AP review finds no evidence of mass hysterectomies but files show growing allegations of operations women did not fully understand
Sitting across from her lawyer at an immigration detention center in rural Georgia, Mileidy Cardentey Fernandez unbuttoned her jail jumpsuit to show the scars on her abdomen. There were three small, circular marks.
Related: Ice hysterectomy allegations in line with US's long and racist history of eugenics | Moira Donegan
Continue reading...The top congressional Democrat, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has joined mounting calls for an investigation into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention centre in Georgia accused of performing hysterectomies on migrant women held there without their full consent.
Pelosi branded the substance of allegations presented by a whistleblowing nurse “a staggering abuse of human rights”.
Continue reading...A sheriff’s deputy in Georgia has been fired after being captured on video repeatedly punching a Black man during a traffic stop, authorities said on Sunday.
Related: Two Los Angeles sheriff's deputies wounded in Compton attack
Continue reading...Videos have shown congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene voicing racist, antisemitic and Islamophobic views
Marjorie Taylor Greene, a businesswoman who has expressed racist views and support for the far-right conspiracy theory QAnon, has won the Republican nomination for Georgia’s 14th congressional district.
Greene beat the neurosurgeon John Cowan in a primary runoff for the open seat on Tuesday in the deep-red district in north-west Georgia, despite several Republican officials denouncing her campaign after videos surfaced in which she expressed racist, antisemitic and anti-Muslim views.
Continue reading...Coronavirus has been allowed to run amok by governors and the president, spreading inexorably into the rural heart of America
A letter landed on the desk of the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, this week that given the public health catastrophe swirling all around him might give him pause. His state is one of 21 across the US that have been placed by the White House coronavirus taskforce in the “red zone”, indicating the disease is now so prevalent that immediate restrictions must be imposed to avoid dire consequences.
Kemp, a Republican governor and Donald Trump ally, has adopted a controversial approach to Covid-19. Since early July the virus has roared across his state, with new infections rising sharply to top a devastating tally of 182,000.
Continue reading...US health body highlights risks of reopening after outbreaks in state of Georgia and in Israel
Coronavirus may be more easily transmitted in school and summer camp settings than previously understood, after the emergence of new details of outbreaks in the US state of Georgia and in Israel that have underscored the risks of school reopenings.
A report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) into an outbreak at a summer camp in Georgia suggests children – even asymptomatic cases – may play an important role in community transmission of Covid-19.
Continue reading...The Guardian has found that millions have been spent to implement and defend laws widely regarded to be ineffective and discriminatory
Restrictive ‘voter identification’ laws pushed by Republicans, and widely regarded to be ineffective and discriminatory, have cost taxpayers at least $36m in just a few states, the Guardian can reveal.
It’s well documented that restrictive voter ID laws are ineffective and discriminatory. The type of voter fraud they claim to prevent is a myth, and the burden of showing an ID disproportionately lands on students, low-income voters, and African Americans.
Continue reading...The killing of a young black man who was jogging in a Georgia town when he was shot dead has become a part of national debate
A grand jury has returned indictments on the three suspects in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a young black man who was accosted and shot dead as he went for a jog in a Georgia town, US media has reported.
The killing sparked widespread outrage and has since become a key part of an intense national debate around police killings and racism.
Continue reading...29 states reported a jump in cases, while Trump says increased testing is a problem: ‘It makes us look like we have more cases’
More than half of all US states have reported a rise in new coronavirus cases, with some breaking daily records. Amid fears of a second wave of Covid-19 infections and deaths, public health officials have warned that the first is far from over.
Related: ‘New York always comes back’: workers return as city enters phase two of reopening
Continue reading...Chechen leader and Moscow deny sending hitman after journalist’s expletive-laden TV tirade
Georgia has thwarted a plot to assassinate a journalist who made an expletive-laden attack on Vladimir Putin on live television last year, the Georgian prime minister said.
“Georgian secret services have foiled a very serious crime,” Giorgi Gakharia told journalists on Tuesday.
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
Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has been defaced yet again during Sunday afternoon’s Black Lives Matter protest in Los Angeles, although these days it might qualify as bigger news if the former reality TV host’s terrazzo-and-brass totem went longer than a week unmolested.
Trump’s star was defaced during today’s Hollywood protest march. #blm #hollywoodprotest #JusticeForGeorgeFlyod #hollywoodboulevard #hollywoodblvd #protests pic.twitter.com/UI3SOIZSiV
Hundreds of demonstrators have gathered at the Montana State Capitol building in Helena in protest of the killing of George Floyd and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The Helena Independent Record reports Sunday’s protest is the largest of a number of demonstrations that have been held in Montana’s capital city in recent weeks amid the nationwide backlash to police-related violence against black and brown people.
The protest for George Floyd in Helena, MT is... huge. pic.twitter.com/LLwdiHMwxZ
Continue reading...Footage from Garrett Rolfe and Devin Brosnan shows the officers approaching Rayshard Brooks in his car, which was parked in a Wendy’s drive-in lane, and asking him to move it. They question him and make him take a breathalyser test. The officers then attempt to arrest and handcuff Brooks, leading to a scuffle, which culminates in his shooting. The interaction lasted about 45 minutes. The footage in this video has been edited for length
Continue reading...Demonstrators set fire to a fast food restaurant in Atlanta on Saturday where Rayshard Brooks, 27, was shot dead by a police officer the previous night. Police were called to the restaurant over reports that he had fallen asleep in the drive-through line.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is investigating the shooting, said Brooks failed a field sobriety test and then resisted officers' attempts to arrest him.
The Guardian’s Vivan Ho reports from Houston, Texas:
Supporters of George Floyd stood outside the church in the punishing Houston humidity, waiting for the procession to Floyd’s final resting place.
Joe Biden expressed support for the Buffalo protester who was shoved to the ground by police officers, after Trump suggested the 75-year-old man might be an Antifa plant.
My Dad used to say there's no greater sin than the abuse of power.
Whether it's an officer bloodying a peaceful protester or a President defending him with a conspiracy theory he saw on TV.
I'm a Catholic – just like Martin. Our faith says that we can't accept either.
Related: Trump makes baseless claim about man, 75, shoved by police: ‘Could be a set-up?’
Continue reading...Equipment malfunctions and long waits to vote despite the state having encouraged people to vote by mail
Georgia voters immediately encountered hours-long lines and equipment malfunctions as they showed up to vote in person in the state’s primary races on Tuesday. Today is the latest high-stakes test of whether a state can hold an election during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Tuesday also marked the first time Georgia was using new voting equipment, and voters reported malfunctions on Tuesday morning. The Atlanta mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, tweeted that at some precincts no machines were working.
Continue reading...A state investigator in Georgia on Thursday alleged that the white man accused of killing jogger Ahmaud Arbery was heard saying a racial slur as he stood over the mortally wounded man, moments after hitting him with three shots from a pump-action shotgun.
Related: FBI investigating Ahmaud Arbery shooting as possible hate crime, lawyer says
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The Guardian’s Ankita Rao, reporting from New York, on the mayor’s controversial late-night statements:
Mayor Bill de Blasio took to the podium on Saturday night to tell protestors across the city that they were “heard, loud and clear”.
I’m in Brooklyn to talk about tonight’s protests. https://t.co/oBVXGh7JWo
US prosecutors have filed federal charges against three people in New York, accusing them of using “molotov cocktails” on New York police vehicles during the Friday protests:
BREAKING: Three people charged with federal crimes in connection with Molotov cocktail attacks on the NYPD during #GeorgeFloyd protests in NYC Friday night. pic.twitter.com/dyaDJByMit
Continue reading...Police attempted to use a Taser on Ahmaud Arbery, the slain Georgia jogger, after questioning why he was sitting alone in his car in a park one morning in November 2017, according to records and a police video obtained by the Guardian.
The video comes to light as law enforcement in the area faces scrutiny after Arbery was shot dead by two white men while out for a run in February. Police did not initially arrest Gregory and Travis McMichael, who chased down and killed the unarmed Arbery, and a prosecutor assigned to the case wrote a lengthy memo explaining why the killing was legally justified.
In a joint statement to the Guardian, lawyers working for the Arbery family described the video as a clear depiction of 'a situation where Ahmaud was harassed by Glynn county police officers'.
Continue reading...Police attempted to use a Taser on Ahmaud Arbery, the slain Georgia jogger, after questioning why he was sitting alone in his car in a park one morning in November 2017, according to records and a police video obtained by the Guardian.
Related: Ahmaud Arbery: new focus on district attorney’s flawed prosecutions of black women
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