Federal agents clashed with protesters, accusing them of damaging vehicles and throwing projectiles
Smoke filled the air outside a police precinct in Portland, Oregon early on Saturday, as authorities worked to clear a crowd accused of damaging patrol vehicles, throwing projectiles and pointing lasers at officers.
Related: The Department of Homeland Security is a rogue agency. Democrats must take action | Trevor Timm
Continue reading...The death of George Floyd in the US sparked the UK’s biggest anti-racism protests in centuries. We spoke to 50 young people at the heart of these rallies
Continue reading...Attorney general William Barr has said he does not generally believe there is systemic racism in US police departments. During a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Democratic congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas questioned Barr on whether he considered the killing of George Floyd to be indicative of a systemic problem in policing. Amid crosstalk between Lee and Barr, the attorney general said: ‘I don’t agree there is systemic racism in police departments generally in this country.’
Continue reading...Lawyers for the family of George Floyd have announced they have filed a lawsuit against the city of Minneapolis for Floyd's death. 'This complaint shows what we have said all along, that Mr Floyd died because the weight of the entire Minneapolis police department was on his neck,' said Ben Crump, one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit.
Continue reading...Wearing a mask may feel like being muzzled to some, but across the world people are using masks to send political messages
Continue reading...In fact, studies have found that Black Americans are up to 3.5 times as likely to be killed by law enforcement
Donald Trump has once again stoked racial grievances, telling an interviewer who asked a question about the police killing of George Floyd that white people also get killed by law enforcement in the US.
In an echo of his comments on white nationalist marchers and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, when he said there were “fine people on both sides”, the president did not take the opportunity to talk about the problem of racially-motivated police brutality on Tuesday but switched to talk about white victims.
Continue reading...Derek Chauvin, the officer kneeling on his neck, replied: ‘It takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk’
Newly released transcripts of the minutes leading up to George Floyd’s death reveal he told officers “I can’t breathe” more than 20 times, only to have his plea dismissed by Derek Chauvin, the white officer pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck, who said: “It takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk.”
Floyd’s dying words have become a rallying cry at demonstrations around the world amid a reckoning with systemic racism and police brutality. The chilling transcripts of body camera video recordings that were made public on Wednesday provide the most detailed account yet of what happened after police apprehended Floyd on 25 May.
Continue reading...An honest conversation about race has to recognise the marginalisation and exploitation of many aid workers
The global push for racial justice following the death of George Floyd in the US has resulted in a flurry of solidarity statements from within the international aid industry, including the UN.
After a shaky start, where its secretary general, António Guterres, was forced to backtrack on a note to staff that suggested they shouldn’t participate in Black Lives Matter (BLM), UN People of African Descent (Unpad) launched a survey to “allow staff to provide data, including on the extent of perceptions of systemic inequality inside the UN, its manifestations, and the responsiveness of the organisation to reports of incidents of systemic racism”.
Continue reading...
The White House is set to host its largest event since the start of the coronavirus pandemic with tonight’s Salute to America. Hundreds of chairs and tables have been set up on the South Lawn, where Trump will deliver a speech he says will celebrate American heritage. An administration spokesperson says social distancing “will be observed” and face masks will be offered but not mandatory.
Trump was first inspired to stage a mass display of pop and power on America’s birthday when attended the Bastille Day military parade as the guest of French president Emmanuel Macron back in 2017. An initial 2018 push to stage a parade that would have seen soldiers marching and tanks rolling down the streets of Washington was scuttled amid accusations that he was politicizing an important holiday, emulating displays in authoritarian countries and wasting taxpayers’ money.
President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, along with the Department of Interior, will host the 2020 Salute to America on the South Lawn of the White House and Ellipse on Saturday, July 4. In addition to music, military demonstrations, and flyovers to honor our Nation’s service members and veterans, the President will deliver remarks that celebrate our independence and salute our amazing heritage. The evening will culminate with a spectacular fireworks display over the National Mall.
For 4 July, in the summer of protests over the killing of George Floyd, a picture gallery from Jameelah Nuriddin and Erin Hammond.
The eight images capture a giant 200-year-old flag, a young black woman with a giant afro, and various postures combining the pledge of allegiance and black power poses. They are accompanied by a manifesto that mirrors the preamble to the US constitution, written by Nuriddin, who is also the model in the series:
Related: Imagine a 'New America': reclaiming the American flag – in pictures
Continue reading...A Minnesota judge on Monday warned that he was likely to move the trials of four police officers charged in George Floyd’s killing out of Minneapolis if public officials and attorneys do not stop talking publicly about the case.
Judge Peter Cahill stopped short of issuing a gag order on attorneys, but he said one is likely if public statements continue.
Continue reading...Home Office commissioner Sara Khan reveals surge in online hate material since death of George Floyd
The Black Lives Matter movement has been aggressively exploited by the UK’s far right, which has recruited and radicalised people on the back of its success, the government’s chief adviser on extremism has warned.
Sara Khan, Britain’s first counter-extremism commissioner, said far-right activists had used the death of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter (BLM) to propagate white supremacist narratives online.
Continue reading...The US president has said he would issue an executive order regarding historical monuments, as the movement to remove Confederate-era statues and other memorials considered racist gains momentum across the country. Calls to take the monuments down follow a wave of protests after the 25 May death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man killed by police in Minneapolis. Ongoing demonstrations have accompanied calls to address racism in policing and other reforms.
Continue reading...The Black Lives Matter protests in the US, which escalated in response to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, have brought the little-known but decades-old campaign to abolish US police into the spotlight. But what are abolitionists calling for, and how would a police-free society work? Josh Toussaint-Strauss explores the arguments for abolition with a campaigner from MPD150 and Reclaim the Block, and also Sam Levin, LA correspondent for Guardian US
Continue reading...The Rev Al Sharpton condemns President Donald Trump while speaking at the Juneteenth celebration in Tulsa, Oklahoma
Continue reading...Thousands of people have taken to the streets across the US to mark Juneteenth, the holiday marking the end of slavery and those who fought for it. Combining the words “June” and “19th”, the holiday commemorates the anniversary of the day in 1865 when the Union army major general Gordon Granger read out Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation to remaining enslaved African Americans on a plantation in Galveston, Texas.
The lawsuit filed by the US against John Bolton aims to stop the former administration official “ from compromising national security by publishing a book containing classified information.”
But it states that “on or around” 27 April, Ellen Knight, who was reviewing Bolton’s manuscript, “had completed her review and was of the judgment that the manuscript draft did not contain classified information”.
Bolton’s book The Room Where It Happened will be a critical account of the Trump administration, according to the publisher.
Bolton “shows a president addicted to chaos, who embraced our enemies and spurned our friends, and was deeply suspicious of his own government”, according to Simon and Schuster.
Continue reading...The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (otherwise known as Chaz or Chop) was established by George Floyd protesters after the Seattle police department vacated its East Precinct building on the site. Over the past week, organizers have created a community garden, painted murals, opened free co-op grocery stores – all in an effort to push the message of Black Lives Matter forward
Continue reading...Photographer Henry J Kamara writes about his experience photographing the Black Lives Matter protest in London last weekend
Continue reading...The family of Rayshard Brooks, who was shot and killed by a white police officer, have paid tribute to him and told of their devastation. During a press conference in Atlanta, Georgia, Brooks’s cousin said the trust between the Atlanta community and its police department had been broken and called for the officer involved to be charged and convicted.
The press conference comes a day after a medical examiner concluded that Brooks, 27, died by homicide caused by gunshot wounds to the back
Overnight protesters have torn down a statue of Thomas Jefferson outside a high school that bears his name in North Portland, Oregon.
The school was the starting point for a 1,000 strong Black Lives Matter protest on Sunday evening. The statue was still intact at that point, and reports suggest it was pulled down by a smaller group after the main march had departed.
There’s a couple of stories that are breaking at the moment - one is that a US Air Force F15C fighter aircraft has crashed off the coast of England near Middlesbrough. The status of the pilot is not yet known.
Continue reading...