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...Category Archives: US News
FBI investigates after noose found in garage of Bubba Wallace, Nascar’s only black driver
- Driver has campaigned to ban Confederate flag at events
- Alabama governor condemns ‘mark this leaves on our state’
- Interview: Bubba Wallace on Nascar and the Confederate flag
The FBI has launched an investigation after a noose was found in the team garage of Bubba Wallace, Nascar’s only black full-time driver. The noose was discovered at Alabama’s Talladega Superspeedway as Nascar prepared for a race, which was subsequently delayed by bad weather, on Sunday.
“Regardless of whether federal charges can be brought, this type of action has no place in our society,” Jay Town, the US attorney for Alabama’s southern district, said on Monday. He added that his office, along with the FBI and the justice department’s civil rights division, were involved in the investigation.
Continue reading...Voting in the New York primary is by no means futile for Sanders supporters | Billy Richling and Francisco Navas
Voters need to understand that Sanders’ delegate candidates aren’t running against Biden’s delegate candidates – they’re running against each other
Although Joe Biden is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, voting in the New York primary on Tuesday (or during early voting) is by no means futile for progressives who were largely supporting Bernie Sanders and policies such as the Green New Deal and Medicare for All.
Related: 'Just ridiculous': what it’s like to wait five hours in line to vote in the US
Continue reading...US v China: is this the start of a new cold war?
Coronavirus has brought the rivalry to a head sooner than expected – and the scope for non-alignment is narrowing
George Kennan, the US charge d’affaires in Moscow at the end of the second world war and the author of the famous Long Telegram in 1946, captured in his memoir how quickly perceptions in international relations can change.
The man widely seen as the intellectual author of the cold war recalled that if he had sent his telegram on the nature of the Soviet threat six months earlier, his message “would probably have been received in the state department with pursed lips and raised eyebrows. Six months later, it probably would have sounded redundant, a preaching to the converted.”
Continue reading...Coronavirus live news: Bolsonaro silent as Brazil passes 50,000 deaths; global cases reach 9 million
China halts imports from food plant where 481 tested positive; New York shops and bars reopen; Lisbon brings back lockdown restrictions
- Workers return as New York enters phase two of reopening
- South Korea has Covid-19 second wave as Israel ponders new lockdown
- WHO reports record daily rise in cases worldwide
- Brazil losing a generation of indigenous leaders to coronavirus
- UK coronavirus updates – live
The Netherlands reported zero new deaths from Covid-19 on Monday, the first day since the beginning of March that the country’s pandemic death toll has not risen.
Deaths reported by Dutch national institute for public health are not necessarily from the past 24 hours, so it cannot be confirmed that no one has died from coronavirus-related illness. But it is the first day since 12 March that no death has been reported. The country’s total death toll is 6,090.
The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus around the world since the outbreak began has passed 9 million, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The US-based research university, which keeps a tally of official statistics, said that so far 9,003,042 cases had been reported. The United States is the world’s worst affected country by case numbers, with nearly 2.3 million cases alone, followed by Brazil with nearly 1.1 million, then Russia, with nearly 600,000.
Continue reading...Trump and Navarro condemn John Bolton’s China claim
- Judge allows publication of tell-all but slams author’s behaviour
- Trump: ‘I wouldn’t say a thing like that’
- The Room Where It Happened: a broadside to sink Trump?
The White House fired back at John Bolton on Sunday, seeking to rubbish a key claim in the former national security adviser’s bombshell new book, that Donald Trump asked Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, for help in winning re-election.
Related: Trump's Berman-SDNY disaster suggests William Barr is not so smart after all | Lloyd Green
Continue reading...Tennessee paper religious ad claims ‘Islam’ will detonate nuclear bomb in Nashville
- Editor of the Tennessean calls full-page advertisement ‘horrific’
- Newspaper investigating ‘breakdown in the normal process’
A Tennessee newspaper said on Sunday it was investigating what its editor called a “horrific” full-page advertisement from a religious group that predicts a terrorist attack in Nashville next month.
The paid advertisement that appeared in Sunday’s editions of the Tennessean from the group Future For America claims Donald Trump “is the final president of the USA” and features a photo of Trump and Pope Francis.
Continue reading...Peter Navarro: Trump call to slow Covid-19 testing was ‘tongue-in-cheek’
Trade adviser also claims without foundation that the virus ‘was a product of the Chinese Communist party’
White House adviser Peter Navarro claimed Donald Trump was being “tongue-in-cheek” when he claimed to have asked public health officials to slow down coronavirus testing.
Related: Donald Trump sows division and promises 'greatness' at Tulsa rally flop
Continue reading...Brad Parscale faces Trump ‘fury’ after Tulsa comeback rally flops
- Campaign chief said millions would attend: a few thousand did
- Rick Wilson: survival at risk as Ivanka and Kushner seethe
- The Room Where It Happened: a broadside to sink Trump?
Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, was under pressure on Sunday after claiming hundreds of thousands of people had applied for tickets to the president’s return to the campaign trail in Tulsa, only for the rally to attract a sparse crowd.
Related: Trump 'played' by K-pop fans and TikTok users who disrupted Tulsa rally
Continue reading...Daughter speaks out after her father dies of Covid-19: ‘It was preventable’
Lina Washington calls for stricter rules in Arizona as cases rise, challenging the governor’s response to the pandemic
As her father lay dying in a hospital bed in Arizona, after testing positive for Covid-19, Lina Washington pleaded with him to keep fighting.
When they hung up, Washington scrolled through Instagram. She saw stories of friends and former classmates drinking and socializing at crowded bars and clubs, even as coronavirus infections rose exponentially across the state. Yet there they were, smiling, maskless, as if the threat had disappeared and life returned to normal.
Continue reading...Meet Samelys López, the ex-homeless candidate running for New York’s most contested seat
She is backed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and represents a voice much needed in the south Bronx - but can López beat the nine others vying for the seat?
The first time Samelys López stood up for an adult she was eight years old. She and her mother were waiting in the welfare office for food stamps when López overheard the case officer speaking down to her mother.
Their lives before they got there hadn’t been easy. López and her mother moved from Puerto Rico when López was a baby, relocating to Williamsburg in New York. Back then, Williamsburg was the most densely populated city in the US: a by-word for poverty rather than trendy coffee shops and vintage boutiques as it is today. It was also host to a fierce sweatshop trade, and López’s family were privy to its harsh hours and low pay.
Continue reading...The Room Where It Happened review: John Bolton fires broadside that could sink Trump
The ex-national security adviser is no hero or martyr and certainly no prose stylist either. What counts is how damaging his memoir will be
John Bolton’s near-600-page tome is the most damning written account by a Trump administration alumnus, the one that stands to haunt the president come November. In the author’s judgment, “I don’t think he’s fit for office. I don’t think he has the competence to carry out the job.” Joe Biden couldn’t say it better himself.
Related: John Bolton: judge declines to block tell-all Trump book
Continue reading...Kurt Cobain ‘MTV Unplugged in New York’ guitar sells for $6m
Nirvana frontman’s 1959 Martin D-18E sold to Australian who will put it on tour, with proceeds going to help struggling artists
The guitar used by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain during the band’s famous MTV Unplugged in New York concert has sold for more than $6m (£4.8m) at auction.
The 1959 Martin D-18E featured in the grunge group’s performance in November 1993, five months before Cobain’s death aged 27.
Continue reading...Global report: Trump says he ordered coronavirus testing to ‘slow down’
Testing a ‘double-edged sword’, says Trump; Chile death toll nearly doubles; Australian state ‘absolutely at risk’ of second peak
Donald Trump told thousands of supporters on Saturday that he had asked US officials to slow down testing for Covid-19 because case numbers in the country were rising so rapidly.
Speaking at a campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the US president used racist language, referring to Covid-19 as “kung flu”, and described testing for the virus as a “double-edged sword” because it led to the identification of more cases.
Continue reading...Trump calls coronavirus ‘kung flu’ and says he slowed testing – video
Donald Trump calls the coronavirus 'kung flu' and 'the Chinese virus' during a campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday night. The US president also tells the crowd that he had asked his people to slow down Covid-19 testing across the country because it would find more cases
Continue reading...Donald Trump sows division and promises ‘greatness’ at Tulsa rally flop
US president’s much hyped return turned to humiliation when he failed to fill arena in Republican stronghold of Oklahoma
Donald Trump declared “the silent majority is stronger than ever before” at his comeback rally on Saturday, but thousands of empty seats appeared to tell a different story.
The US president’s much hyped return to the campaign trail turned to humiliation when he failed to fill a 19,000-capacity arena in the Republican stronghold of Oklahoma, raising fresh doubts about his chances of winning re-election.
Continue reading...Trump set for Tulsa rally amid coronavirus fears and as protests continue – live
- President ignores experts and local concerns to stage event
- Oklahoma experiences Covid-19 increase as it reopens
- Protesters topple Confederate statue in Washington DC
- US attorney refuses to resign despite Barr announcement
It has been seven weeks since Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis took a coronavirus “victory lap”, pressing ahead with a swift reopening program while berating the media for a “doom and gloom” approach he said bore little relation to reality.
“We haven’t seen an explosion of new cases,” DeSantis insisted during a 29 April news conference, a day on which the state’s Covid-19 tally increased by 347.
Robert Mueller and his investigators thought it possible Donald Trump lied to them about conversations with Roger Stone, according to previously redacted sections of the special counsel’s report which were were released on Friday night.
The release, part of litigation over portions of Mueller’s findings which remain secret, was largely overshadowed by US attorney general William Barr’s announcement of the resignation of the attorney for the southern district of New York, Geoffrey Berman, who then denied he was stepping down.
Continue reading...‘Tipping point’: Greta Thunberg hails Black Lives Matter protests
People are realising ‘we cannot keep looking away from these things’, says climate activist
Greta Thunberg has said the Black Lives Matter protests show society has reached a tipping point where injustice can no longer be ignored, but that she believes a “green recovery plan” from the coronavirus pandemic will not be enough to solve the climate crisis.
Reflecting on the protests that have swept the globe in recent weeks, the Swedish climate activist told the BBC: “It feels like we have passed some kind of social tipping point where people are starting to realise that we cannot keep looking away from these things. We cannot keep sweeping these things under the carpet, these injustices.
Continue reading...US attorney behind inquiries into Trump allies refuses to resign despite Barr announcement
William Barr said Geoffrey Berman had stepped down, a fact denied by the influential attorney involved in investigations of Rudy Giuliani and Michael Cohen
US attorney general William Barr announced the resignation on Friday of an influential attorney who oversaw key prosecutions of allies of Donald Trump and an investigation into Rudy Giuliani – but it appeared the attorney in question had other ideas.
Related: White House defends Bolton hiring as Trump administration tries to block book
Continue reading...Protesters topple statue of Confederate general in Washington DC – video
Protesters in Washington DC climbed up a bronze statue of Brig Gen Albert Pike and brought it down with ropes before setting it alight on Friday. A US holiday known as Juneteenth that commemorates the end of slavery takes place every year on 19 June. Demonstrators took about an hour to fell the three-metre statue, as Juneteenth celebrations and anti-racist protests took place across the US. The police surrounded the area but did not appear to intervene
- Thousands celebrate Juneteenth with anti-racism marches across US
- Is this the end for colonial-era statues? – video