STORY: Chinese migrant worker Sun Wu recently showed Reuters his latest lodging, shared with a fellow migrant worker.

A quarantine center housing at least 80 people in disaster relief tents - the culmination of his ordeal in locked-down Shanghai.

“Inside each tent, there are plugboards, light bulbs and two beds. The staff provided a portable toilet... But it doesn't work really well, because the toilets are all placed inside the tent. If you use it inside, the whole tent will smell.

China's uncompromising "zero COVID" policies have battered the world's second-largest economy.

Many of Shanghai's 25 million residents complain about lost income, difficulties sourcing food and mental stress.

But migrant workers, unable to work from home or earn steady pay, have it much worse. And there are more than 290 million from China's vast countryside.

When the city began its strict lockdown two months ago, Sun lost his job as a waiter – and his spot in a migrant worker dormitory.

He began sorting government deliveries for locked-down residents to make ends meet, living in the warehouse where he worked.

But when he left to look after his sick girlfriend, COVID rules meant he couldn't return to either place.

With train services halted, returning home to the country’s southwest wasn't an option either.

After sleeping in his trusty little tent in parks and plazas, he says he was told by police he was on his own when he sought help.

The despondent 22-year-old took to social media in mid-May, posting on the twitter-like Weibo platform that all he wanted was a place to sleep and eat.

“I felt that I had completely run out of options. I've never felt so wronged."

The post went viral, drawing outrage at the lack of support for migrants.

Soon, the authorities reached out to him and sent him to this government site.

When asked for comment on the wider issue, China's Ministry of Civil Affairs said it "attaches great importance to the relief and assistance work for people in distress due to the epidemic" and had introduced measures including a hotline and a "one-time" unemployment subsidy for uninsured migrant workers who have not worked for three consecutive months.

Sun said he saw hundreds of other homeless migrants like him - but Valarie Tan, an analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, believes the number could be in the hundreds of thousands, or even millions.

"We just have to remember a third of China's workforce are migrant workers. And they are concentrated in these big cities which are the worst hit in this round of lockdown. So, the numbers are definitely likely to be quite substantial."

Tan says migrants are low priority for the Beijing government.

This is despite President Xi Jinping’s policy objective of "common prosperity", as he moves toward a historic third leadership term this year.

But while the country’s financial hub has flagged plans to reopen soon, Shanghai’s lockdowns have laid bare the deep veins of inequality in Chinese society.

STORY: Stories that made us smile this weekLocation: Cannes, FranceStars gathered to celebrate women in CannesViola Davis was honored with this year's Women in Motion Award(Viola Davis, actor and producer) "You know, I always feel like the people who are the change makers are the people who've been the most affected by the lack of change. That's what I see. And that's what gives me hope, yeah."Location: San Jose de Bolivar, VenezuelaThis 113-year-old Venezuelan was named the oldest person in the worldby the Guinness World RecordsJuan Vicente Perez Mora Location: San Miguel, PeruPeruvians held a 'crazy car' contestAll the vehicles were made from recycled materialsLocation: Ottawa, CanadaCanadians celebrated Britain’s Queen Elizabeth's 70 years on the throne by holding a parade of Corgi dogsthe breed favored by the Queen(Kim Bertens and Jamie Paulson, Corgi owners) "Congratulations, and long live the Queen."''Congratulations.''

Dutch rider Koen Bouwman won a sprint finish in the mountains for stage 19 of the Giro d'Italia at Santuario di Castelmonte on Friday as Richard Carapaz held the leader's pink jersey.

STORY: The protesters held signs, red splattered clothing and shouted, "NRA go away," as hundreds of members of the nation's biggest gun lobby arrived at the convention hall.Tuesday's fatal shooting of 19 Uvalde, Texas, students and two teachers by an 18-year-old gunman equipped with an AR-15 style semiautomatic assault rife is expected to limit attendance at the group's first convention in three years.The weekend convention is the five million-member group's first annual get together after two prior cancellations due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Is your out-of-office reply not enough for you to let go of the reins? Icelandic horses can now reply to your emails instead, in a free service just launched by a tourism marketing agency.

Rivian has hired a new chief operating officer to lead the restructuring and alignment of its operations, the automaker said Thursday. Frank Klein will join the company on June 1 as Rivian’s new COO to oversee the automaker’s production, manufacturing engineering and supply chain. The automaker also said its head of manufacturing, Charly Mwangi, is leaving the company, casting doubt on Rivian’s ability to meet its goal of building 25,000 vehicles in 2022.

The next-gen Toyota Tacoma is out testing these days, and it appears to be taking a page out of the new Toyota Tundra’s book for its rear suspension.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accuses Western countries of waging a "total war" on Russia, its people and its culture as Moscow pushes on with its "special military operation" in Ukraine.

Shanghai residents gets haircuts and massages on the sidewalk, and wander around mostly-empty roads as they are released briefly from their Covid lockdowns as the city slowly starts to reopen. Some residents are given temporary entry-exit passes that allow them to leave their residential compounds for a few hours in a week, but remain locked down for the rest of the time.

The United States on Friday imposed fresh sanctions over North Korea's missile launches, including on two Russian banks, after Russia and China blocked action by the UN Security Council.

In a tiny Texas town called Utopia, a sign at the entrance to its only school warns that staffers are packing guns -- a measure designed to prevent shootings like the one that left 19 kids and two teachers dead down the road in Uvalde.

China's premier has sounded an unusually stark warning about the world's second-largest economy, saying it must return to normal as the country's zero-Covid strategy bites into growth.

Australia's conservatives appear poised to install hardline China hawk Peter Dutton as the country's new opposition leader, after the party was swept from power at last weekend's election.

China's foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin accuses US Secretary of State Antony Blinken of "smearing" the country, after Blinken delivered a speech calling for action to counter Beijing's influence. "Blinken's speech is verbose and full of schemes," Wenbin says.

The leftist leaders of Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia railed against the United States Friday in Havana, days ahead of the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, whose invitation list has overshadowed the agenda.

Russian forces are closing in on several urban centres in east Ukraine, including the strategically located Severodonetsk and Lysychansk

Enea Bastianini will hope to crown the return of spectators to his home Italian MotoGP on Sunday with victory and potentially go past defending champion and series leader Fabio Quartararo in the standings.

Back in Colombia, Luis Diaz's family are dreaming of Champions League glory. His club, Liverpool, face Real Madrid in the final on Saturday May 28. As the country's first indigenous football star, his rise to the top is an inspiration to those following in his barefoot footsteps on the dirt pitches of Barrancas.

Eleven newborn babies died in a hospital fire in the western Senegalese city of Tivaouane, the president of the country said late Wednesday.

The National Rifle Association is the central and fiercest promoter of gun rights in America, and is again holding its annual convention days after a mass school shooting.

Nine out of 10 Singapore adults still wear a mask outdoors, despite no such requirement under the eased COVID-19 curbs, according to a survey.