In 1915 the president, Woodrow Wilson, screened the movie Birth of a Nation at the White House – a film that depicts Black men as brutal people who desire white women. Meanwhile white supremacist groups were writing school curriculums and news media were painting Black men as animalistic beings who attacked white women. This set the scene for a week of racial violence targeting Black Americans in 1919, during which two American cities were left in chaos. In Chicago it started with a Black man drowning after white people throw stones at him at a beach for infringing on their space. It led to a confrontation between Black and white citizens, and escalated into white mobs going into Black communities to burn down homes and kill Black people. In Washington DC it started with a minor argument that turned into rape allegations against two Black men, which prompted white mobs to attack Black people in restaurants, trolleys and in their communities. Dozens of Black people were killed during these riots, and few were held accountable.
Continue reading...Category Archives: US News
Blow for Uber as judge finds California’s gig-worker law unconstitutional
- Judge sides with drivers in lawsuit brought over Prop 22
- Uber criticizes decision and says it plans to appeal
A judge on Friday struck down a California ballot measure that exempted Uber and other app-based ride-hailing and delivery services from a state law requiring drivers to be classified as employees eligible for benefits and job protections.
Related: One airport, 1,300 snakes: San Francisco helps to save endangered species
Continue reading...Biden to ‘mobilize every resource’ to get Americans home from Afghanistan
- Embattled president promises: ‘We will get you home’
- Biden endeavors to evacuate Afghans who supported US
Joe Biden, under mounting pressure to evacuate American citizens from Afghanistan, has said the US is considering “every means” to get people to Kabul airport, promising: “We will get you home.”
Related: ‘We will get you home,’ Biden tells Americans in Afghanistan – live
Continue reading...Biden confirms plan to nominate Rahm Emanuel as ambassador to Japan
• Obama’s former chief of staff also served as Chicago mayor
• Emanuel joins long list of ambassadors awaiting confirmation
Joe Biden plans to nominate Rahm Emanuel, a former US lawmaker who served as chief of staff to President Barack Obama and as mayor of Chicago, to be ambassador to Japan, the White House said in a statement on Friday.
White House officials lauded Emanuel’s experience and long years of public service in announcing the nomination.
Continue reading...Joe Biden gives update on situation in Afghanistan – video
President Joe Biden, rejecting criticism of his handling of the chaotic US pullout from Afghanistan, has warned that the operation to evacuate thousands through Kabul airport carries risks, but promised Americans in the country that 'we will get you home'.
'Make no mistake, this evacuation mission is dangerous. It involves risks to our armed forces and it's being conducted under difficult circumstances. I cannot promise what the final outcome will be or that it will be without risk of loss. But as commander in chief, I can assure you that I will mobilise every resource necessary,' Biden said.
The United States is desperately trying to evacuate thousands of people from Afghanistan by a 31 August deadline, although Biden said this week that US troops at Kabul airport providing security for the evacuation could stay longer if necessary.
Continue reading...US evacuation flights pause in Kabul, reports say – live
- Processing facility in Qatar reportedly reaches capacity
- US state department memo warned of swift collapse of Kabul – report
- Pressure on Biden to speed up visas for Afghans who helped US
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The US State Department has put out a joint statement from the foreign ministers of the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), after a meeting earlier today, appealing to the Taliban, effectively, in a display of resolve that appears undermined by the scenes on the ground in Afghanistan - and what is known of the Taliban.
We are united in our deep concern about the grave events in Afghanistan and call for an immediate end to the violence. We also express deep concerns about reports of serious human rights violations and abuses across Afghanistan.
We affirm our commitment to the statement by the UN Security Council on 16 August, and we call for adherence to international norms and standards on human rights and international humanitarian law in all circumstances.
Related: Afghanistan reports of torture and killing contradict Taliban’s promises
The Afghan people deserve to live in safety, security and dignity, and to build on the important political, economic and social achievements they have made over the last twenty years. We stand by civil society actors who must be able to continue to safely play their meaningful role in Afghan society. We call on all parties in Afghanistan to work in good faith to establish an inclusive and representative government, including with the meaningful participation of women and minority groups. Under the current circumstances, NATO has suspended all support to the Afghan authorities.
Any future Afghan government must adhere to Afghanistan’s international obligations; safeguard the human rights of all Afghans, particularly women, children, and minorities; uphold the rule of law; allow unhindered humanitarian access; and ensure that Afghanistan never again serves as a safe haven for terrorists.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
Continue reading...In your face: how Chuck Close built images and tore them apart
Face blindness meant the photorealist artist, who has died aged 81, had to dismantle and reconstitute, making every cell of his pixellated portraits ever more dramatic
Hugely enlarged, Chuck Close stares back at you from behind his glasses, a cigarette lodged in the corner of his mouth. It is a face with a what-you-looking-at stare, and you look back, dwarfed by his image, thinking get-out-of-my-face in return.
Taking us from the top of his head to his sprouting chest hair, via every pore and bristle, the artist’s unkempt anti-grooming and non-coiffure, the trickle of smoke exhaled from his nostril, Close’s 1967-8 Big Self-Portrait charts every centimetre of his black and white photograph, which was gridded, enlarged and copied on to the canvas, then painted using a spray gun. All the aberrations of the original photograph, with its blank background and out-of-focus ear, are retained in the painting. The tip of the smouldering cigarette looms out at you. It makes you want to duck. Painted when Close was in his late 20s, the self-portrait was Close’s big move, both calling card and confrontation.
Continue reading...Afghanistan: chaos and gunshots outside Kabul airport amid evacuations – video report
Tens of thousands of foreigners and Afghans who collaborated with US and Nato forces remain stranded in Kabul, as governments grappled with an overwhelming backlog of visas and Taliban checkpoints that were preventing people safely reaching the airport. US troops and Taliban fighters have opened fire into the air to disperse crowds held up outside the airport as they attempt to escape the country
Continue reading...Humanoid ‘Tesla Bot’ likely to launch next year, says Elon Musk
Billionaire Tesla chief gives no indication of any progress in actually building such a machine
Elon Musk said he would probably launch a humanoid robot prototype next year dubbed the “Tesla Bot”, which is designed to do “boring, repetitious and dangerous” work.
The billionaire chief executive of the electric carmaker Tesla said the robot, which would be about 5ft 8in (1.7m) tall and weigh 125 pounds (56kg), would be able to handle tasks such as attaching bolts to cars with a spanner or picking up groceries at stores.
Continue reading...OnlyFans ban on sexually explicit content will endanger lives, say US sex workers
Activists say website’s change will threaten livelihoods and force those working remotely online into ‘riskier street-based sex work’
American sex workers say subscription website OnlyFans’ decision to ban “sexually explicit” content will threaten their livelihoods, drive more of the industry underground, and ultimately endanger lives.
Related: OnlyFans to ban adult material after pressure from payment processors
Continue reading...From the archive: Cuomo’s demise – Politics Weekly Extra
A week after Andrew Cuomo resigned as the governor of the state of New York, Jonathan Freedland revisits a conversation he had with Alexis Grenell back in March. The pair discuss how Cuomo rose to the top, and then fell spectacularly from grace.
Continue reading...California fire destroys mobile homes as 11,000 firefighters battle blazes
- Dry and windy weather hampers efforts to fight dozens of fires
- Dixie fire, California’s biggest, only 35% contained
Dry and windy weather hampered efforts to contain destructive fires that are devouring the bone-dry forests of drought-stricken northern California, as a small wildfire swept through a mobile home park, leaving dozens of homes in ashes and injuring at least one person.
Related: Grizzly Flats: the California town leveled by the Caldor fire – in pictures
Continue reading...Man who claimed to have bomb near US Capitol surrenders after long standoff
- Floyd Roseberry drove on to sidewalk by Library of Congress
- Standoff prompted huge police response and evacuations
A North Carolina man who claimed to have a bomb in a pickup truck near the US Capitol surrendered to law enforcement after an hours-long standoff on Thursday that prompted a large police response and the evacuations of government buildings in the area.
Related: Investigators seek clues after California family found dead on hiking trail
Continue reading...Investigators seek clues after California family found dead on hiking trail
Deaths of couple, their daughter and their dog remain unexplained, says sheriff’s office
Investigators were searching for clues in the unexplained deaths of a California couple, their baby and the family dog in a remote area of the Sierra national forest.
John Gerrish, his wife, Ellen Chung, their one-year-old daughter, Muji, and their dog were found dead on a hiking trail in Mariposa county. A family friend had reported them missing Monday evening.
Continue reading...Joe Biden says he and first lady plan on getting Covid booster shot
President defends shots as millions worldwide are unvaccinated: US has ‘provided more to the rest of the world than all the rest of the world combined’
Joe Biden has said that he and first lady Jill Biden plan on getting a booster shot and is comfortable doing so while millions around the world remain unvaccinated because America has “provided more to the rest of the world than all the rest of the world combined”.
He added that the US will also provide an additional half a billion shots around the world within the first half of next year. Critics argue this remains a drop in the ocean in the context of what is needed.
Continue reading...Trump team thought UK officials ‘out of their minds’ aiming for herd immunity, book says
Trump officials tried to convince him to take threat seriously and British experts ‘oddly pessimistic’ on defeating virus, says book
US officials thought their British counterparts “were out of their minds” in aiming for herd immunity as part of Boris Johnson’s initial policy on dealing with the coronavirus, according to a new book about the global response to the pandemic.
As the scale of the threat became increasingly clear in January and February 2020, officials in Donald Trump’s administration were trying to convince him to take the threat seriously, despite personal reassurances he had been given by the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, that it was under control.
Continue reading...R Kelly accuser describes physical abuse from singer when she was 16
Jerhonda Pace, first witness at the R Kelly sex-trafficking trial, says the singer ‘slapped me and he choked me until I passed out’
A key accuser at the R Kelly sex-trafficking trial returned to the witness stand on Thursday, saying he often videotaped their sexual encounters and demanded she dress like a Girl Scout during a relationship that began when she was a minor.
Jerhonda Pace resumed her testimony in Brooklyn federal court a day after telling jurors she was a 16-year-old virgin and a member of Kelly’s fan club when he invited her to his mansion in 2009.
Continue reading...Zuckerberg deflects questions about vaccine disinformation on Facebook
CEO says problem is primarily one of ‘vaccine hesitancy’ among the US public, touting platform’s vaccine literacy tool
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg skirted a question on Thursday about coronavirus vaccine disinformation on the social network, choosing to phrase the problem instead as primarily one of “vaccine hesitancy” among the US public.
In an interview with CBS, which was released on Thursday morning, TV anchor Gayle King pressed Zuckerberg to release information on how many people have viewed and shared Facebook posts containing misinformation about the Covid vaccine.
Continue reading...US hospitalizations of people under 50 at highest levels since start of pandemic
Largest increases among those in their 30s and under 18 as US urges world leaders not to attend UN meeting in person
Hospitalizations of people under the age of 50 with Covid-19 are now at the highest levels seen in the US since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the latest government data shows.
The largest increases in hospitalizations was among those in their 30s and the under-18s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The previous peak in coronavirus patients under 50 needing to be hospitalized was in January this year.
Continue reading...Meng Wanzhou: ‘princess of Huawei’ who became the face of a high-stakes dispute
The executive’s case has sent China’s relations with the US and Canada plummeting with accusations of political arrests and ‘hostage diplomacy’
Until she was detained at Vancouver airport in December 2018, Meng Wanzhou was not a household name. But the 49-year-old Huawei executive has now become the face of a high-stakes trilateral dispute between China, Canada and the US.
Related: Meng Wanzhou extradition case wraps up but verdict will take months
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