Police across US ordered to soften their tactics to quell 'peaceful' marches

American police forces began reforming their practices and using de-escalation tactics as protests against racism and brutality in the wake of George Floyd's death stretched into a second weekend. On a humid afternoon in Washington, various groups of protesters gathered at points around the city before converging near the White House, where Mr Trump was in residence. Muriel Bowser, the city mayor, was cheered as she walked near the newly renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza. Protesters danced on the giant yellow "Black Lives Matter" letters painted on the road near the White House. Through a megaphone, a protester shouted: "We're out here for a reason. We're partying for a purpose."

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Mexican governor apologizes for police abuses at protest

The governor of a Mexican state recently roiled by clashes between security forces and demonstrators apologized on Saturday for abuses carried out by police against people protesting the against death of a man in police custody. Enrique Alfaro, governor of the western region of Jalisco, said he was appalled that police in the state capital of Guadalajara had on Friday beaten some participants in a demonstration over the death of the man, Giovanni Lopez. "It embarrasses me, it distresses me, it greatly pains me as a man from Jalisco, and as governor," Alfaro said in a video posted on Twitter.

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Letters to the Editor: Online learning was a godsend to low-income students before the pandemic

Students with multiple jobs or who rely on public transportation have much more access to education if it is online.

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Poland reports virus spike linked to mine

Poland saw a record spike in new confirmed coronavirus cases over the weekend, with most of the hundreds of infections reported by the health ministry linked to a coal mine in the country's south. Nearly two-thirds of those newly infected in Poland, which depends on coal to generate some 80 percent of its power, are employees of the Zofiowka mine and their family members, according to the health ministry. Zofiowka, in the city of Jastrzebie-Zdroj, is owned by the state-run JSW mining group -- the largest producer of coking coal used in steel production in the European Union.

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Italy reports 53 COVID deaths on Sunday, 197 new cases

Italy reported 53 new COVID-19 deaths on Sunday against 72 a day earlier and 197 new cases, down from 270 the day before, the Civil Protection department said. With a total number of confirmed cases at 234,998, Italy now has the seventh highest global tally. The northern region of Lombardy, where the outbreak was first identified, remains by far the worst affected region, accounting for 125 of the 197 new cases reported on Sunday.

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Una elección amarga. Acusaciones de fraude. Y ahora, una reconsideración.

By BY ANATOLY KURMANAEV AND MARIA SILVIA TRIGO from NYT en Español https://ift.tt/3h0eexL

A Delicate Balance: Weighing Protest Against the Risks of the Coronavirus

By BY AMY HARMON AND RICK ROJAS from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2XEd6Ie

Is This the Trump Tipping Point?

By BY JENNIFER SENIOR from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/2UgVj7W

Amid Pandemic and Upheaval, New Cyber Risks to the Presidential Election

By BY DAVID E. SANGER, NICOLE PERLROTH AND MATTHEW ROSENBERG from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3cG3Ibp

Tropical Storm Cristobal Makes Landfall in Louisiana

By BY SANDRA E. GARCIA from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3dL7vFC

Why Protesters Want to Defund Police Departments

Proponents say it's time to curtail the role police play in society and put their funding toward community programs

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Buffalo Cops Who Shoved Elderly Man Charged With Second-Degree Assault

Two Buffalo cops were arraigned on Saturday on one count each of assault in the second degree, after they allegedly shoved a 75-year-old demonstrator during anti-police brutality protests. Martin Gugino, a longtime peace activist in the upstate New York city, hit his head on the pavement and was left on the ground as blood pooled around his head on Thursday evening. He remained in hospital in a serious but stable condition on Saturday.Initially, city officials claimed Gugino had tripped and fell. However, a video surfaced showing riot police, who were clearing Niagara Square at the time, clearly pushing Gugino over and walking by his motionless body. The video had been viewed 78 million times by Saturday.When the two officers, Aaron Torgalski and Robert McCabe, were suspended without pay on Friday, all 57 officers in the department’s Emergency Response Team quit the elite unit in protest. Hundreds of Buffalo police officers showed up to the courthouse to back the pair on Saturday, after the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association reportedly circulated text messages drumming up support. Police and other supporters reportedly cheered when one of the officers exited the courthouse.Some supporters wore “We Back The Blue” t-shirts and held up umbrellas to block news cameras attempting to show the pro-police protesters. Torgalski, 39, and McCabe, 32, both pleaded not guilty to a class D felony and were both released on recognizance after brief virtual appearances in Buffalo City Court.Shortly after, Erie County District Attorney John Flynn said in a press conference that the two officers “crossed the line” and “violated the law.” He cited a New York State law which says if a victim is 65 or older, and is assaulted by someone at least 10 years younger, a felony can be charged.Flynn added that the officers could have arrested Gugino if he was committing a crime. “You arrest him. You don’t take a baton and shove him, along with the officer next to him... You properly arrest him, if he was committing a crime.”The Terrifying History of Bad Cops in BuffaloHe denied any suggestions of unfairly targeting police, pointing out that his office had prosecuted 39 “protesters that became agitators” as well.The city’s black mayor, though, stood by the police officers, saying he had not asked for them to be fired, and it was very important that they “know they are getting due process.”Byron Brown also argued that the 75-year-old man was an “agitator” who had been asked to leave previously. “What we were informed of is that that individual was an agitator,” Brown said. “He was trying to spark up the crowd of people. Those people were there into the darkness. Our concern is when it gets dark, there is a potential for violence.”John Evans, president of the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association, said the officers were following orders to clear the square of all people, regardless of age. “They were simply doing their job. I don’t know how much contact was made. He did slip in my estimation. He fell backwards,” he told The Buffalo News on Friday.However, Erie County Executive Marc Poloncarz said Friday he was “exceptionally disappointed” by the mass resignation. “It indicates to me that they did not see anything wrong with the actions last night,” he said at a press conference.Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the video made him nauseous and he supported a criminal investigation by the Erie County District Attorney.“What we saw was horrendous, disgusting and, I believe, illegal,” Cuomo, a former attorney general, said Saturday.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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HUD Secretary Ben Carson, Trump's only black cabinet member, said he 'grew up at a time when there was real systemic racism'

Carson said he experienced racism as an eighth-grade student, but called similar acts of racism "uncommon" today.

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Buffalo mayor says elderly protester pushed to ground by police was an 'agitator'

The mayor of Buffalo has said that the elderly protester filmed being knocked to the ground by police in a now viral video was an “agitator” who has been asked to leave the area “numerous” times.Byron Brown said that the 75-year-old man, Martin Gugino, was trying to “spark up the crowd of people”.

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Floyd's death spurs 'Gen Z' activists to set up new D.C. rights group

Jacqueline LaBayne and Kerrigan Williams met for the very first time in person on Wednesday, at a sit-in they organized in front of the U.S. Capitol over the death of George Floyd. Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man, died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. "We spotted each other via a mutual friend's thread on Twitter immediately following yet another police-executed murder," said Williams, a 22-year-old black woman who moved to Washington from Houston, Texas and is pursuing a master's degree in criminology at Georgetown University.

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Overnight curfew declared for NYC

The curfew will be in effect from 11 p.m. Monday night until 5 a.m. Tuesday morning.

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Cities Ask if It's Time to Defund Police and 'Reimagine' Public Safety

After more than a week of protests against police brutality and unrest that left parts of the city burned, a growing chorus of elected officials, civic leaders and residents in Minneapolis are urging the city to break up the Police Department and reimagine the way policing works."We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department," Jeremiah Ellison, a member of the City Council, said on Twitter this week. "And when we're done, we're not simply gonna glue it back together," he added. "We are going to dramatically rethink how we approach public safety and emergency response."At least three others, including the City Council president, Lisa Bender, have also called for taking the Police Department apart.Minneapolis is not the only city asking the question. Across the country, calls to defund, downsize or abolish police departments are gaining new traction after national unrest following the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck for nearly nine minutes on a busy Minneapolis street.On Wednesday, Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles announced that he would cut as much as $150 million from a planned increase in the Police Department's budget. And in New York, Corey Johnson, the City Council speaker, and Daniel Dromm, a council member from Queens, vowed even before the latest protests to cut the Police Department's $6 billion budget, which they noted had been left almost untouched even as education and youth programs faced steep cuts.The calls to redirect money away from the police come as cities face steep budget shortfalls because of the economic fallout from the coronavirus, and as public anger against police brutality has roiled the country. Redirecting funding is one of the few levers that elected officials have over the police, who are frequently shielded by powerful unions and labor arbitrators who reinstate officers fired for misconduct.Dromm, chair of the city's finance committee, said that in order to restore some funding to youth programs he was considering a delay in the next class of police cadets and scrutinizing the $700 million in police overtime that has been budgeted for this year. He said the events of recent days -- including police officers' treatment of peaceful protesters -- had shown that years of efforts to reform the department had not succeeded."The culture in the New York City Police Department has not changed," he said. "The white shirts, the commanding officers, they kind of get it and talk the talk, but the average beat cop doesn't believe in it and we've seen this over and over again."In Minneapolis, calls to dismantle the police are likely to further demoralize a force that already is reeling from the killing of Floyd, the criminal charges filed against four former officers, looting in the city and the burning of a police precinct."That's not the answer," said Gwen Gunter, a retired lieutenant of the Minneapolis Police Department who is also a member of a black police officers association."There's a part of me that hopes they do succeed," she said, "because I want to see how long it takes before they say, 'Oh, no we do need a Police Department.'"The Minneapolis police chief, Medaria Arradondo, pledged Friday to "continue to work on efforts to improve public trust, public safety and transformational culture change of the MPD." His statement did not address the recent calls to dismantle the department.Those who support the movement to scale back the responsibilities of the police say officers frequently abuse their power and instigate violence rather than prevent it. They say many social welfare tasks that currently fall to armed police officers -- responding to drug overdoses and working with people who have a mental illness or are homeless -- would be better carried out by nurses or social workers.One model that members of the Minneapolis City Council cite is Cahoots, a nonprofit mobile crisis intervention program that has handled mental health calls in Eugene, Oregon, since 1989. Cahoots employees responded to more than 24,000 calls for service last year -- about 20% of the area's 911 calls -- on a budget of about $2 million, probably far less than what it would have cost the Police Department to do the work, said Tim Black, the program's operations coordinator."There's a strong argument to be made from a fiscally conservative perspective," Black said. "Public safety institutions generally have these massive budgets and there's questions about what they are doing."But handing over one aspect of police work is not a panacea. Eugene has had at least two officers shoot people in the past year.Last year, after a campaign by a group called Durham Beyond Policing, the City Council in Durham, North Carolina, voted against hiring 18 new police officers and began discussing a "community safety and wellness task force" instead.Minneapolis took a step in that direction last year when it redirected funding for eight new police officers into a new office for violence prevention."We have an opportunity to reimagine what the future of public safety looks like," said Steve Fletcher, a City Council member who pushed that effort. But he acknowledged that the effort to build a viable alternative to the police on social and mental health issues would take years and that no one could be sure what it would look like in the end."It's very easy as an activist to call for the abolishment of the police," said Fletcher, himself a former activist who protested a 2015 police shooting. "It is a heavier decision when you realize that it's your constituents that are going to be the victims of crime you can't respond to if you dismantle that without an alternative."Black activists in the city have been calling for the police to be dismantled for years, issuing a report in 2018 that argued that the oppression of poor people and black people was baked into the very founding of the department in 1867. Police reform has roiled politics in the city for years, and politicians who have been seen as slow to reform have been defeated. But only recently have calls to dismantle the police been widely embraced by white leaders in the city.In Linden Hills, a predominantly white Minneapolis neighborhood near a golf course and two lakes that has not seen very many of the overly aggressive police tactics that the city's black residents complain about, residents acknowledge that the department needs to be significantly reformed. But they have been leery of pledges to abolish the police."What does that even mean?" asked Steve Birch, the chair of the Linden Hills Neighborhood Council. "Then who provides the public service of policing? I don't even know how to answer that."But in Kingfield, a neighborhood in South Minneapolis not far from where Floyd died, Chris DesRoches, the president of the neighborhood association, said he supported defunding the department."The killing of George Floyd has opened the eyes of people to the worst case scenario of police," he said, adding that the case has created an opportunity "for white people to start hearing what communities of color and community leaders have been saying all along, which is that the police are an organization which has been actively harmful to our communities."Mayor Jacob Frey has said he does not support calls to dismantle the department. On Friday, City Council members voted to accept a civil rights investigation by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and to adopt updates to the Police Department's use of force policy that include a ban on chokeholds. The topic of eliminating some of the department's functions was not discussed.Still, council members acknowledged during their debate that something had changed fundamentally in the way that city residents view the police. The University of Minnesota, as well as the school board and the parks department in Minneapolis, decided in recent days to cut ties with the Police Department.Many in Minneapolis have said that Floyd's death provided a stark illustration of how far efforts to institute reforms in the wake of the 2015 police shooting of Jamar Clark, a 24-year-old African American man, had fallen short.After that shooting, police officers received implicit bias training and body cameras. The department appointed its first black police chief. Community policing was emphasized. Policies were rewritten to include a "duty to intervene" if an officer saw a colleague endangering a member of the public -- a policy that was key to the swift firing and arrest of the four officers involved in Floyd's death.But those reforms were not sufficient to prevent Floyd's death."The fact that none of the officers took the initiative to follow the policy to intervene, it just became really clear to me that this system wasn't going to work, no matter how much we threw at it," said Alondra Cano, who heads the City Council's public safety committee.Cano, who says she was part of a "prosecute the police" campaign while she was a college student, acknowledged that it might take years to build viable alternatives. But she said many city residents, some of whom have formed mutual protection neighborhood groups in the wake of the unrest, were ready to try."There's a moment of deep commitment that I've never seen before, and that gives me leave as an elected official to start experimenting with other systems," she said.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

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Egypt proposes new Libya plan after collapse of Haftar offensive

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced a new peace initiative for Libya in Cairo on Saturday, flanked by the eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar, whose 14-month offensive to capture the capital, Tripoli, collapsed this week. The head of the Tripoli parliament, aligned with the Government of National Accord (GNA) based in the capital, dismissed the offer as that of a defeated force. Haftar's reversal extends the GNA's control across most of northwest Libya while Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA), based in Benghazi, and its allies control the east and much of the south, as well as most of Libya's oilfields. For more than five years, rival parliaments and governments in the east and the west have engaged in a stop-start conflict. Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia have provided support Haftar, but that backing has been outweighed in recent months by Turkish military backing for the GNA. Sisi, who was also accompanied in Cairo by eastern Libyan parliament head Aguila Saleh, proposed a ceasefire starting on Monday. He said the plan included a call for negotiations in Geneva, then the election of a leadership council, the disbanding of militias and the exit of all foreign fighters from Libya. In brief comments, Haftar said he hoped Sisi could make "urgent and effective efforts to compel Turkey to completely stop the transfer of weapons and mercenaries to Libya". The UAE was quick to state its support for Saturday's declaration. But Khaled al-Meshri, head of the GNA-aligned legislative assembly, said Libyans had no need for new initiatives and rejected Haftar's attempt to return to negotiations after military defeat, according to Al Jazeera. GNA forces also continued their advance as the LNA retreated from al-Washka, west of the coastal city of Sirte, sources on both sides said. Libya has had no stable central authority since dictator Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown by NATO-backed rebels in 2011. Haftar is a deeply divisive figure whose offensive upended a U.N.-led peace process, and it is unclear how much traction any initiative proposed by him or his allies can gain. A text of the plan included "the disbanding of militias and the handing over of their arms so that the Libyan National Army ... can carry out its military and security responsibilities". That language reflects the LNA's narrative of restoring order over western Libya's many disparate armed groups, and is likely to antagonise its rivals. Numerous previous attempts to establish truces and a return to negotiations have foundered, though the United Nations has started holding separate ceasefire talks with both sides. Egyptian-led efforts to unify Libya's military have also stalled in the past over Haftar's request to be supreme commander, diplomats say. GNA forces are likely to keep going until they meet resistance, said Tarek Megerisi, a Libya analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations. "Right now, military voices are ascendant and supported by a fear that Haftar and the UAE will exploit any truce to consolidate and launch counter-attacks," he said.

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Small business owner: The looters who broke into my store weren't protesting Floyd death

My heart goes out to all those who haven't had a fair shake and are victims of violence. But I'm delighted the National Guard is in Washington.

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California is set to reopen its schools, bars, film studios, and more on June 12

Citizens are still advised to practice social distancing, and the Governor's Office will distribute health supplies to schools across the state.

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Tropical Storm Cristobal makes landfall along southeast Louisiana coast

Tropical Storm Cristobal was expected to make landfall Sunday along the Louisiana coast with flooding rain, dangerous storm surge and blustery winds.

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Police arrest cyclist who confronted young people posting racial injustice fliers

A cyclist whose videotaped confrontation with three young people posting fliers protesting racial injustice on a nature trail outside Washington drew widespread attention has been arrested and charged, police said Friday.

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China urges citizens to shun Australia as dispute simmers

China is advising its citizens not to visit Australia, citing racial discrimination and violence against Asians, in what appears to be Beijing’s latest attempt to punish the country for advocating an investigation into the coronavirus pandemic. A notice issued by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism late Friday said there has “been an increase in words and deeds of racial discrimination and acts of violence against Chinese and Asians in Australia, due to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic.” “The ministry advises Chinese tourists to raise their safety awareness and avoid travelling to Australia,” the notice said.

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