Ten works sell for more than $10m each in sale featuring giants of art, also including Gauguin and Magritte
Three paintings by titans of modern art have sold for a total of almost $166m (£134m) at auction, confirming the buoyancy of the global market.
In a sale of modern art at Sotheby’s in New York on Tuesday evening, a total of more than $408m was paid for works by artists including Picasso, Monet, Cézanne, Gauguin, Magritte, Dalí and Renoir.
Continue reading...Company has already reportedly pushed back by trying to use union dues as a tactic to deter workers from supporting the union
Workers at a Target store in Christiansburg, Virginia, have filed for a union election and, if successful, the store would be the first belonging to the retail chain to unionize.
Target has long opposed unionization, with anti-union videos to discourage workers from unionizing. Earlier this year, Target training documents for managers to prevent unionization within stores were leaked.
Continue reading...Justice department says Wynn lobbied the Trump administration for China to protect his business interests in Macau
The US Department of Justice on Tuesday sued Steve Wynn, the billionaire former casino mogul and senior Republican fund raiser, to compel him to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as an agent of China.
The department said Wynn, 80, had contacted then-US president Donald Trump and members of his Republican administration in 2017 to convey China’s request to cancel the visa of or otherwise remove a Chinese businessperson who had sought political asylum in the United States.
Continue reading...President attacks those who promote racist conspiracy theory ‘for power, political gain and for profit’ but says ‘evil will not win’
Joe Biden has condemned those who spread white supremacist lies “for power, political gain and for profit” during a visit to Buffalo, New York, where 10 people were killed in a racist shooting last Saturday.
The US president was close to tears as he recalled the victims’ lives, then became angry as he described forces of hatred that have haunted his administration.
Continue reading...After months of uncertainty, chairman says it is ‘not our expectation’ that investigators will summon former president
The House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol is not expecting to call Donald Trump to testify about potentially unlawful schemes to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, its chairman said on Tuesday.
The panel has been weighing for months whether to seek voluntary cooperation or subpoena the former president in its wide-ranging inquiry in an effort to obtain his insight into unlawful schemes to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
But Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the select committee, told reporters on Capitol Hill that it was “not our expectation” to demand testimony from Trump.
Continue reading...Jeremy Smith, 36, arrested on three counts of assault with a deadly weapon over Koreatown hair salon attack that left three wounded
Authorities in Dallas said on Tuesday the man suspected of opening fire in a hair salon in the city’s Koreatown and wounding three women of Asian descent harbored delusions about Asian people since having a car crash involving an Asian man two years ago.
Police identified the gunman as Jeremy Smith, 36, and said he has been charged with three counts of assault with a deadly weapon. Smith was booked early on Tuesday is being held in Dallas county jail.
Continue reading...WSJ sources suggest black box recorders from Boeing 737-800 indicate intentional input from cockpit
A China Eastern Airlines plane that crashed in March, killing 132 people, appears to have been intentionally flown into the mountainside below by someone at the controls, according to reports.
Analysis by US officials of the black box flight recorders found amid the wreckage suggests deliberate input from the cockpit forced the Boeing 737-800 plane into its catastrophic dive.
Continue reading...Suit seeks fines and damages from those casting fake ballots and prohibition from serving the future
Two of Wisconsin’s presidential electors and a voter in the state filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to punish a group of Republicans who tried to cast fake electoral votes for Donald Trump in 2020, asking a state court to order them to pay up to $2.4m collectively in damages and bar them from ever serving as legitimate electors in a presidential election.
Wisconsin was one of seven states Trump lost in 2020 where allies cast an alternative set of electoral votes as part of his effort to overturn the election. The suit, filed by Law Forward and the Georgetown Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (Icap) on behalf of the legitimate electors, is the first of its kind seeking civil punishments against the electors. Federal prosecutors and the January 6 commission are reportedly also reviewing the fake slates.
Continue reading...My colleague Ed Helmore is at the site of Saturday’s mass shooting in Buffalo, and sent this dispatch about the importance to the predominantly Black community of the supermarket where it happened:
Tops Friendly on Jefferson Avenue in East Buffalo was more than just a grocery store. It served as community center, a place to hang out, a source of employment – and a spot for healthy sustenance unavailable at bodega stores in an area described as the oasis in a food desert.
Continue reading...Tesla CEO and world’s richest person expressed concerns about presence of fake accounts on platform
Elon Musk has cast further doubt over his $44bn (£35bn) takeover of Twitter after stating the deal “cannot move forward” until the social media company proves that less than 5% of its users are fake or spam accounts.
The Tesla chief executive used his Twitter account to say the agreed deal would not progress until the firm showed proof that only a small proportion of its users were fake.
Continue reading...Amnesty International calls for restoring full tribal control over crimes on Native land to improve enforcement
Amnesty International has called on the US government to fully restore tribal jurisdiction over crimes on Native lands in the face of staggeringly high rates of sexual violence against Native women, according to a report released on Tuesday.
Nearly one in three American Indian and Alaska Native women have been raped – more than twice the average for white women and probably an undercount given gaps in data collection, according to the report.
Continue reading...A woman has filed for an emergency protective order (EPO) against Cleveland Cavaliers guard Rajon Rondo and alleges he brandished a gun and threatened her life.
The woman alleges Rondo “became enraged” last week and she filed for the order in family court in Louisville, Kentucky. She claimed in the order that Rondo was playing video games with a child when she asked the child to finish separating his laundry so she could wash the family’s clothes.
Continue reading...Deadly incident renews debate over cross-strait tensions and Beijing’s reunification rhetoric
Taiwan’s president has condemned the deadly shooting at a Taiwanese church in California by a man reportedly driven by hatred of the self-governing island, where debate about cross-strait tensions has intensified along with Beijing’s reunification rhetoric.
Tsai Ing-wen’s office issued a statement saying she condemned “any form of violence” and extended her condolences to those killed and injured, and that she had asked the island’s chief representative in the US to fly to California to provide assistance.
Continue reading...Online posts apparently by 18-year-old suspect Payton Gendron show plans to livestream attack on Black people. Plus, who owns Einstein?
Good morning.
The white gunman accused of the massacre of 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket wrote as far back as November about staging a livestreamed attack on African Americans. He also practised shooting from his car and traveled hours to scout out the store in March, according to diary entries he appears to have posted online.
What’s happening to Gendron? He surrendered and was arraigned on a murder charge over the weekend. He pleaded not guilty and was jailed under a suicide watch. Federal authorities are contemplating bringing hate crime charges.
How about Chou? He is expected to appear in state court today and it was not immediately clear whether he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf. A federal hate crime investigation is also ongoing.
Are Finland and Sweden going to join Nato? They want to but Turkey has said it will not approve their membership. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish president, said the countries should not bother sending diplomatic delegations to try to persuade them.
What’s happening at the Mariupol steelworks? More than 260 Ukrainian soldiers, many of them wounded, have finally been evacuated from the besieged Azovstal steel plant, appearing to cede control of the city to Russia after 82 days of bombardment.
What else is happening? Here’s what we know on day 83 of the invasion.
Continue reading...Online posts apparently by 18-year-old suspect Payton Gendron indicate previous visit to site where 10 Black people were killed
The white gunman accused of the massacre of 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket wrote as far back as November about staging a livestreamed attack on African Americans. He also practised shooting from his car and travelled hours from his home to scout out the store in March, according to detailed diary entries he appears to have posted online.
The author of the diary posted hand-drawn maps of the grocery store along with tallies of the number of Black people he counted there, and recounted how a Black security guard at the supermarket confronted him that day to ask what he was up to. A Black security guard was among the dead in Saturday’s rampage.
Continue reading...American Israel Public Affairs Committee has disguised its efforts to undermine pro-Palestinian candidates
The US’s most powerful pro-Israel lobby group is pouring millions of dollars into influencing Democratic congressional primary races to counter growing support for the Palestinian cause within the party, including elections today in Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s money is focused on blocking female candidates who, if elected, are likely to align with “the squad” of progressive members of congress who have been critical of Israel.
Continue reading...Up to 500 special forces advisers will train Somali forces to combat growing threat of al-Shabaab militants, says White House
The US will send up to 500 soldiers back on full-time deployment to Somalia, to train the country’s army to combat the increasing threat posed by al-Shabaab militants.
The White House insisted that the move, deepening the US long-term military commitment in an intractable foreign conflict, did not contradict Joe Biden’s overall policy of disengaging from “forever wars”, which underlay the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Continue reading...A preliminary vote on military, humanitarian and economic aid to Kyiv is expected today, setting up a final vote on Wednesday
• Scrutiny of Republicans who embrace ‘great replacement theory’ after Buffalo massacre
A group of voters who challenged extremist congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s eligibility to run for re-election have filed an appeal of the Georgia secretary of state’s decision that she can appear on the ballot.
The five voters from Greene’s district alleged that the rightwing Republican played a significant role in the 6 January Capitol attack, which they said put her in violation of a 14th amendment clause concerning insurrection and ineligibility for office.
Continue reading...Violence includes Buffalo shooting that left 10 people dead, as well as two dead in Houston, one in Los Angeles and five in Chicago
America on Monday was picking up the pieces from a weekend of gun violence that – outside the cost of lives – has refocused the country’s leadership on the toxic interplay of political ideology and easy access to handguns and battlefield weapons.
In the most recent case, two people were killed Sunday and at least three others hospitalized after a shooting at a large Houston, Texas, flea market. In California, also on Sunday, at least one person died and five were wounded – including four listed in critical condition – after a shooting at a church with a predominantly Taiwanese congregation in Orange county, south of Los Angeles.
Continue reading...Actor denies putting human feces in couple’s bed and claims ‘he was talking to people who weren’t in the room’
Johnny Depp was hallucinating and his sobriety had completely collapsed in the final months of his marriage, his ex-wife – fellow actor Amber Heard – testified on Monday in the civil lawsuit between the two.
Heard was back on the stand as the trial resumed in a Virginia courtroom after a one-week hiatus.
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