Residents will be eligible for $116.5m in prize money giveaways as the state tries to get millions more vaccinated before reopeningCalifornia has become the latest state to offer a vaccine lottery to incentivize getting the coronavirus vaccine – launching the nation’s most valuable single prize draw: $1.5m.The state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, announced on Thursday that residents will be eligible for a total of $116.5m in prize money giveaways, a windfall aimed at getting millions more vaccinated before the nation’s most populous state fully reopens next month. Continue reading...
Patrisse Cullors has recently faced attacks from a far-right group and criticism from other Black organizersA co-founder of Black Lives Matter announced Thursday that she is stepping down as the executive director of the movement’s foundation following what she has called a smear campaign from a far-right group and recent criticism from other Black organizers.Patrisse Cullors, who has been at the helm of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation for nearly six years, said she is leaving to focus on other projects, including the upcoming release of her second book and a multi-year TV development deal with Warner Bros. Her last day with the foundation is Friday. Continue reading...
by Vincent Ni, China affairs correspondent, and Julia on (#5JBPP)
Beijing reacts angrily to calls for WHO to carry out second phase of investigation, while US intelligence split on virus’s likely originJoe Biden’s decision to expand the US investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, with one intelligence agency leaning towards the theory that it escaped from a Wuhan laboratory, has opened a new divide in his administration’s already tense relationship with China.Biden said on Thursday that he would publish the results of the 90-day inquiry, which has made a priority for the intelligence agencies. The move represents a dramatic turnaround from the administration’s policy until now of leaving the investigation to the World Health Organization. Continue reading...
Shooter who left nine people dead spoke about killing people at work more than a decade ago, said his ex-wifeThe death of a San Jose rail transit worker overnight makes Wednesday’s massacre at a rail yard in the California city the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the San Francisco Bay Area.More details emerged on Thursday about the shooting that claimed the lives of 10 people, including the gunman. Continue reading...
Florida attorney who has received endorsements from Benjamin Crump and Philonise Floyd is running to replace Val DemingsNatalie Jackson, a prominent Florida attorney whose clients include Trayvon Martin’s family, is running to replace Representative Val Demings in Congress next year.Just days into her campaign for the Orlando-based House seat, Jackson has already garnered endorsements from two powerful civil rights champions: attorney Benjamin Crump and Philonise Floyd, George Floyd’s brother. Continue reading...
Police say the shooter was an employee of the Valley Transportation Authority, which operates the light rail facilityA shooting that erupted in the early hours of Wednesday morning at a light rail maintenance yard in San Jose, California, has left at least ten people dead, including the gunman.Local leaders have described the violence as a “terrible, terrible” tragedy as authorities search for a motive. Continue reading...
The west can disapprove all it likes of leaders like Belarus’s Lukashenko, but only engagement will change anythingWhat should we do about Belarus? It is becoming the North Korea of Europe, its opposition leader in exile, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, told the European parliament this week. But it must be the wrong question. The question is not what should we do, but what can we do?European and American politicians reach for economic sanctions as they used to reach for gunboats or bombers. But gunboats meant results. You soon knew if anything had changed. Sanctions are like papal edicts, signals of moral superiority supposedly cost-free to the signaller. Continue reading...
Neumann received $245m in company stock and $200m in cash earlier this year as part of a renegotiation with investor SoftBankWeWork founder Adam Neumann received $245m in company stock and $200m in cash earlier this year, part of an enormous exit package from the office rental company he led to dizzy heights before its equally dramatic fall.The award comes nearly two years after a disastrous attempt by the company to go public and the ousting of Neumann. Continue reading...
Bill would have forced all student athletes in the state to compete according to their sex assigned at birthOn Tuesday, Democratic lawmakers in the Texas house of representatives successfully stalled a transphobic bill from going to a vote until it hit its “pass-or-die” deadline and expired.Senate Bill 29, which had already passed the Texas senate, would have forced all student athletes in the state to compete according to their sex assigned at birth. Continue reading...
The California governor, Gavin Newsom, has spoken emotionally about the latest US mass killing, after an employee gunned down nine people at a San Jose rail yard and then killed himself as law enforcement arrived.
by Nathan Kalman-Lamb, Derek Silva and Johanna Mellis on (#5JBBJ)
The only meaningful counterweight to the NCAA system’s exploitative dynamics is unionization: the empowerment of athletes to defend their own interests as a collectiveAt times it can feel like it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of exploitation, abuse and harm in the world of US college sport. This is after all an athletic system that produces billions of dollars of revenue for universities and the NCAA and yet denies the workers who generate it a basic wage, the ability to engage in compensatory promotional work and the equivalent educational experience enjoyed by their non-sporting peers, even as it tolerates physical, sexual and emotional abuse and the subjection of its participants to extreme physical harm. And we haven’t even mentioned the plantation dynamics.“We are at the mercy of our respective schools, they get to set the rules and treat us however they want and the worst consequence is some bad press, but the machine keeps on going,” a Pac-12 football player told the Guardian. “The power dynamics between player and coaches/schools is so off balance, guys were scared to speak up and advocate for themselves in the middle of a pandemic. The NCAA has shown they don’t give a fuck about us, it’s all about protecting the bottom line and making money.” Continue reading...
Other prizes include Target gift cards, trips to Bermuda and Miami, and stays in Wyndham hotels for customers who get Covid shotsCVS Health is betting a chance to win a trip to the Super Bowl, a Bermuda vacation or cash prizes will bring in more customers for Covid-19 vaccinations.The drugstore chain officials say they will launch a sweepstakes on 1 June with weekly drawings and more than 1,000 potential prizes for customers who get shots through CVS or register for them. Other prizes include cash giveaways, Target gift cards, trips to Miami and stays in Wyndham hotels. Continue reading...
Republican senator who served as secretary of the US navy and hit the headlines when he married the film star Elizabeth TaylorThe US senator John Warner, who has died aged 94, was for a time best known for his brief marriage to the Hollywood star Elizabeth Taylor. Craggy of face and crusty of manner, he was central casting’s very image of a conservative Republican senator – dedicated champion of a big navy in the Nixon administration and later a leading advocate of strategic missile defence as chair of the powerful Senate armed services committee.Warner became the swing vote in the great debate over American withdrawal from Iraq when the Republican party lost control of Congress in 2006. His influence was crucial because he had always seemed an utterly reliable supporter of the military and so, after the 2006 midterm elections, the ability of the Democrats to force President George W Bush to withdraw from Iraq was seen to turn on the decision of this one man. Continue reading...
Joe Manchin has publicly signaled that he doesn’t back Democrats’ bill and wants bipartisan support – can senators win him over and move forward?Happy Thursday, Continue reading...
Belcampo employee posted an Instagram video that said the company’s products were not all they claimed to beThe trendy “farm to door” meat purveyor Belcampo has admitted to misrepresenting the origin of meats sold at a store in Santa Monica, after an employee posted an Instagram video that charged the company’s products were not all they claimed to be.The San Francisco Bay Area-born company is well known for its high-end butcher shops, where organic beef and other meats can sell for over $30 a pound. It’s website promises that its meat comes from vetted partner farms – “meat you can trust start to finish” – and says it tracks its animals “from birth to butchery to your plate”. Continue reading...
Emmanuel Macron’s visit comes as the increasingly ruthless Rwandan leader is running out of friendsThere are moments when the international community’s perception of a leader shifts into a new configuration, often for reasons that can’t be entirely logically explained. Myanmar’s Aung San Sui Kyi reached that tipping point during the Rohingya crisis, Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, has been undergoing the same transition since war broke out in Tigray, and the same process is taking place with the Rwandan president, Paul Kagame.Today, he is welcoming the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to Kigali, his spotlessly tidy hillside capital. The visit marks the culmination of a bromance that has seen the French, once supporters of Kagame’s predecessor, Juvenal Habyarimana, make a public “mea culpa” for past support of a genocidal regime, and Kagame’s ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which did its best to eradicate French influence after seizing power, signal its interest in partnering up once again. Continue reading...
by Sam Levine in New York and Daniel Strauss in Washi on (#5JAWY)
Democrats have yet to convince their entire Senate caucus to back the House-passed For the People Act – let alone beat the filibusterAfter six months of aggressive Republican efforts to restrict voting access, Democrats are facing new questions about how they will actually pass voting rights reforms through Congress.The most recent hand-wringing comes as Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democratic senator, made clear earlier this month he still is not on board with the For the People Act, which would require early voting, automatic and same-day registration, and prevent the severe manipulation of district boundaries for partisan gain. Continue reading...
The deployment of wildly unreasonable subjective fear is often sufficient to justify a wide range of reactions, even murderIt has been a year since George Floyd last drew breath. It has been a year since the multiple videos of his death spread worldwide; since passionate demonstrations swept cities and towns; since personnel carriers filled with soldiers crawled through American streets; since “saying” his or her name became a ubiquitous incantation, an infinitely-unspooling litany of death. In the year since, Derek Chauvin, the police officer whose coldly dispassionate gaze riveted our own, was convicted on all counts. It was hard to unsee. And we saw.Moreover, the witnesses against him included the chief of police; the instructor in techniques of restraint at the academy where Chauvin had trained; the police dispatcher who was watching remotely and thought her screen was frozen because he stayed on top of Floyd for so long; the emergency medical technician who had to reach around Chauvin’s knee to take a pulse (there was none) because Chauvin refused to move even after the ambulance had arrived; Floyd’s weeping (white) girlfriend who testified to his gentle, generous and prayerful nature; the sheer number of bystanders who “called the police on the police”; the crying children; the shopkeepers; the passing martial arts professional who shouted at Chauvin repeatedly, telling him that that he was killing Floyd. I began my own career as a prosecutor and I have never seen a stronger case. Continue reading...
US trade representative announced plans to sue as Canadian officials face growing tensions with USAfter a tumultuous four years living next door to Donald Trump, many Canadians had hoped that relations with their closest neighbour would mend under Joe Biden. The former president had slapped tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, threatened levies on the automotive sector, and called the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, “two-faced”.But in recent weeks, Canadian officials have faced growing tensions with the US under Biden as leaders on both sides confront domestic political challenges. Continue reading...
New York bill would give gig workers path to unionize but at steep price, opponents say, as bill wouldn’t define them as employeesA huge controversy has erupted among labor unions after several unions joined with Uber and Lyft to develop legislation in New York State that would deliver on one of labor’s major goals: giving many gig workers a quick path to unionization.The legislation would make good on another labor objective: allowing industrywide bargaining for gig workers, specifically the roughly 250,000 app-based drivers and food delivery worker in New York. Continue reading...
Both sides emphasised importance of bilateral trade relations and agreed to further negotiationsTop US and Chinese trade negotiators have held “candid” talks, their first under the Biden presidency, as Washington continues to raise concerns over Beijing’s trade practices.In the long-awaited first official engagement between the US trade representative Katherine Tai and the Chinese vice-premier, Liu He, held virtually on Thursday morning (Beijing time), the two sides emphasised the importance of the bilateral trade relations and agreed to further negotiations. Continue reading...
The Haas driver is a stupendously rich coaster who consistently fails upwards. In other words, a perfect embodiment of so much that is wrong with AmericaThe classic American sports villain knows many forms. Bill Laimbeer was the Detroit Pistons’ elbow-throwing rabble-rouser. Bill Romanowski was the Denver Broncos’ late-hitting loogie spitter. Mike Tyson bit off a guy’s ear. And now there’s Nikita Mazepin, the Formula One racing driver who’s fast tracking as an all-time foil too.Doubtless, Mazepin’s inclusion in this rogue’s gallery will strike some as harsh given that this is the 22-year-old Muscovite’s maiden season driving for Haas, the tanking backmarker representing the United States. But for those of us fans who have watched him over the past five grands prix, his early work reads like hacky Russian literature – slow and meandering. Last weekend at Monaco marked the first time he outqualified teammate Mick Schumacher – but much of that was down to Michael’s boy ringing up about a half-million dollars’ worth of damage sliding his car into a Casino Square exit barrier. Continue reading...
Joe Biden has ordered the US intelligence community to 'redouble' its efforts studying the origins of coronavirus, adding that it will continue to press for China to participate in a full investigation. The deputy White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, confirmed the investigation would include any possibility the trail might lead to a Chinese lab. 'China wasn't transparent enough,' she said. 'We have been saying that for a very long time, that China needed to provide more access to the lab, cooperate more fully with the scientific investigators'
After recent elections, the country can shake off social and economic crisis, if it avoids the missteps of its neighboursIn October last year, after 12 months of almost continuous protests, Chileans voted overwhelmingly in a national referendum in favour of establishing a new constitution. This result finally sounded the death knell of a constitution that was instituted by the authoritarian regime of Gen Augusto Pinochet 40 years ago.Now, Chileans have elected the members of the constituent assembly that will be charged with writing this new constitution in a democratic process, that can only be described as exemplary, held over two days last week – even though turnout was disappointingly low. Continue reading...
If the grand jury goes against him, Trump would be the first former US president charged with a crimeStanding in court, the former president pleaded not guilty to charges of financial crimes that he insists are part of a politically motivated witch hunt. Jacob Zuma, once the populist leader of South Africa, cut a humbled figure on Wednesday – and offered a potential glimpse of America’s future.A similar fate for Donald Trump became significantly more likely with reports that New York prosecutors have convened a grand jury to decide whether to indict him on criminal charges. Continue reading...
A Dayton-area teen is the first winner of the program’s full-ride college scholarship, with four more winners to comeOhio has announced that a woman from the state’s south-west is the first winner of its $1m Vax-a-Million vaccination incentive prize.The state also said a Dayton-area teen is the first winner of the program’s full-ride college scholarship. The names were announced Wednesday night at the end of the Ohio Lottery’s Cash Explosion TV show. Continue reading...
Michael Larson, who runs Cascade Investments, subject of claims including racist and sexist remarksThe man responsible for managing the vast majority of billionaire Bill Gates’ fortune has been the subject of claims including racist remarks, showing nude pictures of women to his staff and making sexist comments, the New York Times has reported.In an extensive investigation the newspaper said that Michael Larson, who runs Cascade Investments, had created a “culture of fear” where the employee abuses had occurred. Cascade’s sole function is to manage the fortune of Gates and Melinda French Gates, who have turned their wealth into a powerhouse of global philanthropy but are now divorcing. Continue reading...
Jean-Pierre becomes first openly gay person to brief White House press corps and first Black woman to do so in 30 years“Hi, everybody! Welcome!”So, with a rustle of papers, began a new chapter in the White House briefing room on Wednesday when Karine Jean-Pierre became the first openly gay person to address reporters on behalf of the US president. Continue reading...
Dom’s hearing was certainly entertaining, but families of the bereaved deserved better than politically-honed truthsNot so much a parliamentary hearing, more an eight-hour Netflix miniseries. The one where a lone delusional narcissist drives into town to take revenge on a whole bunch of other delusional narcissists. With a bit of Independence Day and Spider-Man thrown in.Dominic Cummings’ appearance before the joint science and technology and health select committee always promised to be good box office and it didn’t disappoint. By the end of the session the body count included Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock, half the senior civil servants in Downing Street, Cobra, Carrie Symonds and Dilyn the dog. Not forgetting Cummings himself. It’s not in Dom’s makeup to resist a self-inflicted wound. Continue reading...
by Edward Helmore in New York and agencies on (#5JA3J)
Amy Cooper, who said Christian Cooper was ‘threatening her life’, is accusing the company of falsely portraying her as racistAmy Cooper, the white woman who falsely told police that Black birdwatcher Christian Cooper had threatened her in New York City’s Central Park, is suing her employer for false dismissal.In a complaint filed on Tuesday night in Manhattan federal court obtained by Reuters, Cooper claims she was fired by her former employer, the financial advisory firm Franklin Templeton, without proper investigation of the incident and accused the company of falsely portraying her as racist. Continue reading...
The mundanity underpinning the Brooks Koepka-Bryson DeChambeau feud puts a fine point on just why golf rivalries can be so entertainingThe latest installment in the long-simmering feud between Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau came to pass on Monday night when a leaked snippet from an interview with Koepka at last week’s PGA Championship surfaced and quickly went viral.In the 45-second clip, Koepka, the famously nonchalant four-time major champion, is starting to respond to an anodyne question from Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis after Friday’s second round before abruptly stopping short. DeChambeau, who’s managed to supplant Patrick Reed as the sport’s biggest heel, ambles first into his eyeline then behind him through the background of the shot, clickety-clacking down the sidewalk in his metal spikes and goofy newsboy cap while yammering away in full throat to his caddy. Continue reading...
Today’s punch-up obscured how many of the failures that left the UK so fatally exposed to the pandemic still remainWho better to judge the true significance of Dominic Cummings’ Big Day Out at parliament than Dominic Cummings himself? Not the grave-faced, shaven-headed man we’ve been watching, ladling out his revenge cold, but an earlier incarnation. Before he became chief adviser to Boris Johnson, before he compromised his own government’s lockdown rules by driving the family to Barnard Castle; before all of that, when he was just a guy holed up in a bunker with his blog, composing screeds about Bismarck, he anticipated the absurdity of today’s carnival: “The political-media system,” he wrote in a 2017 post, “actively suppresses thinking about, and focus on, what’s important.”Westminster demands a diversion and, over the months leading up to this hearing, Cummings has made himself its distractor-in-chief. Ever happy to fatten the beast he only pretends to despise, he has drip-fed journalists poison about his former confidants. And a grateful press hyped up the coming “Domageddon”, describing him as the “terrifying” kamikaze genius prepared to slay the prime minister or, at the very least, detonate Matt Hancock for “lying”. Continue reading...
Another worrying step in the monopolisation of entertainment, the internet giant’s $8.45bn splurge is about adding reams of classic Hollywood IP for its film-making arm to feast on
Many families suffered food insecurity but decided against using government benefits over concerns of their immigration statusLow-income immigrants in the US who struggled to afford basic needs during the coronavirus pandemic avoided seeking government benefits and other assistance because of immigration-related concerns, according to a new report by the Urban Institute.Immigrants, and especially immigrant women, have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic-induced recession, enduring higher unemployment rates than workers born in the United States, the Migration Policy Institute reports. Continue reading...
A tick-box approach to the Singh report’s recommendations won’t be enough. A fundamental culture change is neededThe Singh investigation into racism in the Conservative party provides a historic opportunity for the party to reset its relationship with Muslim communities.Not because the investigation was a complete whitewash. It wasn’t. There were serious concerns at the start that the investigation was established with restrictive terms of reference that excluded systemic racism, had an adviser who believed the idea of Islamophobia should be “junked”, and selected a peer reviewer who came from a thinktank that devoted an entire anthology to attacking the very idea of Islamophobia. Despite this, the investigation was not entirely toothless. Important recommendations include an overhaul of the complaints process, the reopening of cases that have fallen short of the expected standards and an outreach strategy focusing on meaningful engagement with Muslim communities. Continue reading...
Human rights should be at the centre of a push for peace, focusing on respect for international law and ending the occupationThe war in Gaza this month was the third war since 2008, and there have been other rounds of fighting in between. In between the wars there is no peace, as Palestinians live under various forms of occupation in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Diplomats and western media seem to be pointing to these underlying problems more often than in the past, in part because US progressives are starting to see parallels with civil rights and apartheid. But, so far, the ceasefire seems to have brought only a return to business as usual. As just one example, the recent flare-up in violence began with the planned eviction of Palestinian families in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah. These evictions are still being considered, along with others in the neighbourhood of Silwan.Palestinians and Israelis working for peace and human rights are worried that the world will look away now the rockets and air raids have stopped. This creates terrible incentives for the parties on the ground. Palestinian nonviolent action barely registers. When Donald Trump announced a “vision for peace”, where Israel would keep all its settlements and have sovereignty over the whole of Jerusalem, western analysts mused that the Palestinian – and broader Arab – response seemed muted. As a young Palestinian activist in the West Bank told me that week: Europe measures us only by how many of us go to the streets and get shot. Continue reading...
Investigation includes matters such as hush-money payments to women on Trump’s behalf, property valuations and employee payNew York prosecutors have convened a special grand jury to consider evidence in a criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s business dealings.The development signals that the Manhattan district attorney’s office was moving toward seeking charges as a result of its two-year investigation, which included a lengthy legal battle to obtain Trump’s tax records. Continue reading...
