Police and federal agents fired tear gas and forcefully dispersed protesters in the US city of Portland early Saturday, an AFP reporter said, during the latest demonstrations against racism and police brutality.
The city, the biggest in the state of Oregon, has seen nightly protests for nearly two months, initially sparked by the death in Minneapolis of unarmed African American George Floyd.
It is also now the scene of a highly controversial crackdown by federal agents ordered by US President Donald Trump -- one that is not supported by local officials.
The inspector general of the US Justice Department on Thursday opened an official investigation into the federal crackdown.
Friday's demonstration was mainly peaceful, with crowds playing music and dancing, blowing soap bubbles and setting off fireworks.
But it ended -- like many before it -- in a showdown between protesters and police, which escalated in a haze of tear gas and flash-bang devices.
One group of protesters formed a line with umbrellas and makeshift shields to try to protect themselves, as at least two fires burned outside the fences around a federal courthouse.
Tear gas was first fired around 11:00 pm. By 2:30 am police and federal agents were clearing the scene outside the courthouse with tear gas, pushing protesters back.
Earlier, protesters who spoke to AFP complained of the federal agents' presence in the city and voiced their support for the Black Lives Matter movement, which helped drive demonstrations across the country for weeks after Floyd's killing.
"I don't like what's happening down here, what Trump is doing," Mike Shikany, a 55-year-old aerospace engineer, said, adding he did not "want to get anywhere near the little green men," meaning the federal troops.
Portland retiree Jean Mullen, 74, said that without pressure nothing would change.
"It's time to become the country we always brag about being. And we can't brag anymore, about anything. We aren't first in anything and it's a terrible, terrible thing to see at the end of my life," she said.
Trump, who is campaigning for re-election in November on "law and order," also announced on Wednesday that federal agents in Chicago and other cities will be stepped up after a resurgence of crime and shootings.
Agence France-Presse
NEW YORK -- JPMorgan Chase & Co is eliminating terms like "blacklist," "master" and "slave" from its internal technology materials and code as it seeks to address racism within the company, said two sources with knowledge of the move.
The terms had appeared in some of the bank's technology policies, standards and control procedures, as well in the programming code that runs some of its processes, one of the sources said.
Other companies like Twitter Inc and GitHub Inc adopted similar changes, prompted by the renewed spotlight on racism after the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis in May.
The phrases "master" and "slave" code or drive are used in some programming languages and computer hardware to describe one part of a device or process that controls another.
"Blacklist" is used to describe items that are automatically denied, like a list of websites forbidden by a company's cybersecurity division.
"Whitelist" means the opposite - a list of items automatically approved.
Floyd's death has sparked a re-examination of words that might carry racial overtones. For example, some realtors are no longer using the term "master bedroom," and Universal Music Group's Republic Records stopped using the word "urban" to describe music genres and internal departments or roles.
JPMorgan appears to be the first in the financial sector to remove most references to these racially problematic phrases, and it comes after the bank has said it is taking other steps to promote Black professionals and anti-bias culture training for staff.
Columbia Business School programming professor Mattan Griffel said such terms have long been controversial and can be difficult to change.
The technology that underpins bank operations is often a spaghetti-like mess that results from merged companies, decades-old code and third-party systems, and any change can have cascading effects that are difficult to predict, Griffel said.
Changing these terms within the bank's code could take millions of dollars and months of work, Griffel said. "This is not a trivial" investment by the bank, Griffel said. "This kind of language and terminology is so entrenched. It has to (change) and now is as good a time as any."
-reuters-
SAN FRANCISCO - A Facebook Inc employee who criticized Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg's decision not to take action against inflammatory posts by US President Donald Trump this month said on Friday that the social media company had fired him.
Brandon Dail, whose social media profiles describe him as a user interface engineer in Seattle, wrote on Twitter that he was dismissed for publicly challenging a colleague's silence on the controversy, which prompted a rare staff protest at Facebook on June 1.
Dozens of employees, including Dail and six other engineers on his team, abandoned their desks and tweeted objections to Zuckerberg's handling of Trump's posts.
Dail said the tweet that prompted his firing, which he sent the day after that walkout, scolded a fellow engineer for declining to add a statement of support to developer documents he was publishing.
"Intentionally not making a statement is already political," Dail wrote in the tweet.
Trump's posts included the racially charged phrase "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" in reference to protests against racism and police brutality held after the May 25 killing of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis.
Twitter affixed a warning label to the same post, saying it glorified violence. Facebook opted to leave the post untouched.
Zuckerberg stood by his decision at a tense all-hands meeting with employees that week. During the meeting, Dail tweeted that it was "crystal clear today that leadership refuses to stand with us."
Dail again voiced objections this week after both Facebook and Twitter declined to take action against a Trump post that contained an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory about Martin Gugino, a 75-year-old protester who was critically injured by police in Buffalo, New York.
"Trump's attack on Martin Gugino is despicable and a clear violation Facebook's anti-harassment rules. It's again extremely disappointing that we (and Twitter) haven't removed it," he said.
Facebook and Dail did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
-reuters-
NEW YORK, United States - The state of New York on Friday adopted a series of laws designed to put an end to police brutality against the African-American community, a sign of the impact that nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd are having.
Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo officially signed 10 laws that the two houses of the state legislature passed earlier in the week.
Among the measures is a law forbidding chokeholds being used by law enforcement officers that was named in memory of Eric Garner, a black man suffocated by New York police in 2014.
The state also repealed legislation that designated as "confidential" any document pertaining to professional evaluations of police officers, including records of disciplinary proceedings.
In the future, the public, including members of the media, will be able to access such records through freedom of information requests, without requiring a court order.
After Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers on May 25, the city police department revealed that Derek Chauvin, the officer who killed him by kneeling on his neck for nearly 9 minutes, had been the subject of 18 abuse complaints in his 20 years on the job.
The details of the complaints have not been revealed.
Floyd's death sparked widespread protests across the United States.
Cuomo also announced on Friday he would be signing an executive order obliging the state's almost 500 police departments to "develop a plan that reinvents and modernizes police strategies and programs in their community."
The measures address some of the key issues raised in the massive protests across the country, such as racial inequality, the excessive use of force by police, and transparency in the process of filing complaints against officers.
Any of the departments that have not adopted their new plan by April 2021 will lose their state funding, Cuomo said at a press conference, flanked by Democratic leaders of the state assembly and civil rights activist Al Sharpton.
"These bills mean some substantive change, so that we won't be sitting here going over this after the next situation," said Sharpton.
He said the threat of withholding funding from police departments that fail to implement change "is a model for where we ought to be, dealing with 21st century civil rights in this country."
Agence France-Presse
NEW YORK - The American reference dictionary Merriam-Webster will change its definition of the word racism at the suggestion of a young black woman, who wanted it to better reflect the oppression of people of color.
Kennedy Mitchum, a recent graduate of Drake University in Iowa, contacted Merriam-Webster, which has published its dictionaries since 1847, to propose updating the term.
"I basically told them that they need to include that there's a systematic oppression upon a group of people," she told the local CBS affiliate KMOV. "It's not just, 'Oh, I don't like someone.'"
Merriam-Webster's editorial manager Peter Sokolowski confirmed to AFP that the definition would be modified after Mitchum's request.
The dictionary currently offers three definitions of racism, and Sokolowski said that the second definition touches on Mitchum's point -- but that "we will make that even more clear in our next release".
In the current version of the second definition, racism is "a doctrine or political program based on the assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles," and "a political or social system founded on racism."
"This is the kind of continuous revision that is part of the work of keeping the dictionary up to date, based on rigorous criteria and research we employ in order to describe the language as it is actually used," Sokolowski said.
One of the dictionary's editors told Mitchum that the definitions of other words "related to racism or have racial connotations" would also be updated, without specifying which ones.
"We apologize for the harm and offense we have caused in failing to address this issue sooner," the editor wrote, according to a message published by Drake University and retweeted by Mitchum.
The Merriam-Webster site, where the definitions are available for free, had nearly 50 million unique visitors in May, according to the SimilarWeb site.
Merriam-Webster's Twitter account has also become a viral hit in recent years, with Buzzfeed calling it "the sassiest dictionary on Twitter".
Agence France-Presse
WASHINGTON - Crossfit founder and CEO Greg Glassman said on Tuesday he was stepping down after his response to the anti-racism US protests, prompted by George Floyd's death, caused outrage.
On Saturday Glassman tweeted "It's FLOYD-19" after the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation classified racism and discrimination as a public health issue.
Human rights groups expressed outrage at the tweet, calling it insensitive to current events and the death of Floyd, a black man who died in police custody on May 25 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
"On Saturday I created a rift in the CrossFit community and unintentionally hurt many of its members," Glassman said in a statement.
"I'm stepping down as CEO of CrossFit, Inc., and I have decided to retire... I cannot let my behavior stand in the way of HQ's or affiliates' missions."
According to a recording of a Zoom call obtained by BuzzFeed News, hours before his tweets Glassman told private gym owners: "We're not mourning for George Floyd -- I don't think me or any of my staff are."
On Sunday, sports footwear giant Reebok announced it would end its partnership with CrossFit later this year.
Affiliate CrossFit Magnus also decided to cut ties with the Washington, DC-based organization.
More than 1,000 affiliated gyms have reportedly left the company, according to a CrossFit newsletter.
Dave Castro, director of the CrossFit Games, will replace Glassman as CEO, the company said.
CrossFit has over 13,000 gyms in more than 120 countries, generating some US$4 billion in annual revenues.
Agence France-Presse
A man exits a vehicle with a gun as a man is tended to by medics after being shot by a driver who tried to drive through a protest against racial inequality in the aftermath of the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Seattle, Washington, U.S. on Sunday. Protests persists in several major cities around the USA and the world calling for the end to racial inequality.
-reuters-
WASHINGTON - "I couldn't stay home": Moah Pollas, an African American recent college graduate, explained why he was compelled to spend days demonstrating in the streets of the US capital against systemic racism, despite the fear of being arrested, or worse.
As a victim of racism himself, Pollas simply could not stay home.
It started early. When he was just seven or eight years old, walking down a sidewalk one day after a school field trip, he heard someone yell at him from the window of a passing school bus.
"Take your black ass back to Africa!" a boy yelled, as others on the bus laughed raucously.
"It didn't hurt as much as the reaction I got from my white teacher when I told her," he told AFP. "She basically told me to get over it."
"I'm not sure if she really believed me, to be honest."
"That experience," added Pollas, a 21-year-old political science graduate, "has colored every experience with white people or other people of color for the rest of my life."
Born in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, Pollas was two years old when his family immigrated to the United States. His parents, who were fleeing political persecution, settled in the predominantly white California city of Burbank.
"I grew up knowing that based on my skin color, people were going to perceive me in a more threatening way, perceive me in a more dangerous way and perceive me to be more violent.
"It causes you as a black person to police your actions on a daily basis, 24/7," he told AFP, sitting in the backyard of a home he shares with other students in northeastern Washington.
Being black in the United States, he said, is "suffocating."
It means that if he is walking down the street "and if there are white people walking in the same direction as me, I should probably step out of the way... I should probably do my best to look at the ground. I probably do my best to stay quiet."
- 'The fear in him' -
One day when he was 13 years old, he was in a car with his father, who works in the pharmaceutical business, when police pulled them over.
"Police officers pull people over just because they're black all the time," he said.
"When my dad was stopped, I could sense the fear in him. A fear that I've never seen in the man who was protecting me and my family my whole life. That fear transferred onto me in that moment. And honestly, has never left me."
African Americans are three times as likely to be killed by police as whites or Hispanics, according to data from the specialized website mappingpoliceviolence.org.
In one egregious example, a 32-year-old black man named Philando Castile was shot and killed by police in the state of Minnesota in July 2016 after the officer stopped him because of a faulty brake light on his car.
- 'I saw my own face' -
Then on May 25 came the death of a 46-year-old black man named George Floyd, who was suffocated when an arresting officer in Minneapolis knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
The death of the father of five, in a horrifying video now seen by millions, sparked protests of historic dimension across the United States as well as in many cities abroad.
"When I saw that video... I didn't just see George Floyd. I saw my father's face. I saw my uncle's face, my brother's, my cousin's, my friends'.
"I saw my own face," Pollas said, not hiding his emotions. "I saw how easily I could have been in that situation and the people I cared about could have been in that situation."
A recent graduate of Howard University in Washington, a prestigious predominantly black school, Pollas had long dreamed of a career in politics. But lately he is thinking instead of a job in education.
His change of heart likely came when he worked in the city as a substitute teacher.
"I've seen first-hand the effects of underfunding that really affects predominantly black schools in DC," said Pollas.
Having studied Russian, he is planning to travel to Ukraine to teach English. But when he returns to the United States, he hopes to work to help change the system.
"I'll come back and continue working on writing about race and race policy in this country, about our political system and trying to find ways in which I can be a true activist and a revolutionary," he said.
Agence France-Presse
Twitter Inc has disabled US President Donald Trump's campaign's tribute video to George Floyd saying there has been a copyright complaint.
The tribute video, three minutes and forty five seconds long, was posted on June 3 on Twitter.
-reuters-
WASHINGTON - The US recorded 1,021 new coronavirus deaths in 24 hours, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker Thursday at 8:30pm (0030 GMT Friday).
This brings the total number of deaths in the country to 108,120, with more than 1.87 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, the Baltimore-based university said.
About 485,000 people have recovered from the virus.
The US is by far the country worst-hit by the pandemic, both in total number of cases and death toll.
But relative to its population, several European countries -- including France, Italy and Spain -- have much higher death rates per capita than the United States.
But the virus is predicted to cause about 127,000 deaths in the US by June 27, according to researchers at the University of Massachusetts, who combined nine epidemiological models to generate the final toll.
Even if the pandemic has shown signs of slowing in the country since it peaked in mid-April, health professionals are worried that ongoing nationwide protests against police brutality and racism will trigger a resurgence in the coming weeks.
Agence France-Presse
Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott pledged $1 million over social media in a bid to improve police training and address systemic racism.
Prescott's lengthy Instagram post on Wednesday comes on the heels of the death of George Floyd, a Minneapolis man who died in police custody on May 25.
Police officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, was arrested and charged with third-degree murder after pressing his knee on the neck of Floyd, an African American, for more than eight minutes. Chauvin was also charged with second-degree manslaughter.
"As a black multiracial American, I am disgusted and unsettled!" Prescott wrote. "... As our communities take action, protesting and fighting for the justice of George Floyd and every black life, I am with you!"
Prescott, 26, addressed the members of law enforcement.
"To the men and women that police our streets, I have the utmost respect for those of you with a passion for protecting and serving our communities," Prescott wrote.
"When you chose to wear a badge of a police officer, you pledged to PROTECT life and property through the enforcement of our laws and regulations. How can you claim to uphold the law when those within your ranks don't abide by it? You need to hold your own accountable! Each of your are as guilty as the men who stood beside Derek Chauvin if you do not stand up against the systemic racism plaguing our police forces nationwide."
Prescott set career highs in 2019 with 4,902 passing yards and 30 touchdown passes.
-reuters-
HOUSTON - George Floyd's hometown of Houston held a memorial march for him on Tuesday, where attendees recounted a "gentle giant" whose legacy had helped the city largely avoid the violent protests seen elsewhere in the United States.
The mayor's office said 60,000 people gathered downtown to honor Floyd, who died after a white police officer pinned his neck under a knee for nearly nine minutes in Minneapolis on May 25.. Floyd's death has ignited protests across the country.
Floyd lived most of his 46 years in Houston's historically black Third Ward neighborhood, located about a mile south of the park where the march began. He moved to Minneapolis in recent years for work.
The memorial march was organized by well-known Houston rappers Trae Tha Truth, who was a longtime friend of Floyd's - and Bun B, who worked directly with Floyd's family for the event. Houston's mayor and police chief attended.
"We're gonna represent him right," Trae Tha Truth, whose given name is Frazier Thompson III, told the crowd of several hundred people gathered for the march. "We are gonna tear the system from the inside out."
He added: "George Floyd is looking down at us now and he's smiling."
After a prayer, the marchers exited the park and began to walk toward City Hall.
Democratic US Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, who represents portions of Houston where Floyd was raised, told the crowd that she would introduce police reform legislation in Congress on Thursday in honor of Floyd.
Mayor Sylvester Turner, who is black, said he understood marchers' pain and told them they were making an impact.
"People that are in elected office and positions of power - we are listening," Turner said. "It's important for us to not just listen, but to do. I want you to know your marching, your protesting has not gone in vain. George did not die in vain."
Houston has so far largely escaped the violent protests, with some attributing that directly to the legacy of Floyd himself.
"The people who knew George the best help set the tone for Houston. They knew what he was about. He truly was a gentle giant, a sweet guy," said David Hill, a Houston community activist and pastor at Restoration Community Church, who knows the Floyd family.
-reuters-
SAN FRANCISCO -- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees on Tuesday that he stood by his decision not to challenge inflammatory posts by US President Donald Trump, refusing to give ground a day after staff members staged a rare public protest.
A group of Facebook employees - nearly all of them working at home due to the coronavirus pandemic - walked off the job on Monday. They complained the company should have acted against Trump's posts containing the phrase "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."
Zuckerberg told employees on a video chat that Facebook had conducted a thorough review and was right to leave the posts unchallenged, a company spokeswoman said.
She said Zuckerberg also acknowledged the decision had upset many employees and said the company was looking into "non-binary" options beyond either leaving up such posts or taking them down.
One Facebook employee, who tweeted criticism on Monday, posted again on Twitter during the all-hands meeting to express disappointment.
"It's crystal clear today that leadership refuses to stand with us," Facebook employee Brandon Dail wrote on Twitter. Dail's LinkedIn profile describes him as a user interface engineer at Facebook in Seattle.
On Friday, Twitter Inc affixed a warning label to a Trump tweet about widespread protests over the death of a black man in Minnesota that included the phrase "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."
Twitter said the post violated its rules against glorifying violence but was left up as a public interest exception, with reduced options for interactions and distribution.
Facebook declined to act on the same message, and Zuckerberg sought to distance his company from the fight between the president and Twitter. He maintained that while he found Trump's remarks "deeply offensive," they did not violate company policy against incitements to violence.
Twitter last week also put a fact-checking label on two Trump tweets containing misleading claims about mail-in ballots. Facebook, which exempts politicians' posts from its program with third-party fact-checkers, took no action on that post.
Timothy Aveni, a junior software engineer on Facebook's team dedicated to fighting misinformation, announced his resignation in protest over that decision.
"Mark always told us that he would draw the line at speech that calls for violence. He showed us on Friday that this was a lie. Facebook will keep moving the goalposts every time Trump escalates, finding excuse after excuse not to act," he wrote in a Facebook post.
Civil rights leaders who attended an hour-long video call on Monday night with Zuckerberg and other top Facebook executives called the CEO's defense of the hands-off approach to Trump's "incomprehensible."
"He did not demonstrate understanding of historic or modern-day voter suppression and he refuses to acknowledge how Facebook is facilitating Trump's call for violence against protesters," said a joint statement from leaders of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Color of Change.
Some critics posted calls on Twitter for Facebook's independent oversight board to weigh in. But the board will not review any cases until early fall, and users initially will only be able to appeal to the board about removed content, not content that Facebook has decided to leave untouched. The board, which can overrule Zuckerberg, will only review a small slice of content decisions.
Zuckerberg spoke with Trump on Friday, as first reported by news website Axios.
-reuters-
WASHINGTON/MINNEAPOLIS - At least five US police were hit by gunfire during violent protests over the death of a black man in police custody, police and media said, hours after President Donald Trump vowed to use the military to halt the unrest.
Trump deepened outrage on Monday by posing at a church clutching a bible after law enforcement officers used teargas and rubber bullets to clear the way for him to walk there after he made his remarks in the White House Rose Garden.
Demonstrators set fire to a strip mall in Los Angeles, looted stores in New York City and clashed with police in St Louis, Missouri, where four officers were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
"Officers are still taking gunfire downtown & we will share more info as it (becomes) available," St Louis Police said on Twitter.
A police officer was also shot during protests in the Las Vegas Strip area, AP news agency said, quoting police. Another officer was "involved in a shooting" in the same area, the agency said without giving details.
It did not give details of the shootings or the officers' condition. Police declined to comment to Reuters.
Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak said in a tweet his office had been notified of two separate incidents in Las Vegas. "The State is in contact with local law enforcement and continues to monitor the situation," he said.
Trump has condemned the killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American who died after a white policeman pinned his neck under a knee for nearly nine minutes in Minneapolis on May 25, and has promised justice.
But, with anti-police brutality marches and rallies having turned violent after dark each day in the past week, he said rightful protests could not be drowned out by an "angry mob".
"Mayors and governors must establish an overwhelming law enforcement presence until the violence has been quelled," Trump said. "If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them."
Floyd's death has reignited simmering racial tensions in a politically divided country that has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, with African Americans accounting for a disproportionately high number of cases.
CRITICISM OF CHURCH VISIT
Following his address, Trump walked through an area that had been cleared by police to nearby St. John's Episcopal Church, where he posed for pictures with his daughter, Ivanka, and US Attorney General William Barr.
The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church diocese in Washington DC, Michael Curry, was among those who criticized Trump's use of the historic church for a photo opportunity.
"In so doing, he used a church building and the Holy Bible for partisan political purposes," he said on Twitter. The church suffered minor fire damage during protests on Monday night.
The White House said it was clearing the area before a curfew.
A few hours later, thousands of people marched through Brooklyn, shouting "Justice now!" while some passing drivers honked in support.
Television images showed crowds smashing windows and looting luxury stores along Fifth Avenue in Manhattan before the city's 11 p.m. curfew. Mayor Bill de Blasio said the curfew would be moved to 8 p.m. on Tuesday.
Two police officers were struck by a car at a demonstration in Buffalo, New York, on Monday night. Officials said the driver and passengers were believed to be in custody. It was not clear whether the incident was intentional.
In Hollywood, dozens of people were shown in television images looting a drug store. Windows were shattered at a nearby Starbucks and two restaurants.
AUTOPSIES
A second autopsy ordered by Floyd's family and released on Monday found his death was homicide by "mechanical asphyxiation," or physical force that interfered with his oxygen supply. The report says three officers contributed to his death.
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner later released autopsy findings that also called Floyd's death homicide by asphyxiation. The county report said Floyd suffered cardiopulmonary arrest while being restrained by police and that he had arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease, fentanyl intoxication and recent methamphetamine use.
Derek Chauvin, the 44-year-old Minneapolis police officer who kneeled on Floyd, was arrested on third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter charges. Three other officers involved in the arrest have not been charged.
Floyd's death was the latest case of police brutality against black men that was caught on videotape and prompted an outcry over racism in US law enforcement.
Dozens of cities are under curfews not seen since riots after the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The National Guard deployed in 23 states and Washington, D.C.
Most Americans were just emerging from weeks of strict "stay-at-home" orders imposed over the pandemic.
-reuters-
NEW YORK, United States - New York was under a curfew that would last until early Tuesday morning, officials said, after looters raided stores in central Manhattan, targeting some of the city's top retailers.
Upmarket fashion store Michael Kors on Fifth Avenue was among the luxury outlets hit, along with Nike, Lego and electronics shops across Midtown, before the 11:00 pm to 5:00 am curfew came into effect, AFP journalists said.
Groups of young people moved from block to block around the district, usually bustling with tourists but deserted due to the coronavirus, with entire streets blocked by police.
Images from local NY1 television showed some young people running out of a Best Buy electronics store before being apprehended by the police.
Stores in the south of Manhattan suffered a similar fate, according to an AFP photographer.
The New York Times reported that the flagship Macy's department store had also been targeted by looters.
Police did not immediately confirm this, simply saying that "numerous stores were hit" and arrests made "in the hundreds" across the city.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said a lot of stores around Madison Avenue had been hit and the situation was "really not acceptable."
As a result, he said the curfew would start from 8:00 pm on Tuesday, instead of 11:00 pm.
"The city is fully under control, and overwhelmingly calm and peaceful," he nevertheless insisted on NY1.
- 'Time to go home' -
The imposition of the curfew had been announced a few hours earlier by the mayor and New York state governor Andrew Cuomo after protests and looting during the weekend -- notably in the trendy SoHo district.
The mayor tweeted late Monday that "protesters were overwhelmingly peaceful today" but that some people were out to damage property and steal.
"We support peaceful protest in this city. But right now it's time to go home," de Blasio said.
"Some people are out tonight not to protest but to destroy property and hurt others -— and those people are being arrested. Their actions are unacceptable and we won't allow them in our city."
New York, the economic capital of the United States, and around 40 other cities across the country have imposed curfews after violent protests against police brutality triggered by the death of African-American George Floyd in Minnesota.
Just after 11:00 pm, around a hundred people held a peaceful demonstration in front of the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, the scene of major protests in recent days, taking a knee in tribute to victims of police brutality, according to an AFP journalist.
Police observed them from a distance but did not arrest anyone despite the curfew.
While looters hit New York, in Washington, President Donald Trump said he was "dispatching thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel and law enforcement officers to stop the rioting, looting, vandalism, assaults and the wanton destruction of property."
Mayor de Blasio, a Democrat, denounced Trump's "bellicose words" and "divisive rhetoric."
"I don't think it's a statement from the last few hours that has caused all this. I think it's what he's done for years that has contributed," he said.
Agence France-Presse
Enraged San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich sharply criticized the lack of leadership shown by President Donald Trump and called him a coward in the wake of week-long protests surrounding the death of George Floyd.
Popovich told The Nation that Trump is "deranged" and incapable of saying "black lives matter" at a time when the nation desperately needs to hear those words from the leader of the country.
"It's unbelievable. If Trump had a brain, even if it was 99 percent cynical, he would come out and say something to unify people," Popovich told reporter Dave Zirin.
"But he doesn't care about bringing people together. Even now. That's how deranged he is. It's all about him. It's all about what benefits him personally. It's never about the greater good. And that's all he's ever been."
Nationwide protests and demonstrations have erupted since Floyd, a black man, died in Minneapolis on May 25 while white police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for several minutes.
Popovich, a staunch critic of Trump, views the president as a detriment to the country.
"He's not just divisive. He's a destroyer. To be in his presence makes you die," Popovich told The Nation sports editor Dave Zirin. "He will eat you alive for his own purposes. I'm appalled that we have a leader who can't say 'black lives matter.' That's why he hides in the White House basement. He is a coward.
"He creates a situation and runs away like a grade-schooler. Actually, I think it's best to ignore him. There is nothing he can do to make this better because of who he is: a deranged idiot."
Popovich, who has won five NBA titles with the Spurs and ranks third all-time with 1,272 regular-season victories, said Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are failing at leadership.
"It's so clear what needs to be done. We need a president to come out and say simply that 'black lives matter,'" Popovich said.
"Just say those three words. But he won't and he can't. He can't because it's more important to him to mollify the small group of followers who validate his insanity. But it's more than just Trump. The system has to change. I'll do whatever I can do to help, because that's what leaders do. But he can't do anything to put us on a positive path, because he's not a leader.
"It's like what (Senators) Lindsay Graham and Ted Cruz used to say when they had the courage to say it: He's unfit. But they have chosen instead to be invisible and obsequious in the face of this carnage. In the end, what we have is a fool in place of a president, while the person who really runs the country, Senator Mitch McConnell, destroys the United States for generations to come.
"McConnell has destroyed and degraded our judicial system. He has tried to destroy heath care. He's destroyed the environment. He's the master and Trump's the stooge, and what's funny is that Trump doesn't even know it. Trump's always wanted to be part of the in-group, but McConnell is an in-group of one and Trump plays the fool."
As for the protests surrounding Floyd's death, Popovich said those are needed but he would like to see better organization.
"It's frustrating. When Dr. (Martin Luther) King did a protest, you knew when to show, when to come back the next day. But if you're just organizing protests and everyone is coming and going in every direction, it doesn't work that way. If it was nonviolent, they knew to be nonviolent, but this is muddled.
"More leadership would be very welcome so these incredible mass demonstrations can't be used by people for other means. We can limit the bad, but only if things are organized better."
The whole situation is frustrating to Popovich.
"We need change. The system has to change. I'm willing to do my part."
-reuters-
WASHINGTON — Inside the White House, the mood was bristling with tension. Hundreds of protesters were gathering outside the gates, shouting curses at President Donald Trump and in some cases throwing bricks and bottles. Nervous for his safety, Secret Service agents abruptly rushed the president to the underground bunker used in the past during terrorist attacks.
The scene Friday night, described by a person with firsthand knowledge, kicked off an uneasy weekend at the White House as demonstrations spread after the brutal death of a black man in police custody under a white officer’s knee. While in the end officials said they were never really in danger, Trump and his family have been rattled by protests near the Executive Mansion that turned violent for a third night Sunday.
After days in which the empathy he expressed for George Floyd, the man killed, was overshadowed by his combative threats to ramp up violence against looters and rioters, Trump spent Sunday out of sight, even as some of his campaign advisers were recommending that he deliver a nationally televised address before another night of possible violence. The building was even emptier than usual as some White House officials planning to work were told not to come in case of renewed unrest.
Thousands of protesters demonstrated peacefully near the White House during the day, but by nightfall, with hundreds still in the streets, the scene turned more volatile as crowds surged forward against lines of riot police with plastic shields as the two sides vied for control of Lafayette Square across from the White House. Protesters threw water bottles, set off fireworks and burned a pile of wood and at least one car.
One of the fires on H Street NW a block from the White House may have spread because soon afterward flames erupted in the basement of St. John’s Episcopal Church, the iconic “church of presidents” attended at least once by every chief executive going back to James Madison, but were soon doused by firefighters. Businesses far away from the White House boarded up to guard against vandalism, and Mayor Muriel E. Bowser ordered an 11 p.m. curfew. The White House turned off at least some of its exterior lights.
Trump remained cloistered inside, periodically sending out Twitter messages like “LAW & ORDER!” until the evening, when he went quiet. While some aides urged him to keep off Twitter, Trump could not resist blasting out a string of messages through the day berating Democrats for not being tough enough and attributing the turmoil to radical leftists.
“Get tough Democrat Mayors and Governors,” he wrote. Referring to his presumptive Democratic presidential opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, he added: “These people are ANARCHISTS. Call in our National Guard NOW. The World is watching and laughing at you and Sleepy Joe. Is this what America wants? NO!!!”
The president said his administration “will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization,” referring to the shorthand for “anti-fascist,” and scheduled a meeting with Attorney General William Barr for Monday morning. But antifa is a movement of activists who dress in black and have used tactics similar to those of anarchists, not an organization with a clear structure that can be penalized under law. Moreover, American law applies terrorist designations to foreign entities, not domestic groups.
By targeting antifa, however, Trump effectively paints all the protests with the brush of violent radicalism without addressing the underlying conditions that have driven many of the people who have taken to the streets. Demonstrations have broken out in at least 75 cities in recent days, with governors and mayors deploying the National Guard or imposing curfews on a scale not seen since the aftermath of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.
While Trump has been a focus of anger, particularly among the crowds in Washington, aides repeatedly have tried to explain to him that the protests were not only about him, but about broader, systemic issues related to race, according to several people familiar with the discussions. Privately, Trump’s advisers complained about his tweets, acknowledging that they were pouring fuel on an already incendiary situation.
“Those are not constructive tweets, without any question,” Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only black Republican in the Senate, said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” “I’m thankful that we can have the conversation. We don’t always agree on any of his tweets beforehand, but we have the ability to sit down and dialogue on how we move this nation forward.”
Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor and supporter of Trump, said the president, with election looming in five months, is focused on catering to his core supporters rather than the nation at large. “Trump is far more divisive than past presidents,” Eberhart said. “His strength is stirring up his base, not calming the waters.”
But Trump’s absence rankled the Democrats he was criticizing.
“What I’d like to hear from the president is leadership,” Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta said on “Meet the Press” on NBC. “And I would like to hear a genuine care and concern for our communities and where we are with race relations in America.”
Some campaign advisers were pressing for a formal address to the nation as early as Sunday. But White House officials, recalling Trump’s error-filled Oval Office address in March about the spread of the coronavirus, cautioned that it was not necessary. Trump quizzed advisers throughout the day Sunday about whether he should give an Oval Office address.
Trump already tried to recalibrate by ripping up his speech at the Kennedy Space Center on Saturday after the launch of the new crewed SpaceX rocket and adding a long passage about Floyd. In the speech, Trump repeated his calls for law and order, but in more measured terms and leavened by expressions of sympathy for Floyd’s family, whom he had called to offer condolences.
Aides were disappointed that the remarks, delivered late Saturday afternoon as part of a speech otherwise celebrating the triumph of the space program, did not get wider attention, but they said they hoped they would break through. Several administration officials said Trump was genuinely horrified by the video of Floyd’s last minutes, mentioning it several times in private conversations over the last few days.
After Trump returned to the White House from Florida on Saturday, he found a White House again under siege. This time, security was ready. Washington police blocked off roads for blocks around the building, while hundreds of police officers and National Guard troops ringed the exterior perimeter wearing helmets and riot gear and holding up plastic shields.
The scene was similar Sunday night as well. Protesters shouted “no justice, no peace,” and “black lives matter” as well as chanting expletives at Trump. Washington icons like the Hay-Adams Hotel and the Oval Room restaurant, damaged from the night before, were boarded up.
Graffiti was spray-painted for blocks, including on the historic Decatur House a block from the White House: “Why do we have to keep telling you black lives matter?”
-Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman, The New York Times-
MINNEAPOLIS - A tanker driver was arrested in the US city of Minneapolis Sunday after driving his vehicle at speed on a bridge packed with protesters taking part in an anti-racism march, officials said.
Although there were no immediate reports of protesters being hurt, the driver himself was taken to hospital after being hauled from his vehicle, the governor of Minnesota told reporters.
"I don't know the motives of the driver at this time but at this point in time, to not have tragedy and many deaths is simply an amazing thing," Tim Walz said.
Television footage showed that several hundred protesters were on the bridge which had been closed to traffic when the truck suddenly appeared. It was not immediately clear if the truck had breached a barricade or had been given permission to enter.
Although he did not drive straight at the bulk of the crowd, the driver showed little sign of slowing down and some of the protesters could be seen desperately running to the side of the road before the truck eventually came to a halt.
In a statement, the local police department said that the unnamed truck driver had been taken to hospital "with non-life threatening injuries".
"He is under arrest. It doesn’t appear any protesters were hit by the truck," it added.
The footage evoked memories of the murder in 2017 of an anti-racism protester in the city of Charlottesville who was killed when a white supremacist drove his vehicle into a crowd.
Minneapolis has been the scene of large-scale protests since last Monday when a black man called George Floyd died while being arrested by a white police officer who pinned his knee on his neck for around eight minutes.
Agence France-Presse
LONDON -- Six times Formula One motor racing champion Lewis Hamilton has criticised his sport for its silence on the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died after a white U.S. police officer knelt on his neck.
The death in Minneapolis triggered a wave of outrage and violent protests in the United States.
Hamilton, Formula One's first black world champion, spends much of his time in America and spoke out on the issue in an Instagram story on Sunday.
"I see those of you who are staying silent, some of you the biggest of stars yet you stay silent in the midst of injustice," wrote the Mercedes driver.
"Not a sign from anybody in my industry which of course is a white dominated sport. I’m one of the only people of colour there yet I stand alone," he added.
"I would have thought by now you would see why this happens and say something about it but you can’t stand alongside us. Just know I know who you...are and I see you."
In a second post, Hamilton added: "I do not stand with those looting and burning buildings but those who are protesting peacefully. There can be no peace until our so called leaders make change."
McLaren driver Lando Norris, Hamilton's compatriot, was one of those who did comment, adding a line to his profile on the Twitch streaming platform that said "sign the !BLM petitions #BLACKLIVESMATTER"
Canadian Nicholas Latifi, who is due to drive for Williams this season, said on Twitter 'This has to stop #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd."
Hamilton has spoken out before about the lack of diversity in motor racing.
"There really is the most minimal diversity within this sport and I really somehow want to be a part of shape-shifting that with Formula One," he said a year ago. (Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Lincoln Feast.)
-reuters-
Basketball great Michael Jordan voiced outrage on Sunday over the death of George Floyd, a black man shown on video gasping for breath as a white policeman knelt on his neck in Minneapolis, an incident that has triggered violent nationwide protests.
Jordan said his heart went out to the family of Floyd and others who have died through acts of racism.
"I am deeply saddened, truly pained and plain angry," Jordan, a Basketball Hall of Famer and owner of the National Basketball Association's Charlotte Hornets, said in a statement. "I see and feel everyone's pain, outrage and frustration.
"I stand with those who are calling out the ingrained racism and violence toward people of color in our country. We have had enough."
The comments from Jordan came as many U.S. cities were bracing for another night of unrest after cleaning up streets strewn with broken glass and burned-out cars as curfews failed to quell confrontations between protesters and police.
Jordan, a six-time NBA champion who was at the heart of the Chicago Bulls' dynasty in the 1990s, called on people to show compassion and empathy and never turn their backs on senseless brutality.
"We need to continue peaceful expressions against injustice and demand accountability," said Jordan. "Our unified voice needs to put pressure on our leaders to change our laws, or else we need to use our vote to create systemic change.
"Every one of us needs to be part of the solution, and we must work together to ensure justice for all."
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto; Editing by Peter Cooney)
-reuters-
