Robin DiAngelo’s bestselling book White Fragility has provoked an uncomfortable but vital conversation about what it means to be white. As protests organised by the Black Lives Matter movement continue around the world, she explains why white people should stop avoiding conversations about race because of their own discomfort, and how 'white fragility' plays a key role in upholding systemic racism
Category Archives: US News
Voting is our most fundamental right – let’s make sure it’s open to everyone | Terri Sewell and Vanita Gupta
The bill HR4 would put the teeth back into the Voting Rights Act. For the sake of racial progress, the Senate must pass it
Over the past weeks, Americans across the spectrum of race, age, geographic location and gender, have begun to have difficult and complicated conversations about the nature of systemic racism and the long standing institutions that have permitted the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and so many other African Americans, without consequence.
This idea of systemic racism – that racism is not simply the moral ineptitude of individual bad actors, but that it is in fact built into the very mechanisms that undergird our democracy – is evident around our society. We can see it in employment, our criminal legal system, policing, and prominently in our voting laws and practices.
Continue reading...Coronavirus live news: Bolsonaro says he may have had coronavirus as cases rise in 27 US states
Mike Pence to hold first coronavirus task force briefing in weeks on Friday; Texas pauses next phase of reopening; Brazil registers 39,483 new cases; Follow the latest updates
- More than 20m Americans could have contracted Covid-19, experts say
- England: major incident declared as people flock to south coast
- How Trump and his officials diverge on coronavirus
- See all our coronavirus coverage
Charlotte Graham-McLay reports for the Guardian from Wellington:
It was a case of “plenty of room at the inn” for a hotel in a New Zealand ski resort town during the country’s strictest weeks of Covid-19 lockdown, with eight babies born there due to a lack of local maternity facilities.
The hotel, the Ramada at Remarkables Park in Queenstown, accommodated parents, babies and their midwives free of charge while the births happened, according to the website Stuff.
“Our ‘Ramada babies’ will always be welcome here and we look forward to them visiting in future." - Ramada Suites by Wyndham Remarkables Park Queenstown Manager Suzanne Pentecost.#RamadaSuitesbyWyndhamRemarkablesParkQueenstown
Read more: https://t.co/JC22As58al pic.twitter.com/hUvKmxtXkE
Steven Morris, Helen Pidd and Archie Bland report:
A major incident was declared after tens of thousands of people defied pleas to stay away and descended in their droves on beaches in Bournemouth and other stretches of the Dorset coast.
Related: Major incident declared as people flock to England's south coast
Continue reading...Coronavirus live news: global death toll exceeds 490,000; soldiers sent to Italian town amid tension over new outbreak
WHO needs $31.3bn over 12 months for vaccines; France plans 1.3m tests to find ‘hidden clusters’; Mike Pence to hold first taskforce briefing in weeks
- Parties across Europe spark fears of Covid-19 surge
- US one-day case high as states delay reopening
- US coronavirus updates - live
- UK coronavirus updates – live
- See all our coronavirus coverage
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has offered to help hospitals in other states struggling to cope with Covid-19 cases.
He also criticised states that reopened their economies before getting the virus under control, saying there was “undeniable, irrefutable evidence” those states made a mistake.
The global death toll has passed 490,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The figure has reached 490,632 with the US accounting for 124,509 fatalities, the highest of any country.
Continue reading...Oakland moves to bar police from schools as bigger cities reject change
Movement to get officers out of schools sees progress even as Chicago and Los Angeles school boards vote to keep them in place
A growing movement to get police officers out of US schools saw a major victory this week when Oakland’s school board voted to eliminate the school district’s dedicated police department.
But in Chicago and Los Angeles, despite protests by youth activists, support from teachers’ unions, and an outpouring of public support, school boards voted to keep police in public schools, at least for now.
Continue reading...‘He’s like a child’: Biden attacks Trump’s coronavirus response – video
Joe Biden on Thursday travelled to must-win Pennsylvania to attack Donald Trump for what the former vice-president characterised as trying to gut healthcare protections during a pandemic. Biden, who was born in the Pennsylvania rust-belt city of Scranton, has mostly stayed put in his Delaware home in recent months amid coronavirus concerns but has slowly resumed some campaigning. He headed to Lancaster to try to weaken the Republican president's standing with swing-state voters
Continue reading...Drain brain: Nasa offers prize money for best lunar loo design
Agency hopes to attract novel solutions for its Artemis mission to the moon in 2024
“It certainly isn’t the prime focus of the mission,” said Nasa’s Mike Interbartolo. “We’re not going back to the moon so we can say we pooped on the moon, but we don’t want an Apollo situation either.”
Interbartolo, is project manager for the Lunar Loo Challenge, a Nasa competition launched on Thursday that hopes to attract new and innovative solutions to the problem of capturing and containing human waste in space.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Viber severs ties with Facebook in growing boycott
Service adds to firms shunning Facebook over refusal to act against Donald Trump posts
The messaging service Viber, the fifth biggest with more than a billion users around the world, is severing all ties to Facebook as part of a growing boycott of the company by commercial partners.
The campaign, initially started in the US after Facebook’s refusal to take action against posts from Donald Trump which critics said incited violence, has now grown to become an international movement.
Continue reading...Trump administration sent $1.4bn in stimulus checks to dead people
US Government Accountability Office said almost 1.1 million dead people received payments of about $1,200 each
The Trump administration sent almost $1.4bn in coronavirus stimulus payments to dead people, according to its own watchdog’s report.
In the report released on Thursday, the US Government Accountability Office (USGAO) said almost 1.1 million dead people received payments of about $1,200 each, as of 30 April.
Continue reading...US politics: police officers fired in North Carolina over racial slurs video – live updates
- 1.48m more Americans file for unemployment
- Arizona city councilman uses George Floyd’s words to protests masks
- Coronavirus cases continue to soar in US
- Grand jury indicts three men in Ahmaud Arbery murder case
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The Associated Press are reporting that Donald Trump is facing renewed criticism over his plans to celebrate Independence Day with a showy display at Mount Rushmore.
Native Americans who view the monument as a desecration of land violently stolen from them and used to pay homage to leaders hostile to native people are planning protests for the presidents’s 3 July visit.
As mentioned earlier, Donald Trump isn’t expected to be seen wearing a face mask during his trip to Wisconsin later today, despite the fact that everybody else will.
This isn’t the only time that the president has made himself an exception to the rule. In this video, my colleague Maanvi Singh looks back at how Trump has long been contradicting and defying science during the coronavirus outbreak, and the impact this has had on the country’s faltering handling of the pandemic.
Continue reading...Coronavirus live news: cases surge in Europe since lockdown easing, says WHO
Cases worldwide growing by 1m per week; Latin American death toll expected to reach 390,000 by October; Texas hospitals near capacity; volunteers receive first doses of experimental vaccine
- Israel brings back tracking system after surge in Covid-19 cases
- Air cooling systems in abattoirs could heighten Covid-19 risk
- How Trump and his officials diverge on coronavirus
- Global report: WHO warns of global shortage of oxygen equipment
- See all our coronavirus coverage
Guardian analysis of coronavirus data, in combination with the University of Oxford’s coronavirus government response tracker, has identified that 10 of the 45 most badly-affected countries are also among those rated as having a “relaxed response” to the pandemic, underlining the mitigating impact of effective government public health policies. You can read the Guardian investigation here.
The countries include the US - which is experiencing its largest increase in coronavirus cases since April; Iran, Germany and Switzerland - two European countries where the R rate has risen above one this week [...]
A country has been classed as being “relaxed” if its stringency index score is under 70 out of 100, according to the latest data from the University of Oxford’s tracker. The tracker assesses countries’ public information campaigns, containment measures and closures to give them a score out of 100 on their stringency index.
More on the rise of cases in Israel.
With 532 new infections reported by the health ministry in the past 24 hours, Israel has seen the emergence of a number of hotspots including in the Sea of Galilee resort of Tiberias, as well as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem – the highest daily total in more than two months.
Related: Israel brings back tracking system amid surge in Covid-19 cases
Continue reading...How Trump has defied science on coronavirus – video explainer
Donald Trump told thousands of supporters at a rally in Oklahoma he wanted to slow down testing for Covid-19 – despite experts saying the opposite.
From masks to 'miracle' treatments, the Guardian's Maanvi Singh looks back at how the US president has long been contradicting and defying science during the coronavirus outbreak and the impact that has had on the country's handling of the pandemic
- Fear mounts Trump may pressure FDA to rush Covid-19 vaccine by election
- 'It will disappear': the disinformation Trump spread about the coronavirus – timeline
- Coronavirus – latest US updates
How Trump and his public health officials diverge on Covid-19
The president and federal health officials often seem to abandon the appearance of unity when it comes to discussing coronavirus
Since the White House daily coronavirus briefings ended in April, Donald Trump and his federal public health chiefs often seem to abandon even the appearance of unity on dealing with the pandemic.
Their messages have diverged increasingly as Covid-19 is surging in many US states amid rapid reopening, setting recent records in Texas, Florida, Arizona and California. Even as the previous world hotspot, New York, improves, America in total now exceeds 2.3m cases and 121,000 deaths.
Continue reading...Texas Covid-19 cases soar weeks after state lifts lockdown restrictions – video
Texas reported an all-time daily high of 5,489 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, weeks after the state became one of the earliest in the US to ease its coronavirus lockdown measures. The significant increase in cases has left hospitals in Houston near capacity, with some adult ICU patients treated at Texas Children’s hospital
Continue reading...Donald Trump claims protesters want to pull down statues of Jesus – video
Donald Trump has suggested Black Lives Matters protesters want to pull down statues of Jesus Christ, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. Speaking at a press conference with the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, Trump reiterated his desire to sign an executive order making vandalising monuments punishable with up to 10 years in prison
Senate Democrats block Republican police reform bill – live
Continue reading...Calling all cops! Your food isn’t being poisoned by anyone, despite your claims | Poppy Noor
Officers’ claims of Shake Shack ‘bleach poisoning’ were formally investigated and quickly dismissed by the NYPD’s own chief of detectives while Starbucks has debunked ‘tampongate’
Some good news, finally, for cops: you can go back to eating at Shake Shack without worry.
Last week, after drinking some weird tasting shakes, three New York officers alleged they had been poisoned with bleach. The claims were formally investigated and quickly dismissed by the NYPD’s own chief of detectives after video footage showed that the drinks had not been tampered with by employees. Subsequent New York Post reporting has shown the officers checked into the hospital even though they weren’t sick and, importantly, that Shake Shack could not have known they were cops because they pre-ordered through the Shake Shack app.
Continue reading...Senate Democrats block Republican police reform bill – live
- Vote leaves Senate path forward on police reform unclear
- New York, New Jersey and Connecticut quarantine travelers
- Americans urged to follow guidelines as cases increase
- Coronavirus has brought America ‘to its knees’ – Redfield
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Speaking at his joint press conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda, Trump confirmed he would be drawing down the US troop presence in Germany.
The US president told reporters gathered in the Rose Garden that his administration would reduce troop numbers in Germany from 52,000 to 25,000 and would probably then send some of those troops to Poland.
"They'll be paying for the sending of additional troops" -- Trump announces that Poland has bought US troops that have been stationed in Germany pic.twitter.com/4DnhvNQrcv
Trump does Putin's bidding by blaming Obama and Joe Biden for Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014 pic.twitter.com/MvYiK7W62Z
A grand jury has indicted three men on murder charges in connection to the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, who was fatally shot while jogging in a Georgia neighborhood.
Cobb district attorney Joyette M. Holmes announced that a Glynn county grand jury has indicted Travis McMichael, Greg McMichael and William R. Bryan on malice and felony murder charges in the February 23 death of Arbery.
Continue reading...Ahmaud Arbery: grand jury indicts three men in murder case
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...Roger Stone case: Trump ally given special treatment, Congress hears
Aaron Zelinsky says prosecutors were under pressure to go easy on Stone because of his relationship with the president
A federal prosecutor who was part of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation told Congress on Wednesday Roger Stone, a close ally of Donald Trump, was given special treatment before sentencing because of his relationship with the US president.
Related: US appeals court orders judge to dismiss case against Michael Flynn
Continue reading...Texas Covid-19 cases hit all-time daily high as Houston hospitals near capacity
Increase in coronavirus infections prompted governor to tighten public health restrictions after resisting calls to slow reopening
Texas recorded an all-time daily high of 5,489 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday as hospitals neared capacity in Houston.
The dramatic increase in cases prompted the governor, Greg Abbott, to tighten public health restrictions after resisting calls to slow the state’s reopening process.
Continue reading...