Dozens of people have been arrested in Los Angeles following a chaotic and at times violent demonstration by anti-transgender protesters who targeted a Koreatown spa that has a trans-inclusive policy. The far-right protesters called for a boycott of Wi Spa which allows trans women to use women’s facilities. LAPD also appeared to fire rubber bullets at demonstrators from a close distance as trans rights and anti-fascist activists showed up in a counter-protest
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‘I’m not Jeff Koons!’ – the endurance crawls, weird texts and guerrilla brilliance of Pope.L
Pope.L started out doing performance art because it was cheap, once crawling through a city in a Superman outfit. Now all the big museums want his often racially charged work. As a rare show opens in Britain, he looks back
For a long time, if anyone ever asked for his contact details, Pope.L would produce a business card proclaiming him to be “The Friendliest Black Artist in America”. Sure enough, when he pops up on a video call from his ramshackle studio in Chicago, the performance artist and painter is amenable and thoughtful. In trucker cap and checked shirt, he shifts between smiles and pensive frowns as we track his journey from “difficult” childhood to one of America’s foremost artists, whose work deals with race, economics and language.
In 2019, he was given a retrospective that, in an exceptional move, spread across both the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum in New York. The exhibition showcased his 40 years of endurance crawls, guerrilla performances, sculpture and text paintings. Those text paintings are now the focus of Notations, Holes and Humour, a show that just opened at Modern Art in London, his first British exhibition in over a decade.
Continue reading...‘I’m surprised it took so long’: Cubans find anger in their souls
Thousands took to the streets last week in unprecedented protests. Our writer meets some of those trying to force change
There’s a man from the government playing love songs in the park. Orlando Fuentes has a table, an awning against the hard Caribbean sun, and a sound system from which floats Silvio Rodríguez’s Cita con Ángeles. A woman says that she can’t listen, that it’s a beautiful song ruined by being played at too many government rallies.
After 16 months of pandemic and a week of unprecedented protests, the Cuban government wants to soothe the anger. Music is being played in parks across the country.
Continue reading...The era of Covid ambivalence: what do we do as normalcy returns but Delta surges?
We imagined a gleeful summer of pandemic relief. Instead, new anxieties have replaced old ones
We were promised a Hot Vax Summer.
The term – a riff on Hot Girl Summer, the hit 2019 summer single – emerged this spring as predictive shorthand for the (perhaps literally) orgiastic welcome of a post-vaccine reality. But, as might be expected of a phenomenon named for the last great summer anthem of a world before Covid-19, Hot Vax Summer connoted more than a gleeful exchange of fluids. It came to signal a best-case scenario for a time of transition. Pure celebration and best lives lived. In simplest terms, relief.
Continue reading...Joe Biden: six months on, cold, hard reality eclipses early euphoria
The president reset the tone from the Trump era and passed a huge Covid relief bill but other priorities have hit formidable political obstacles
Angela Merkel thrice called him “dear Joe”. He pledged unity in taking on “democratic backsliding, corruption, phony populism”. But he also warned: “If we don’t leave right now, we’re going to miss dinner” – one that included crispy sea bass, black pepper tagliatelle and kabocha squash.
Joe Biden’s meeting with German chancellor last week offered comfort food for anyone nostalgic for the old global order. But as Merkel leaves the stage after 16 years, certain of her legacy as a towering figure in European politics, Biden is still striving to make his mark.
Continue reading...Britney Spears refuses to perform again while father retains control over career
In the latest twist of her legal battle, the singer says she would rather share videos from her living room than go on stage
Britney Spears has refused to perform again while her father retains control over her career, and said the conservatorship she has been under for 13 years had “killed my dreams”.
Her remarks, in a lengthy Instagram post, were the latest in a series of emotional public comments about the conservatorship that controls her personal and financial affairs and which she has begged to be brought to an end.
Continue reading...At least 70 large wildfires burning in US west as fears mount over conditions
Bootleg is now the largest US forest fire at 281,208 acres and just 22% contained as ‘excessive heat’ forecast
At least 70 large wildfires are burning across the US west and nearby states – engulfing more than 1m acres in flames – as fears mount that shifting conditions can worsen an already dire situation. Significant areas of these states are in the grips of drought conditions that are considered “extreme” and “exceptional” – the most severe categories.
Related: Heat exhaustion, apocalyptic scenes: what it’s like fighting the US’s biggest wildfire
Continue reading...Majority of Covid misinformation came from 12 people, report finds
CCDH finds ‘disinformation dozen’ have combined following of 59 million people across multiple social media platforms
The vast majority of Covid-19 anti-vaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories originated from just 12 people, a report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) cited by the White House this week found.
Related: ‘They’re killing people’: Biden slams Facebook for Covid disinformation
Continue reading...US democracy faces a momentous threat says Joe Biden – but is he up for the fight?
The president’s speech in Philadelphia decried Republicans’ assault on voting rights but critics say it offered few answers, especially on Senate rules that let the minority to block reform
Few in the audience applauding Joe Biden could have questioned the sincerity of his warning about a momentous threat to American democracy.
But they may have walked away with lingering doubts about his ability to meet the moment or answer fears that even the office of the presidency will be found politically impotent in the face of the challenge.
Continue reading...‘A madman with millions of followers’: what the new Trump books tell us
Books show how close the US came to disaster, and document an unprecedented moment in US history that is not yet over
This week, the Guardian reported that what are assessed to be leaked Kremlin documents describe Donald Trump as an “impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced individual”. Vladimir Putin, the documents say, therefore decided to assist Trump’s rise to power in 2016 as a way to weaken America.
Related: Frankly, We Did Win This Election review: a devastating dispatch from Trumpworld
Continue reading...Killer dubbed the ‘Hollywood Ripper’ sentenced to death for double murder
‘Death followed Michael Gargiulo everywhere he went’, says judge, in case which included the murder of the girlfriend of actor Ashton Kutcher
A man dubbed the “Hollywood Ripper” has been sentenced to death for the home-invasion murders of two women and the attempted murder of a third in a much-delayed case stretching back 20 years.
Victims’ family members wept as Los Angeles superior court Judge Larry Fidler handed down the sentence to 45-year-old Michael Thomas Gargiulo on Friday.
Continue reading...Biz Markie, rapper known for Just a Friend, dies at age 57
Hip-hop star known for his personality, beatboxing and freestyle skills scored his biggest hit in 1989
Biz Markie, the New York rapper, beatboxer and producer, has died at age 57.
Markie’s representative, Jenni Izumi, said the rapper and DJ died peacefully Friday evening with his wife by his side. The cause of death has not been released.
Continue reading...Oregon wildfire causes miles-high ‘fire clouds’ as flames grow
Pyrocumulus clouds viewable from 100 miles away as Bootleg fire grows beyond size of New York City
Smoke and heat from a huge wildfire in south-eastern Oregon are creating giant “fire clouds” over the blaze – dangerous columns of smoke and ash that can reach up to six miles (10km) in the sky and are visible from more than 100 miles (160km) away.
Authorities have put these clouds at the top of the list of the extreme fire behavior they are seeing amid the Bootleg fire, the largest wildfire burning in the US. The inferno grew on Friday to about 377 sq miles (976 sq km), an area larger than New York City, and was raging through a part of the American west that is enduring a historic drought.
Continue reading...Arizona counties find fewer than 200 possible voter fraud cases among 3m 2020 ballots
Findings undermine Trump’s claims after Biden beat him by more than 10,000 votes in state
Arizona county election officials have identified fewer than 200 cases of potential voter fraud out of more than 3m ballots cast in last year’s presidential election, undercutting Donald Trump’s claims of a stolen election as his allies continue a disputed ballot review in the state’s most populous county.
The 182 cases identified by the Associated Press represent instances where problems were clear enough that officials referred them for further review. So far, only four cases have led to charges, including those identified in a separate state investigation. No one has been convicted. No vote was counted twice.
Continue reading...Arizona: stranded family rescued as flash floods inundate cities – video report
In Tucson, a fire department swift water team rescued a father and his two daughters from the roof of their vehicle on Wednesday after they drove into a usually dry wash and got stranded in floodwaters, said Golder Ranch Fire District spokesman Capt Adam Jarrold. In Flagstaff, floodwaters have inundated communities in the shadow of a mountain that burned in 2019 and adjacent neighbourhoods, sending at least one vehicle floating down a city street.
Continue reading...CDC chief says Covid becoming ‘a pandemic of the unvaccinated’ – video
Speaking during a White House briefing, Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control, said US coronavirus cases were up about 70% over the last week, with nearly all hospital admissions and deaths among the unvaccinated. The White House Covid-19 coordinator, Jeffrey Zients, added that the pandemic is 'one that predominantly threatens unvaccinated people' and that the administration expects cases to increase in the weeks ahead because of spread in communities with low vaccination rates
Continue reading...US seeing ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’ as cases rise in every state
Public health chiefs warn of ‘extraordinary surge’ as less than half the US population fully vaccinated
Covid cases are rising in all 50 US states as the Delta variant spreads coast to coast, news outlets reported on Friday , and with less than half the US population fully vaccinated, public health chiefs warned of an “extraordinary surge”.
Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said at a White House briefing: “This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
Continue reading...Afghans flee to eastern Turkey as Taliban takes control amid chaos
Some pay smugglers to take them to Istanbul as withdrawal of US troops rekindles fears of civil war
Twenty-eight days into their journey out of Afghanistan, a woman and her five children are sitting in the shade near a bus station in Tatvan, a town on the shore of Lake Van in eastern Turkey.
She is waiting for a smuggler, who was paid in advance, to take the family to Istanbul. Tired and dirty, the younger children are playing in the dust and laughing; the youngest boy wants a piggyback. The smuggler is two days late.
Continue reading...Dee Rees on her debut film Pariah: ‘My favourite scene is the dildo scene, honestly!’
The film-maker’s first movie, about a Black lesbian teenager, has made it to the Criterion Collection, a catalogue of canonical films. She discusses her characters and the pleasure of this success
When Dee Rees was first approached by highbrow home entertainment company Criterion, it was Mudbound, her 2017 film, it wanted to discuss. Inclusion in the Criterion Collection on DVD and Blu-ray, with some titles streamed, is widely seen as confirmation of a film’s classic status. Mudbound is Rees’s most-watched film to date – approximately “20m hours of viewing”, according to Netflix – and it was up for several big awards, including the Oscar for best adapted screenplay (making Rees the first Black women nominated in a that category) and best cinematography for Rachel Morrison (the first – and, to date, only – woman to be so honoured).
Rees, though, had a different suggestion. “I was excited, but I was like: ‘It’d be really great if Pariah were there,” she says, via video call from her Harlem home. Thankfully, Criterion’s curation team agreed. “It was my first film and it just was such an important film for me, y’know? And it felt, at that time in the world, culturally important … I guess there’s nothing like your first.”
Continue reading...Western US and Canada brace for another heatwave amid more than 70 wildfires
- Fires have burned about 1,562 sq miles
- Next heatwave expected to start on Saturday
The fourth searing heatwave in five weeks is set to strike the west of the United States and Canada this weekend, aggravating wildfires that are already ravaging an area larger than Rhode Island as drought and record-breaking temperatures tied to the climate crisis pummel the region.
The impending heatwave comes as 12 states are already battling 71 active wildfires. The combined area of the blazes is about 1,553 sq miles (4,021 sq km), according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
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