apple's Tim Cook - whose companies have a combined market value of about US$5 trillion (S$6.8 trillion) - parried a range of accusations from lawmakers via videoconference before the House Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel.

Though it was Bezos' first congressional testimony, he appeared the least fazed by his grilling.

Cook drew fewer barbed questions than Bezos, but handled them efficiently, while Zuckerberg took the most damage, stumbling a few times when confronted with internal emails.

Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert, who steadfastly refused to wear a mask during the coronavirus pandemic, said on Wednesday he has tested positive for Covid-19, leading at least three of his colleagues to say they would self-quarantine.

Attorney-General William Barr, who testified to a committee hearing on Tuesday in which Gohmert participated, will be tested for coronavirus as a result, a Justice Department spokesman said.

A US representative from Texas, where coronavirus cases have surged since the state reopened, Gohmert said he tested positive in a prescreening at the White House and would self-quarantine for 10 days.

Joe Biden's vice-presidential pick has been one of Washington's best kept secrets but a supposedly accidental news publication by Politico and Biden's own teasingly displayed notes are raising expectations that the winner is Kamala Harris.

Speculation over the choice of VP is a parlour game played every four years in Washington, but this time the stakes are unusually high.

Biden would be 78 on taking office - the oldest president ever - and he has hinted that he might not seek a second term, making his deputy the prime candidate to take on the party's nomination.

The effects of shrinking habitats on wildlife are more profound and wide ranging than often assumed, a study published on Wednesday found, as researchers warned that many forecasts underestimate how many species are lost in fragmented environments.

Human activity is devouring ever more of the natural world, destroying forests, splintering habitats into isolated areas, while polluting land and sea.

This is driving the sixth mass extinction event in the last half-billion years - the last one wiped out land-based dinosaurs around 66 million years ago.

Superstar singer Madonna has been censored on Instagram for spreading false information about a supposed cure for Covid-19 after she shared clips from a video also re-tweeted by Donald Trump.

In her post to 15.4 million followers, Madonna claimed that a proven vaccine had been available for months but it was being kept secret "to let the rich get richer and the poor and sick get sicker."

She attached a video of US physician Stella Immanuel who praised hydroxychloroquine as a miracle coronavirus cure.