California sheriff’s department launches search after actor’s four-year-old son found alone on boat at Lake Piru
The former Glee actor Naya Rivera is missing and feared to have drowned at a lake in southern California.
A search operation at Lake Piru was suspended on Wednesday evening and was due to resume on Thursday.
Continue reading...The US president stokes division as the virus rages, while the prime minister of Canada – where the outbreak appears to be stabilizing – has fostered a shared sense of duty
Donald Trump marked the Fourth of July with an apocalyptic speech at Mount Rushmore in which he stoked partisan grievance and deployed racist dog whistles, ignoring calls for unity as coronavirus cases surge.
Three days earlier, Justin Trudeau chose a more low-key location to celebrate Canada’s own national holiday. The prime minister and his family were photographed harvesting vegetables at an Ottawa food bank farm.
Continue reading...WARNING: SOME VIEWERS MAY FIND THIS FOOTAGE DISTRESSING. Body-camera footage released by the City of Vallejo shows the deadly police shooting of Sean Monterrosa on 2 June 2020. The footage, taken from three officers present, has raised new questions about why a Vallejo officer fired a round of bullets from inside his vehicle at the unarmed 22-year-old
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...A black civil rights campaigner says he was the victim of an 'attempted lynching' by a group of white men and 'would be a hashtag' had friends not intervened during the incident at a southern Indiana lake.
Vauhxx Booker, who is a member of the Monroe county human rights commission, said the men pinned him against a tree, shouted racial slurs and one of them threatened to 'get a noose' at Monroe Lake near Bloomington over the Fourth of July weekend.
Booker uploaded clips of the encounter to social media, where they were widely shared. The FBI has announced it is investigating the incident
Nine in 10 Americans believe that racism and police violence are problems in the country, a Guardian/Opinium Research poll has found, a sign that public opinion is shifting away from the views put forward by Donald Trump.
The US president has been criticised for relentlessly stoking white fear and grievance in recent weeks, putting him at odds with Black Lives Matter anti-racism protests that have swept the nation following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May.
Related: Nine out of 10 Americans say racism and police brutality are problems, poll finds
Donald Trump, who has villanized and denigrated Mexican migrants and threatened Mexico with tariffs, took a different tone with Obrador today.
During the meeting, when two protectionist presidents were ironically touting a trade deal, celebrating the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal, both leaders had cordial words for each other.
Trump launched his 2016 campaign by calling Mexicans rapists.
He's spread racism against our Latino community ever since.
We need to work in partnership with Mexico.
We need to restore dignity and humanity to our immigration system.
That's what I'll do as President.
Two-year audit praises some decisions but criticises lack of action over Trump posts
Facebook’s decisions over the last nine months have resulted in “serious setbacks for civil rights,” according to the damning conclusion of a two-year-long audit commissioned by the social network to review its impact on the world.
The final report, which focuses primarily on decisions made since June 2019, praises Facebook’s move to ban American advertisers from using its tools for housing and employment discrimination, and the company’s belated decision to ban explicit support for white nationalism.
Continue reading...Joe Biden says he would return the US to the WHO if elected; WHO acknowledges ‘evidence emerging’ of airborne spread of Covid-19; Jair Bolsonaro tests positive. Follow the latest updates
The Guardian’s Eleanor Ainge Roy reports from Queenstown with Charlotte Graham-McLay in Auckland:
Here’s the full story on a man in compulsory isolation in New Zealand who has absconded from a quarantine hotel to make a late-night “spur-of-the-moment” dash to the supermarket – before testing positive for Covid-19 the following day:
Related: New Zealand: man with Covid-19 absconds from quarantine for supermarket 'dash'
The Netherlands will be at the centre of upcoming talks over European spending on the coronavirus crisis, driven by a mix of traditional Calvinist frugality and political reality, experts say.
As part of the “frugal four” along with Austria, Denmark and Sweden, the Dutch have enraged many in the EU by putting the brakes on a €750bn (US$850bn) rescue package for the worst-hit countries.
Continue reading...Gathering ‘likely contributed’ to surge; Bolsonaro vetoes measures to help indigenous people; Melbourne goes into full lockdown after rises in cases
Nigeria has passed 30,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, according to the country’s Centre for Disease Control.
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Christopher Wray condemns campaign against ex-pats and says Beijing espionage is ‘greatest threat to US economic vitality’
Chinese agents have been pursuing hundreds of Chinese nationals living in the US in an effort to force their return, as part of a global campaign against the country’s diaspora, known as Operation Fox Hunt, the FBI director has said.
Related: Apple under pressure to act after TikTok pulls out of Hong Kong
Continue reading...Civil rights groups say company did not commit to concrete plan to address hate speech and misinformation
The organizers behind a major advertiser boycott of Facebook have called a meeting with Mark Zuckerberg and other executives “disappointing”, saying the company failed to commit to concrete solutions for addressing hate speech and misinformation on the platform.
Officials at Facebook, including Zuckerberg, the CEO, and Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer, met with members of the coalition of civil rights groups over video chat for an hour on Tuesday to discuss the largest boycott in Facebook history, which has gained the support of more than 1,000 of its advertisers, including Unilever, Coca-Cola, and Starbucks.
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s extraordinary character and outrageous behaviour “threaten the world’s health, economic security and social fabric” and were shaped by his “high-functioning sociopath” father during childhood, according to a bombshell book written by the president’s niece.
Related: Fox News apologises for cropping Trump out of Epstein and Maxwell photo
Continue reading...Top public health expert urges further action as new cases surge to record highs of around 50,000 a day across country
The United States is “still knee-deep in the first wave” of the coronavirus pandemic, one of the country’s top public health experts has warned, as the country surpassed 130,000 Covid-19 deaths and new polling indicates Donald Trump’s approval rating over his handling of the crisis has remained low.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Monday that America’s grasp of the pandemic was “really not good” and urged further action as new cases of the virus continue to surge to record highs of about 50,000 a day across the country. More than 131,200 have died in the US as of Tuesday, according to Johns Hopkins figures.
Continue reading...We are documenting the lives of every US medical worker who has died helping patients during the pandemic. These are those who died from Covid-19 in April
America’s healthcare workers are dying. From doctors to hospital cleaners and from nursing home aides to paramedics, those most at risk of contracting the coronavirus have already helped save thousands of lives.
Continue reading...South Africa’s cases pass 200,000; Kenya emerges from lockdown; Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tested again for coronavirus
Bolsonaro’s diagnosis comes just three days after he had lunch at the home of the US ambassador to Brazil, Todd Chapman, in the capital, Brasília.
Also present at that Independence Day celebration were several top cabinet members, including foreign minister Ernesto Araújo, defence minister Fernando Azevedo, and the president’s son, Eduardo, a politician who is Steve Bannon’s representative in South America. The men were photographed without face masks.
Reports of Bolsonaro’s possible infection first emerged on Monday evening, with local news outlets reporting that he had been tested after developing coronavirus symptoms, including a 38C temperature and a persistent cough.
An MRI of Bolsonaro’s lungs was also taken, with the president telling supporters it had shown them to be “clear”.
Related: Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro tests positive for coronavirus
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The tell-all book due out shortly from Mary Trump, the niece of the president, tells of a family divided by trauma.
The Trump family failed to block the book after court efforts failed to stop publisher Simon & Schuster printing and distributing it, even though a restraining order was ongoing against Mary Trump herself, the daughter of Donald Trump’s late oldest brother.
In response to the news that New York state has sanctioned Deutsche Bank, the bank put out a statement by a spokesperson.
We acknowledge our error in onboarding Epstein in 2013 and the weakness in our processes, and have learnt from our mistakes and shortcomings. Immediately following Epstein’s arrest, we contacted law enforcement and offered our full assistance with their investigation.
The Department of Financial Services factual findings on Danske Estonia and FBME, like our own internal investigation, identified various deficiencies in our oversight and monitoring of the banks that used our clearing services. There was no intentional effort by anyone within the bank to facilitate unlawful activity...while the settlement reflects our upmost [sic] cooperation and transparent engagement with our regulator, it also shows how important it is to continue investing in our controls and enhancing our anti-financial crime capabilities.
Just got the following statement from @DeutscheBank spokesman Dan Hunter ––> pic.twitter.com/NpmzXuujcb
Continue reading...Network says it mistakenly eliminated Donald Trump from photo with Maxwell and Epstein at Mar-a-Lago in February 2000
Fox News has apologised for cropping Donald Trump out of a picture of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Related: 'Where are you Roger Ailes?' Trump appears to ask dead Fox News chairman for help
Continue reading...Decades after the 1994 genocide, the countries have contested the wording of a UN resolution to remember its victims
As the bodies piled up in the streets of Rwanda 26 years ago, no amount of spin could disguise the crime. There were no sealed camps; the massacres were in broad daylight. Yet in the UN security council the UK and US governments avoided the question of mass killing and saw only a civil war.
This bolstered arguments that nothing – they thought – could be done. It was scandalous, the Czech Republic’s ambassador Karel Kovanda told them, not to recognise that a genocide reminiscent of the Nazi Holocaust was under way. Kovanda remembers a friendly arm taking him aside as UK diplomats told him such inflammatory language outside the council would be “unhelpful”.
Continue reading...Kayleigh McEnany says the US has been a leader in the fight against Covid-19, despite rising infections across the country. Its infection tally is nearing 3m cases, while there have been 130,000 deaths. Speaking at a press briefing, the White House press secretary added: 'No one wants to see anyone in this country contract coronavirus, which is why the administration has fought hard to make sure that's not the case with our historic response effort'
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Trump is still tweeting away, now insisting schools must reopen in the fall, despite concerns about the spread of coronavirus once in-person classes resume.
“SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN THE FALL!!!” the president tweeted moments ago.
SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN THE FALL!!!
Nascar driver Bubba Wallace has responded to Trump’s tweet suggesting he should apologize after a noose was found in his garage.
Wallace, the only top black driver in Nascar, addressed his response “to the next generation and little ones following my foot steps.”
To the next generation and little ones following my foot steps..#LoveWins pic.twitter.com/tVaV3pkdLe
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