Category Archives: Mississippi

US experts warn new Covid variants and states reopening may lead to fourth wave

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Cases could plateau at a point equivalent to summer 2020 peak, while vaccines have reached relatively few people

Public health experts encouraged Americans to continue social distancing and wearing masks at a potentially critical inflection point in the pandemic – one in which highly effective vaccines could provide relief, but fervor to reopen public life could unintentionally spread new Covid-19 variants.

The warnings come the same week Texas and Mississippi flung open the doors to normal social life in their states.

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Neera Tanden withdraws from nomination to direct budget office – live

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Tanden’s letter to Biden requesting her withdrawal said:

Dear President Biden,

I am writing to you to withdraw my nomination for Director of the Office of Management and Budget. It has been an honor of a lifetime to be considered for this role and for the faith placed in me.

The withdrawal marks the first cabinet nominee by Biden to fail to get confirmation.

“I have accepted Neera Tanden’s request to withdraw her name from nomination for Director of the Office of Management and Budget,” Biden said in a statement. “I have the utmost respect for her record of accomplishment, her experience and her counsel, and I look forward to having her serve in a role in my Administration. She will bring valuable perspective and insight to our work.”

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US Ice officers ‘used torture to make Africans sign own deportation orders’

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Cameroonians say officers choked, beat and threatened to kill them, as lawyers tell of pre-election removal drive

US immigration officers allegedly tortured Cameroonian asylum seekers to force them to sign their own deportation orders, in what lawyers and activists describe as a brutal scramble to fly African migrants out of the country in the run-up to the elections.

Many of the Cameroonian migrants in a Mississippi detention centre refused to sign, fearing death at the hands of Cameroonian government forces responsible for widespread civilian killings, and because they had asylum hearings pending.

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Marco and Laura could hit US coast as hurricanes, forecasters say

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  • Louisiana in path of two tropical storms now in Gulf
  • Mississippi governor heralds ‘unprecedented times’

Tropical Storm Marco was swirling over the Gulf of Mexico early on Sunday, heading for a possible hit on the Louisiana coast as a hurricane, while Tropical Storm Laura knocked utilities out as it battered Hispaniola, following a track forecast to take it to the same part of the US coast – also as a hurricane.

Related: Could the US and Caribbean be heading for their worst hurricane season?

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Mississippi lawmakers vote to remove Confederate emblem from state flag

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Governor Tate Reeves has indicated he will sign the bill to replace the state flag and create a commission to design a new one

Mississippi legislators have voted to replace the state flag, the last in the nation to feature the Confederate battle emblem, which has been condemned as racist.

The state House and the Senate voted to remove the current flag on Sunday and create a commission that will design a new flag that cannot include the Confederate symbol and that must have the words “In God We Trust”. Mississippi governor Tate Reeves has signalled he will sign the measure in the coming days.

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Coronavirus US live: Trump abruptly leaves press conference after clash with reporters

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Trump ends the briefing on a very abrupt and sour note.

Asked by CBS White House Correspondent Weijia Jiang why he is so fixated on comparing the US’ testing capability to other countries as opposed to focusing on the lag that still exists here, Trump snapped: “Maybe that’s a question you should ask China. Don’t ask me, ask China that question, okay?”

Trump throws a fit when @kaitlancollins of CNN tries to ask him a question and abruptly ends the press conference pic.twitter.com/58AVZ9CABl

Trump walked out of his own news conference after accusing @weijia of asking a "nasty question" and refusing to take @kaitlancollins's questions after calling on her.

Trump spent Mother’s Day sending conspiratorial tweets about his predecessor. In one tweet he accused Obama of committing the “biggest political crime in American history, by far!” Trump.

Asked to name the crime he is accusing Obama of committing, Trump replied: “Obamagate. it’s been going on for a long time it’s been going on before I even got elected.”

Related: Trump charges Obama with 'biggest political crime in American history'

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Will justice finally be done for Emmett Till? Family hope a 65-year wait may soon be over

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Not a day has been spent in jail nor a penny paid in compensation for the brutal murder of a 14-year-old boy in Mississippi that helped spark the civil rights movement

Thelma Wright Edwards knows this is the last chance for justice for Emmett Till. The next few weeks and months will determine whether there will ever be closure for her beloved cousin “Bobo”, as the family affectionately call the child.

The Guardian has learned that a reinvestigation of the boy’s murder that has been carried out by the FBI over the past three years could be wrapped up in weeks. For Thelma and the rest of the Till family, a decades-long struggle for justice is fast approaching its conclusion.

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Tornadoes rip through US south leaving trail of devastation and killing dozens

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  • More than two dozen tornadoes reported in four states
  • Louisiana sheriff reports ‘extreme flooding’ seen rarely ‘if ever’

At least six people were killed after severe storms tore through a number of southern states late on Wednesday, adding to weeks of extreme weather that had already killed more than two dozen people and destroyed hundreds of homes.

Related: Tornadoes and storms hit US south as six killed in Mississippi

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Storms tear through US south, leaving at least 19 people dead

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Storms caused flooding, mudslides and power outages, killing 11 people in Mississippi and six people in Georgia

Severe weather has swept across the southern US, killing at least 19 people and damaging hundreds of homes from Louisiana into the Appalachian mountains.

Many spent part of the night sheltering in basements, closets and bathtubs as sirens wailed to warn of possible tornadoes.

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Tornado strikes Louisiana as powerful storm could affect over a dozen states

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Twister destroyed buildings in Monroe, Louisiana, while local media said at least two tornadoes touched down in central Texas

A tornado strike destroyed homes and left a trail of devastation across parts of Louisiana on Sunday, as forecasters warned that a powerful Easter storm could affect more than a dozen states and millions of people before the early hours of Monday.

The storm provided a dilemma for public safety officials trying to find the balance between wanting people to stay in lockdown for the coronavirus pandemic and wanting them to leave their homes for shelter if conditions worsened.

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‘A perfect storm’: poverty and race add to Covid-19 toll in US deep south

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Whole families are falling victim as African Americans are hit disproportionately hard by the coronavirus pandemic

Last weekend, at two churches in New Orleans, two pastors read from separate passages of the Bible as they buried four members of the same family. Each had died within days of each other after contracting the novel coronavirus.

Related: 'A nightmare all over again': after surviving Katrina, New Orleans battles Covid-19

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Joe Biden hopes to cement lead in crucial Democratic primaries

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Bernie Sanders, second in the race, campaigns in Michigan hoping to win the state with the most delegates

Joe Biden is hoping to cement his position as frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for president on Tuesday, as millions of voters in six states have their say in the next round of primary election contests.

For Bernie Sanders – the second of two major remaining candidates in the race – the six primaries in Michigan, Washington, Missouri, Mississippi, Idaho and North Dakota will be a crucial test of whether he can reverse the momentum the former vice-president enjoys coming out of his victories in the Super Tuesday states last week, and prevent him from extending his delegate count lead.

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For America’s black politicians, winning an election can lead to jail | Cliff Albright

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The motivations behind today’s efforts to overturn elections and remove black elected officials are not very different than Reconstruction-era motivations

On 5 November, Hester Jackson-McCray, a black woman, narrowly defeated Republican incumbent Ashley Henley by 14 votes in a heated race for a seat in the Mississippi house of representatives.

Shortly after, Henley asked the Republican-dominated Mississippi house to overturn the election results, based on claims including that one precinct didn’t collect voter signatures (a technicality required to process ballots in the state) and that her campaign had found three uncounted paper ballots. Jackson-McCray, meanwhile, pointed out that the election had been run by the Republicans – Henley’s party – making it unlikely that she had manipulated the race in her favor. This turn of events was particularly surprising because the Republican party tends to cast doubts on the existence of voter suppression, the idea that political parties find ways to prevent Americans from voting, calling it a Democratic myth.

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Curtis Flowers’ conviction overturned over removal of black jurors

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Justice Brett Kavanaugh said Flowers’ trial record showed ‘relentless effort’ by prosecutor to rid jury of black individuals

The supreme court has thrown out the murder conviction and death sentence of a black man in Mississippi because of a prosecutor’s efforts to keep African Americans off the jury.

The justices ruled 7-2 that the removal of black prospective jurors had deprived Curtis Flowers of a fair trial.

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