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Can’t Request an Absentee Ballot Online? This Group Wants to Help

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Swift Charges Against Atlanta Officers Met With Relief and Skepticism

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U.S. Calls for Indefinite Arms Embargo of Iran, but Finds No Takers

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Coronavirus Briefing: What Happened Today

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Pence Raised Nearly $500,000 From Donors to Pay Mueller Legal Defense

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$1 Billion Is Shifted From N.Y.P.D. in a Budget That Pleases No One

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As coronavirus spreads to people under 40, it's making them sicker — and for longer — than once thought

Once assumed to be safe from the dangers of COVID-19, younger adults share their prolonged struggles with the disease.

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Woman shot in back while trying to steal man's Nazi flag, authorities say

The victim had been with friends at a nearby party when she apparently snatched one of the swastika flags displayed outside the man's home.

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National parks – even Mount Rushmore – show that there's more than one kind of patriotism

July 4th will be quieter than usual this year, thanks to COVID-19. Many U.S. cities are canceling fireworks displays to avoid drawing large crowds that could promote the spread of coronavirus. But President Trump is planning to stage a celebration at Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota on July 3. It’s easy to see why an Independence Day event at a national memorial featuring the carved faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt would seem like a straightforward patriotic statement. But there’s controversy. Trump’s visit will be capped by fireworks for the first time in a decade, notwithstanding worries that pyrotechnics could ignite wildfires. And Native Americans are planning protests, adding Mount Rushmore to the list of monuments around the world that critics see as commemorating histories of racism, slavery and genocide and reinforcing white supremacy. As I show in my book, “Memorials Matter: Emotion, Environment, and Public Memory at American Historical Sites,” many venerated historical sites tell complicated stories. Even Mount Rushmore, which was designed explicitly to evoke national pride, can be a source of anger or shame rather than patriotic feeling. Twenty-first-century patriotism is a touchy subject, increasingly claimed by America’s conservative right. National Park Service sites like Mount Rushmore are public lands, meant to be appreciated by everyone, but they raise crucial questions about history, unity and love of country, especially during this election year. For me, and I suspect for many tourists, national memorials and monuments elicit conflicting feelings. There’s pride in our nation’s achievements, but also guilt, regret or anger over the costs of progress and the injustices that still exist. Patriotism, especially at sites of shame, can be unsettling – and I see this as a good thing. In my view, honestly confronting the darker parts of U.S. history as well as its best moments is vital for tourism, for patriotism and for the nation. Whose history?Patriotism has roots in the Latin “patriotia,” meaning “fellow countryman.” It’s common to feel patriotic pride in U.S. technological achievements or military strength. But Americans also glory in the diversity and beauty of our natural landscapes. That kind of patriotism, I think, has the potential to be more inclusive, less divisive and more socially and environmentally just. [Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get expert takes on today’s news, every day.]The physical environment at national memorials can inspire more than one kind of patriotism. At Mount Rushmore, tourists are invited to walk the Avenue of Flags, marvel at the labor required to carve four U.S. presidents’ faces out of granite, and applaud when rangers invite military veterans onstage during visitor programs. Patriotism centers on labor, progress and the “great men” the memorial credits with founding, expanding, preserving and unifying the U.S. But there are other perspectives. Viewed from the Peter Norbeck Overlook, a short drive from the main site, the presidents’ faces are tiny elements embedded in the expansive Black Hills region. Re-seeing the memorial in space and contextualizing it within a longer time scale can spark new emotions. The Black Hills are a sacred place for Lakota peoples that they never willingly relinquished. Viewing Mount Rushmore this way puts those rock faces in a broader ecological, historical and colonial context, and raises questions about history and justice. Sites of shameSites where visitors are meant to feel remorse challenge patriotism more directly. At Manzanar National Historic Site in California – one of 10 camps where over 110,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II – natural and textual cues prevent any easy patriotic reflexes. Reconstructed guard towers and barracks help visitors perceive the experience of being detained. I could imagine Japanese Americans’ shame as I entered claustrophobic buildings and touched the rough straw that filled makeshift mattresses. Many visitors doubtlessly associate mountains with adventure and freedom, but some incarcerees saw the nearby Sierra Nevada as barricades reinforcing the camp’s barbed wire fence. Rangers play up these emotional tensions on their tours. I saw one ranger position a group of schoolchildren atop what were once latrines, and ask them: “Will it happen again? We don’t know. We hope not. We have to stand up for what is right.” Instead of offering visitors a self-congratulatory sense of being a good citizen, Manzanar leaves them with unsettling questions and mixed feelings. Visitors to incarceration camps today might make connections to the U.S.-Mexico border, where detention centers corral people in unhealthy conditions, sometimes separating children from parents. Sites like Manzanar ask us to rethink who “counts” as an American and what unites us as human beings. Visiting and writing about these and other sites made me consider what it would take to disassociate patriotism from “America first”-style nationalism and recast it as collective pride in the United States’ diverse landscapes and peoples. Building a more inclusive patriotism means celebrating freedom in all forms – such as making Juneteenth a federal holiday – and commemorating the tragedies of our past in ways that promote justice in the present. Humble patriotismThis July 4th invites contemplation of what holds us together as a nation during a time of reckoning. I believe Americans should be willing to imagine how a public memorial could be offensive or traumatic. The National Park Service website claims that Mount Rushmore preserves a “rich heritage we all share,” but what happens when that heritage feels like hatred to some people? Growing momentum for removing statues of Confederate generals and other historical figures now understood to be racist, including the statue of Theodore Roosevelt in the front of New York City’s Museum of Natural History, tests the limits of national coherence. Understanding this momentum is not an issue of political correctness – it’s a matter of compassion.Greater clarity about value systems could help unite Americans across party lines. Psychologists have found striking differences between the moral frameworks that shape liberals’ and conservatives’ views. Conservatives generally prioritize purity, sanctity and loyalty, while liberals tend to value justice in the form of concerns about fairness and harm. In my view, patriotism could function as an emotional bridge between these moral foundations. My research suggests that visits to memorial sites are helpful for recognizing our interdependence with each other, as inhabitants of a common country. Places like Mount Rushmore are part of our collective past that raise important questions about what unites us today. I believe it’s our responsibility to approach these places, and each other, with both pride and humility. This is an updated version of an article originally published on June 26, 2019.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * More than scenery: National parks preserve our history and culture * The twisted roots of U.S. land policy in the WestJennifer Ladino received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support her book on national memorials.

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The 10 Best Dino-Killing, Ice Spewing, Earth-Destroying Asteroids

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Gunmen raided Pakistan's largest stock exchange, killing at least 3 people before police shot them dead, officials say

The raid took place on Monday at the Pakistan Stock Exchange in the city of Karachi. It is not yet clear who is responsible.

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An Italian teenager is one miracle away from becoming the first millennial saint

Carlo Acutis coined the phrase: "Everyone is born an original, but many die like photocopies," to warn people not to lose themselves on the internet.

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Syed Ali Geelani: Kashmir leader quits Hurriyat Conference

Syed Ali Geelani has been heading political opposition to Indian rule in Kashmir for decades.

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Coming Soon: Russian Bombers (Now Armed with Hypersonic Missiles?)

Hypersonic missiles have been seen as a potential game changer, with some in the U.S. military warning that there is really no defense against the missiles due to their speed.

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More Chinese regions brace for floods as storms shift east

Torrential rain is set to hit China's eastern coastal regions this week after overwhelming large parts of the southwest, inundating villages and tourist spots and displacing more than 700,000 people, state weather forecasters said on Monday. Nearly 14 million people in 26 different provinces had been affected by storms and floods by Friday, with 744,000 evacuated, the China Daily reported, citing the Ministry for Emergency Management. Much of the damage has hit southwestern regions like Guangxi and Sichuan, and the municipality of Chongqing on the upper reaches of the Yangtze river last week experienced its worst floods since 1940.

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Putin unveils monument to fallen Red Army WWII soldiers

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his counterpart from Belarus on Tuesday unveiled a monument honoring the fallen Red Army soldiers who fought in one of the most bloody battles of World War II. Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko traveled to the village of Khoroshevo, just outside Rzhev, about 200 kilometers (about 125 miles) northwest of Moscow for a somber ceremony that involved goose-stepping troops laying wreaths to the towering figure of a soldier. The battle of Rzhev, in which the Red Army launched a series of offensives in 1942-1943 to dislodge the Wermacht from its positions close to Moscow, involved enormous Soviet losses from persistent, poorly prepared attacks against well-fortified Nazi positions.

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Pompeo faces opposition in UN push on Iran arms embargo

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday urged the UN Security Council to extend an arms embargo on Iran, warning that the Middle East's stability was at risk, but he faced wide skepticism over US threats to trigger sanctions. The United States is warning it could employ a disputed legal move to restore wide UN sanctions on Iran if the Security Council does not prolong a ban on conventional arms sales that expires in October.

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Betelgeuse: Nearby 'supernova' star's dimming explained

Astronomers say big cool patches on the Betelgeuse star likely drove its surprise dimming last year.

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The Texas Medical Center scrubbed data showing ICU beds at full capacity as the state's coronavirus cases spike

The medical center had no empty ICU beds by Thursday. Its ICU capacity is usually between 70% and 80% of its total stock.

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Family Of Missing Texas Soldier Say Army Investigators Are 'Covering Up For Each Other'

Pfc. Vanessa Guillen was last seen on April 22. The Army's Criminal Investigation Command is looking into her disappearance and Army investigators say they suspect foul play.

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Distancing from Trump? Some Republicans step up critiques

For more than three years, President Donald Trump instilled such fear in the Republican Party's leaders that most kept criticism of his turbulent leadership or inconsistent politics to themselves. Four months before voters decide the Republican president's reelection, some in Trump's party are daring to say the quiet part out loud as Trump struggles to navigate competing national crises and a scattershot campaign message. “He is losing,” former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Trump friend and confidant, said Sunday of Trump’s reelection prospects on ABC’s “This Week.”

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New top story on Hacker News: Braille, and the Evolution of Software Development

Braille, and the Evolution of Software Development
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Los Angeles County Beaches Ordered To Close For Fourth Of July Weekend Amid Coronavirus Spike - Deadline

1. Los Angeles County Beaches Ordered To Close For Fourth Of July Weekend Amid Coronavirus Spike  Deadline
2. Los Angeles records 'alarming' surge in COVID-19 cases to more than 100,000  Reuters
3. Los Angeles County Coronavirus Sets New Record For Daily Coronavirus Cases As Total Infections Pass 100,000  Deadline
4. With coronavirus surge, L.A. County may run out of ICU beds  Los Angeles Times
5. L.A. County coronavirus cases surge past 100,000  Los Angeles Times
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Santa Clara County hair salon owners, stylists call for reopening date - The Mercury News

Santa Clara County hair salon owners, stylists call for reopening date  The Mercury NewsView Full Coverage on Google News

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Trump Is Running on the Courts Again. Should Biden Do the Same? - The New York Times

Trump Is Running on the Courts Again. Should Biden Do the Same?  The New York Times

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Coronavirus overwhelms Afghanistan’s war-ravaged hospitals

Corruption, medical supply shortages and militant attacks have deepened the country's health crisis.

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Coronavirus: How much does your boss need to know about you?

Firms are collecting a lot more information about staff as they try to contain coronavirus risks.

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Arizona Shuts Down Bars, Gyms and Parks as Coronavirus Surges Nationwide

Arizona’s Republican governor shut down bars, movie theaters, gyms and water parks Monday and leaders in several states ordered residents to wear masks in public in a dramatic course reversal amid an alarming resurgence of coronavirus cases nationwide.

Among those implementing the face-covering orders is the city of Jacksonville, Florida, where the mask-averse President Donald Trump plans to accept the Republican nomination in August. Less than a week after Mayor Lenny Curry said there would be no mask requirement, city officials announced that coverings must be worn in “situations where individuals cannot socially distance.”

Trump has refused to wear a mask during visits to states and businesses that require them.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s order went into effect immediately and for at least 30 days. Ducey also also ordered public schools to delay the start of the classes at least until Aug. 17.

“Our expectation is that our numbers next week will be worse,” he said.

Arizona health officials reported 3,858 more confirmed coronavirus cases Sunday, the most reported in a single day in the state so far and the seventh time in the last 10 days that daily cases surpassed the 3,000 mark. Since the pandemic began, 74,500 cases and 1,588 deaths stemming from the virus have been reported in Arizona.

Most Arizona bars and nightclubs opened after Ducey’s stay-at-home and business closure orders were allowed to expire in mid-May.

The state is not alone in its reversal. Places such as Texas, Florida and California are backtracking, closing beaches and bars in some cases amid a resurgence of the virus. Oregon and Kansas, meanwhile, announced Monday that everyone would be required to wear masks in public.

In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy announced Monday that he’s postponing the restarting of indoor dining because people have not been wearing face masks or complying with recommendations for social distancing. New Jersey has been slowly reopening, and on Monday indoor shopping malls were cleared to start business again.

In Texas, a group of bar owners sued on Monday to try to overturn Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s order closing their businesses. They contend Abbott doesn’t have the authority, and they complained that other businesses, such as nail salons and tattoo studios, remain open.

“Gov. Abbott continues to act like a king,” said Jared Woodfill, attorney for the bar owners. “Abbott is unilaterally destroying our economy and trampling on our constitutional rights.”

But New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that Abbott is on the right path, and he added that Trump should order the wearing of masks.

“States that were recalcitrant … are doing a 180, and you have the same states now wearing masks,” Cuomo said. “Let the president have the same sense to do that as an executive order, and then let the president lead by example and let the president put a mask on it, because we know it works.”

Governors in Oregon and Kansas on Monday said they were issuing executive orders requiring people to wear masks in public. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown’s order will require people to wear face coverings in indoor public spaces starting Wednesday. Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said she will issue an executive order mandating the use of masks in public starting Friday. She said details of the order would be forthcoming.

“The evidence could not be clearer — wearing a mask is not only safe, but it is necessary to avoid another shutdown,” Kelly said.

Idaho is moving in a different direction, at least when it comes to the elections. Despite the continuing spread of the virus, state elections officials said Monday that they would allow in-person voting — as well as mail-in ballots — for August primaries and the November general election, the Idaho Statesman reported. Idaho’s May 19 primary was the first statewide election held by mail only. The primary had record voter turnout.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has opposed a statewide mask requirement but said in response to Jacksonville’s action that he will support local authorities who are doing what they think is appropriate.

In recent weeks, the Republicans moved some of the convention pageantry to Jacksonville after Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina objected to the holding of a large gathering in Charlotte without social-distancing measures. The convention will be in late August.

Elsewhere around the world, Britain reimposed lockdown restrictions on the city of Leicester after a spike in cases, ordering the closing of schools along with stores that do not sell essential goods.

India set another record with a one-day total of 20,000 newly confirmed infections. Several Indian states have reimposed partial or full lockdowns after the total number of cases jumped by nearly 100,000 in one week to about 548,000.

In China, nearly 8.3 million out of about 21 million have undergone testing in recent weeks in Beijing after an outbreak centered on a wholesale market. The country reported just 12 new cases Monday, including seven in Beijing.

South Korean authorities reported 47 new cases as they struggled to curb outbreaks that have spread from Seoul to other regions. Officials said they are preparing to impose stronger social-distancing measures — including banning gatherings of more than 10 people, shutting schools and halting professional sports — if the daily increase in infections doubles more than twice in a week.

In the Philippines, a Southeast Asian coronavirus hot spot with more than 35,000 confirmed infections, local officials came under fire for allowing a street parade and dance during a weekend religious festival to honor St. John the Baptist despite prohibitions against public gatherings.

The European Union is preparing a list of 15 countries whose citizens will be allowed to visit the bloc beginning Wednesday, Spain’s foreign minister, Arancha Gonzalez Laya, told the Cadena SER radio network. Because of the resurgence in the U.S., America may not be on that list.

“This is not an exercise to be nice or unfriendly to other countries. This is an exercise of self-responsibility,” she said.

___

Lush reported from St. Petersburg, Florida, Kurtenbach from Bangkok. Associated Press reporters from around the world contributed to this report.

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‘It’s More Than a Seat at the Table’

By BY JENNIFER MEDINA from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3ioBZjI

A White Gatekeeper of Southern Food Faces Calls to Resign

By BY KIM SEVERSON from NYT Food https://ift.tt/2NJradC

Remote School Is a Nightmare. Few in Power Care.

By BY MICHELLE GOLDBERG from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/2NFsmij

In Texas, Voting Reflects Partisan Split Over How to Deal With Virus

By BY J. DAVID GOODMAN from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2NHHmMI

Coronavirus Briefing: What Happened Today

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‘Our Luck May Have Run Out’: California’s Case Count Explodes

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Three Hikers Are Missing on Mount Rainier

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New York City mayor plans to cut $1bn from police budget

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio has proposed cutting $1bn (£814m) from the police force’s $6bn (£4.48bn) yearly budget, amid calls for reform.Mr de Blasio announced the plan during his daily City Hall press briefing on Monday, and said the proposed budget would help reform the New York City Police Department (NYPD).

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The coronavirus is devastating communities of color. The Trump administration's top doctor blames 'structural racism' and shares his plans to take action.

Dr. Jerome Adams is preparing two calls to action — one on high blood pressure, the other on maternal mortality — to address racial health inequality.

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Shootings across Chicago kill 3 kids; activists seek change

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Mississippi Lawmakers Vote to Remove Confederate Symbol From State Flag

Mississippi lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to remove a Confederate emblem from their state flag on Sunday, marking one of the most dramatic repudiations yet of white-supremacist imagery during a wave of protests against racism and police brutality in America.The bill passed 128 to 37 and is now awaiting signature by Gov. Tate Reeves. It requires the current state flag to be removed within 15 days of passage. A commission selected by the governor, lieutenant governor, and speaker of the House will design a flag including the phrase “In God We Trust” to be completed by September 14. Mississippi voters will decide on the new flag during the November general election. If the new flag is not ratified by voters in November, a new design will be created and voted on the following year. "Today’s vote is not a vote to erase Mississippi’s history or its heritage," Sen. John Horhn said. "But it’s an affirmation of Mississippi’s future, and that we intend to move forward together."On Saturday, lawmakers in both houses cleared an initial measure paving the way for a bill to change the flag, and Republican Gov. Tate Reeves tweeted that he would sign a bill to that effect.The initial measure lifted restrictions in place that prohibited the state government from changing or removing the state flag, which is the last in the United States to include an explicit homage to pro-slavery rebels.“The argument over the 1894 flag has become as divisive as the flag itself and it’s time to end it,” Reeves tweeted.The governor went on to say that changing the flag was not enough to fight the systemic racism the Confederate symbol represents. “We should not be under any illusion that a vote in the Capitol is the end of what must be done,” he wrote. “It will be harder than recovering from tornadoes, harder than historic floods, harder than agency corruption, or prison riots or the coming hurricane season—even harder than battling the Coronavirus.”State Representative Jeramey Anderson (D-Miss), the youngest-ever Black legislator elected in Mississippi at 28, applauded the decision to pave the way for change on Saturday. “This is a unique opportunity, one we should not squander,” he said. Confederate leader Jefferson Davis’s great-great grandson Bertram Hayes-Davis backed the change, telling CNN that “the battle flag has been hijacked” and that it “does not represent the entire population of Mississippi.”Rising college basketball player Blake Hinson said the Confederate symbol played a role in his decision to transfer from the University of Mississippi to Iowa State earlier this month. “It was time to go and leave Ole Miss,” he told the Daytona Beach News Journal. “I’m proud not to represent that flag anymore and to not be associated with anything representing the Confederacy.”Sen. Chris McDaniel (R-Miss) opposed the change and called for a state referendum on the issue, warning that changing the American flag was next. “I don’t see how that makes me a racist.” he said. “I don’t see how that makes me a terrible human being.”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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Supreme Court strikes down consumer agency's autonomy in win for Trump administration

The case was a major test of the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches.

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Mississippi votes to strip Confederate emblem from state flag

The southern state of Mississippi is the last in the US to feature the emblem on its flag.

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Dozens arrested as Hong Kongers protest planned national security laws

Hong Kong police arrested at least 53 people on Sunday after scuffles erupted during a relatively peaceful protest against planned national security legislation to be implemented by the mainland Chinese government. Armed riot police were present as a crowd of several hundred moved from Jordan to Mong Kok in the Kowloon district, staging what was intended as a "silent protest" against the planned law. Hong Kong Police said on Facebook that 53 people had been arrested and charged with unlawful assembly, adding that earlier some protesters tried to blockade roads in the area.

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Trump struggles as furor grows over reported Russian bounty offer to kill U.S. troops

White House says Trump wasn't briefed on intelligence about Russian offer of bounty payments. If so, that shows negligence, some Republicans say.

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Pakistan army says Indian spy drone shot down in Kashmir

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South Pole has warmed at over 3 times the global rate for decades, scientists say

The South Pole has warmed more than three times the global rate for the past three decades, a new study reports.

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Don't blame Sharia for Islamic extremism -- blame colonialism

Warning that Islamic extremists want to impose fundamentalist religious rule in American communities, right-wing lawmakers in dozens of U.S. states have tried banning Sharia, an Arabic term often understood to mean Islamic law. These political debates – which cite terrorism and political violence in the Middle East to argue that Islam is incompatible with modern society – reinforce stereotypes that the Muslim world is uncivilized. They also reflect ignorance of Sharia, which is not a strict legal code. Sharia means “path” or “way”: It is a broad set of values and ethical principles drawn from the Quran – Islam’s holy book – and the life of the Prophet Muhammad. As such, different people and governments may interpret Sharia differently. Still, this is not the first time that the world has tried to figure out where Sharia fits into the global order. In the 1950s and 1960s, when Great Britain, France and other European powers relinquished their colonies in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, leaders of newly sovereign Muslim-majority countries faced a decision of enormous consequence: Should they build their governments on Islamic religious values or embrace the European laws inherited from colonial rule? The big debateInvariably, my historical research shows, political leaders of these young countries chose to keep their colonial justice systems rather than impose religious law. Newly independent Sudan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Somalia, among other places, all confined the application of Sharia to marital and inheritance disputes within Muslim families, just as their colonial administrators had done. The remainder of their legal systems would continue to be based on European law. To understand why they chose this course, I researched the decision-making process in Sudan, the first sub-Saharan African country to gain independence from the British, in 1956.In the national archives and libraries of the Sudanese capital Khartoum, and in interviews with Sudanese lawyers and officials, I discovered that leading judges, politicians and intellectuals actually pushed for Sudan to become a democratic Islamic state. They envisioned a progressive legal system consistent with Islamic faith principles, one where all citizens – irrespective of religion, race or ethnicity – could practice their religious beliefs freely and openly.“The People are equal like the teeth of a comb,” wrote Sudan’s soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Hassan Muddathir in 1956, quoting the Prophet Muhammad, in an official memorandum I found archived in Khartoum’s Sudan Library. “An Arab is no better than a Persian, and the White is no better than the Black.” Sudan’s post-colonial leadership, however, rejected those calls. They chose to keep the English common law tradition as the law of the land. Why keep the laws of the oppressor?My research identifies three reasons why early Sudan sidelined Sharia: politics, pragmatism and demography.Rivalries between political parties in post-colonial Sudan led to parliamentary stalemate, which made it difficult to pass meaningful legislation. So Sudan simply maintained the colonial laws already on the books. There were practical reasons for maintaining English common law, too. Sudanese judges had been trained by British colonial officials. So they continued to apply English common law principles to the disputes they heard in their courtrooms. Sudan’s founding fathers faced urgent challenges, such as creating the economy, establishing foreign trade and ending civil war. They felt it was simply not sensible to overhaul the rather smooth-running governance system in Khartoum.The continued use of colonial law after independence also reflected Sudan’s ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity.Then, as now, Sudanese citizens spoke many languages and belonged to dozens of ethnic groups. At the time of Sudan’s independence, people practicing Sunni and Sufi traditions of Islam lived largely in northern Sudan. Christianity was an important faith in southern Sudan. Sudan’s diversity of faith communities meant that maintaining a foreign legal system – English common law – was less controversial than choosing whose version of Sharia to adopt. Why extremists triumphedMy research uncovers how today’s instability across the Middle East and North Africa is, in part, a consequence of these post-colonial decisions to reject Sharia. In maintaining colonial legal systems, Sudan and other Muslim-majority countries that followed a similar path appeased Western world powers, which were pushing their former colonies toward secularism. But they avoided resolving tough questions about religious identity and the law. That created a disconnect between the people and their governments.In the long run, that disconnect helped fuel unrest among some citizens of deep faith, leading to sectarian calls to unite religion and the state once and for all. In Iran, Saudi Arabia and parts of Somalia and Nigeria, these interpretations triumphed, imposing extremist versions of Sharia over millions of people.In other words, Muslim-majority countries stunted the democratic potential of Sharia by rejecting it as a mainstream legal concept in the 1950s and 1960s, leaving Sharia in the hands of extremists.But there is no inherent tension between Sharia, human rights and the rule of law. Like any use of religion in politics, Sharia’s application depends on who is using it – and why.Leaders of places like Saudi Arabia and Brunei have chosen to restrict women’s freedom and minority rights. But many scholars of Islam and grassroots organizations interpret Sharia as a flexible, rights-oriented and equality-minded ethical order. Religion and the law worldwideReligion is woven into the legal fabric of many post-colonial nations, with varying consequences for democracy and stability.After its 1948 founding, Israel debated the role of Jewish law in Israeli society. Ultimately, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and his allies opted for a mixed legal system that combined Jewish law with English common law. In Latin America, the Catholicism imposed by Spanish conquistadors underpins laws restricting abortion, divorce and gay rights.And throughout the 19th century, judges in the U.S. regularly invoked the legal maxim that “Christianity is part of the common law.” Legislators still routinely invoke their Christian faith when supporting or opposing a given law. Political extremism and human rights abuses that occur in those places are rarely understood as inherent flaws of these religions. When it comes to Muslim-majority countries, however, Sharia takes the blame for regressive laws – not the people who pass those policies in the name of religion.Fundamentalism and violence, in other words, are a post-colonial problem – not a religious inevitability. For the Muslim world, finding a system of government that reflects Islamic values while promoting democracy will not be easy after more than 50 years of failed secular rule. But building peace may demand it.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * What Sharia means: 5 questions answered * How Islamic law can take on ISIS * Trump’s travel ban is just one of many US policies that legalize discrimination against MuslimsMark Fathi Massoud has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, Fulbright-Hays, and the University of California. Any views expressed here are the author's responsibility.

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New top story on Hacker News: Many Covid Patients Have Terrifying Hallucinations and Delirium

Many Covid Patients Have Terrifying Hallucinations and Delirium
56 by samspenc | 36 comments on Hacker News.

New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: 8-bit CPU simulator in C

Show HN: 8-bit CPU simulator in C
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Trump Denies Briefing on Reported Bounties Against US Troops - Snopes.com

1. Trump Denies Briefing on Reported Bounties Against US Troops  Snopes.com
2. Outrage mounts over report Russia offered bounties to Afghanistan militants for killing US soldiers  The Guardian
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Trump deletes tweet of supporter shouting ‘white power’ after outrage - The Guardian

1. Trump deletes tweet of supporter shouting ‘white power’ after outrage  The Guardian
2. Trump retweets video of supporter shouting 'white power'  BBC News
3. Trump shares video of man chanting, 'White power' in Florida protest clash  AOL
4. White House denies it was briefed about Afghan militant bounties | TheHill  The Hill
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With Trump leading the way, America’s coronavirus failures exposed by record surge in new infections - The Washington Post

1. With Trump leading the way, America’s coronavirus failures exposed by record surge in new infections  The Washington Post
2. Trump shares video where supporter yells 'white power'  POLITICO
3. Tim Scott: Donald Trump should remove 'white power' video  Washington Times
4. Trump promotes video of Florida supporters chanting "white power!"  Salon
5. Trump Approvingly Tweets Video Showing 'White Power' Chant  The New York Times
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Europe Travel: US Banned But Here’s 54 Countries Who Can Visit - Forbes

1. Europe Travel: US Banned But Here’s 54 Countries Who Can Visit  Forbes
2. European Union narrows border list, United States unlikely to make the cut  USA TODAY
3. Americans likely to be barred from Europe when borders reopen next week due to coronavirus surge  Fox News
4. Europe's economy: Between rising China and Trump's US | Counting the Cost  Al Jazeera English
5. E.U. Bars Travelers From U.S. in Another Major Blow to Airline Industry  Newsweek
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'We have to act' — HHS Secretary Azar warns 'window closing' to halt coronavirus spike - CNBC

1. 'We have to act' — HHS Secretary Azar warns 'window closing' to halt coronavirus spike  CNBC
2. HHS Secretary Azar: 'The Window Is Closing' To Stop Virus Spread | Meet The Press | NBC News  NBC News
3. HHS Secretary Alex Azar says the US 'window is closing' to control coronavirus spread - Business Insider  Business Insider
4. 'Window is closing' for US to get coronavirus under control, Trump's HHS secretary warns  CNN
5. Azar warns 'window is closing' on combating Covid spread  POLITICO
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How the world celebrated 50 years of Pride - despite the pandemic

Most LGBT Pride events were cancelled or moved online because of coronavirus, but not all.

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Mask Exemption Cards From the ‘Freedom to Breathe Agency’? They’re Fake

By BY CHRISTINA MORALES from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/31rMzAq

For Biden VP, Black Democrats are torn between Harris and Warren

The California senator represents the diversity and generational transition activists want, but polls suggest Black Democratic voters may prefer Warren.

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Critics question `less lethal' force used during protests

When a participant at a rally in Austin to protest police brutality threw a rock at a line of officers in the Texas capital, officers responded by firing beanbag rounds — ammunition that law enforcement deems “less lethal” than bullets. A beanbag cracked 20-year-old Justin Howell's skull and, according to his family, damaged his brain. Adding to the pain, police admit the Texas State University student wasn't the intended target.

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Russia Offered Afghans Bounty to Kill U.S. Troops, Officials Say

WASHINGTON -- American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan -- including targeting American troops -- amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there, according to officials briefed on the matter.The United States concluded months ago that the Russian unit, which has been linked to assassination attempts and other covert operations in Europe intended to destabilize the West or take revenge on turncoats, had covertly offered rewards for successful attacks last year.Islamist militants, or armed criminal elements closely associated with them, are believed to have collected some bounty money, the officials said. Twenty Americans were killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2019, but it was not clear which killings were under suspicion.The intelligence finding was briefed to President Donald Trump, and the White House's National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late March, the officials said. Officials developed a menu of potential options -- starting with making a diplomatic complaint to Moscow and a demand that it stop, along with an escalating series of sanctions and other possible responses, but the White House has yet to authorize any step, the officials said.An operation to incentivize the killing of American and other NATO troops would be a significant and provocative escalation of what American and Afghan officials have said is Russian support for the Taliban, and it would be the first time the Russian spy unit was known to have orchestrated attacks on Western troops.Any involvement with the Taliban that resulted in the deaths of American troops would also be a huge escalation of Russia's so-called hybrid war against the United States, a strategy of destabilizing adversaries through a combination of such tactics as cyberattacks, the spread of fake news, and covert and deniable military operations.The Kremlin had not been made aware of the accusations, said Dmitry Peskov, press secretary for President Vladimir Putin of Russia. "If someone makes them, we'll respond," Peskov said.Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, denied that the insurgents have "any such relations with any intelligence agency" and called the report an attempt to defame them."These kinds of deals with the Russian intelligence agency are baseless -- our target killings and assassinations were ongoing in years before, and we did it on our own resources," he said. "That changed after our deal with the Americans, and their lives are secure and we don't attack them."Spokespeople at the National Security Council, the Pentagon, the State Department and the CIA declined to comment.The officials familiar with the intelligence did not explain the White House delay in deciding how to respond to the intelligence about Russia.While some of his closest advisers, like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have counseled more hawkish policies toward Russia, Trump has adopted an accommodating stance toward Moscow.At a summit in Helsinki in 2018, Trump strongly suggested that he believed Putin's denial that the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 presidential election, despite broad agreement within the U.S. intelligence establishment that it did. Trump criticized a bill imposing sanctions on Russia when he signed it into law after Congress passed it by veto-proof majorities. And he has repeatedly made statements that undermined the NATO alliance as a bulwark against Russian aggression in Europe.The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the delicate intelligence and internal deliberations. They said the intelligence has been treated as a closely held secret, but the administration expanded briefings about it this week -- including sharing information about it with the British government, whose forces are among those said to have been targeted.The intelligence assessment is said to be based at least in part on interrogations of captured Afghan militants and criminals. The officials did not describe the mechanics of the Russian operation, such as how targets were picked or how money changed hands. It is also not clear whether Russian operatives had deployed inside Afghanistan or met with their Taliban counterparts elsewhere.The revelations came into focus inside the Trump administration at a delicate and distracted time. Although officials collected the intelligence earlier in the year, the interagency meeting at the White House took place as the coronavirus pandemic was becoming a crisis and parts of the country were shutting down.Moreover, as Trump seeks reelection in November, he wants to strike a peace deal with the Taliban to end the Afghanistan War.Both American and Afghan officials have previously accused Russia of providing small arms and other support to the Taliban that amounts to destabilizing activity, although Russian government officials have dismissed such claims as "idle gossip" and baseless."We share some interests with Russia in Afghanistan, and clearly they're acting to undermine our interests as well," Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., commander of American forces in Afghanistan at the time, said in a 2018 interview with the BBC.Though coalition troops suffered a spate of combat casualties last summer and early fall, only a few have since been killed. Four Americans were killed in combat in early 2020, but the Taliban have not attacked U.S. positions since a February agreement.American troops have also sharply reduced their movement outside of military bases because of the coronavirus, reducing their exposure to attack.While officials were said to be confident about the intelligence that Russian operatives offered and paid bounties to Afghan militants for killing Americans, they have greater uncertainty about how high in the Russian government the covert operation was authorized and what its aim may be.Some officials have theorized that the Russians may be seeking revenge on NATO forces for a 2018 battle in Syria in which the U.S. military killed several hundred pro-Syrian forces, including numerous Russian mercenaries, as they advanced on an American outpost. Officials have also suggested that the Russians may have been trying to derail peace talks to keep the United States bogged down in Afghanistan. But the motivation remains murky.The officials briefed on the matter said the government had assessed the operation to be the handiwork of Unit 29155, an arm of Russia's military intelligence agency, known widely as the GRU. The unit is linked to the March 2018 nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury, England, of Sergei Skripal, a former GRU officer who had worked for British intelligence and then defected, and his daughter.Western intelligence officials say the unit, which has operated for more than a decade, has been charged by the Kremlin with carrying out a campaign to destabilize the West through subversion, sabotage and assassination. In addition to the 2018 poisoning, the unit was behind an attempted coup in Montenegro in 2016 and the poisoning of an arms manufacturer in Bulgaria a year earlier.American intelligence officials say the GRU was at the center of Moscow's covert efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. In the months before that election, American officials say, two GRU cyberunits, known as 26165 and 74455, hacked into Democratic Party servers, and then used WikiLeaks to publish embarrassing internal communications.In part because those efforts were aimed at helping tilt the election in Trump's favor, Trump's handling of issues related to Russia and Putin has come under particular scrutiny. The special counsel investigation found that the Trump campaign welcomed Russia's intervention and expected to benefit from it, but found insufficient evidence to establish that his associates had engaged in any criminal conspiracy with Moscow.Operations involving Unit 29155 tend to be much more violent than those involving the cyberunits. Its officers are often decorated military veterans with years of service, in some cases dating to the Soviet Union's failed war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Never before has the unit been accused of orchestrating attacks on Western soldiers, but officials briefed on its operations say it has been active in Afghanistan for many years.Though Russia declared the Taliban a terrorist organization in 2003, relations between them have been warming in recent years. Taliban officials have traveled to Moscow for peace talks with other prominent Afghans, including the former president, Hamid Karzai. The talks have excluded representatives from the current Afghan government as well as anyone from the United States and at times have seemed to work at crosscurrents with U.S. efforts to bring an end to the conflict.The disclosure comes at a time when Trump has said he would invite Putin to an expanded meeting of the Group of Seven nations, but tensions between U.S. and Russian militaries are running high.In several recent episodes, in international territory and airspace from off the coast of Alaska to the Black and Mediterranean seas, combat planes from each country has scrambled to intercept military aircraft from the other.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

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The Black Officer Who Detained George Floyd Had Pledged to Fix the Police

MINNEAPOLIS -- There were two Black men at the scene of the police killing in Minneapolis last month that roiled the nation. One, George Floyd, was sprawled on the asphalt, with a white officer's knee on his neck. The other Black man, Alex Kueng, was a rookie police officer who held his back as Floyd struggled to breathe.Floyd, whose name has been painted on murals and scrawled on protest signs, has been laid to rest. Kueng, who faces charges of aiding and abetting in Floyd's death, is out on bail, hounded at the supermarket by strangers and denounced by some family members.Long before Kueng was arrested, he had wrestled with the issue of police abuse of Black people, joining the force in part to help protect people close to him from police aggression. He argued that diversity could force change in a Police Department long accused of racism.He had seen one sibling arrested and treated poorly, in his view, by sheriff's deputies. He had found himself defending his decision to join the police force, saying he thought it was the best way to fix a broken system. He had clashed with friends over whether public demonstrations could actually make things better."He said, 'Don't you think that that needs to be done from the inside?'" his mother, Joni Kueng, recalled him saying after he watched protesters block a highway years ago. "That's part of the reason why he wanted to become a police officer -- and a Black police officer on top of it -- is to bridge that gap in the community, change the narrative between the officers and the Black community."As hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated against the police after Floyd's killing on May 25, Kueng became part of a national debate over police violence toward Black people, a symbol of the very sort of policing he had long said he wanted to stop.Derek Chauvin, the officer who placed his knee on Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes, has been most widely associated with the case. He faces charges of second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter; Kueng and two other former officers were charged with aiding and abetting the killing. At 26, Kueng was the youngest and least experienced officer at the scene, on only his third shift as a full officer.The arrest of Kueng, whose mother is white and whose father was from Nigeria, has brought anguish to his friends and family. "It's a gut punch," Joni Kueng said. "Here you are, you've raised this child, you know who he is inside and out. We're such a racially diverse family. To be wrapped up in a racially motivated incident like this is just unfathomable."Two of Alex Kueng's siblings, Taylor and Radiance, both of whom are African American, called for the arrests of all four officers, including their brother. They joined protests in Minneapolis.In a Facebook Live video, Taylor Kueng, 21, appeared with the head of the local NAACP to speak of the injustice that befell Floyd, acknowledging being related to Alex Kueng but never mentioning his name.Alex Kueng's sister Radiance posted a video of Floyd's final minutes on Facebook. "Just broke my heart," she wrote. In an interview, she said that as a Black man, her brother should have intervened. She said she planned to change her last name in part because she did not want to be associated with her brother's actions."I don't care if it was his third day at work or not," she said. "He knows right from wrong."A Full HouseThrough his life, Alex Kueng straddled two worlds, Black and white.Kueng, whose full name is J. Alexander Kueng (pronounced "king"), was raised by his mother, whom he lived with until last year. His father was absent.As a child, Kueng sometimes asked for siblings. Joni Kueng, who lived in the Shingle Creek neighborhood in north Minneapolis, signed up with an African American adoption agency.When Alex was 5, Joni Kueng brought home a baby boy who had been abandoned at a hospital. Alex soon asked for a sister; Radiance arrived when he was 11. Taylor and a younger brother came in 2009, when Alex was about 16.Radiance Kueng, 21, said their adoptive mother did not talk about race. "Race was not really a topic in our household, unfortunately," she said. "For her adopting as many Black kids as she did -- I didn't get that conversation from her. I feel like that should have been a conversation that was had."Growing up, Alex Kueng and his family made repeated trips to Haiti, helping at an orphanage. Alex Kueng and his siblings took a break from school to volunteer there after the earthquake in 2010.Joni Kueng, 56, likes to say that the Kuengs are a family of doers, not talkers."I had to stay out of the race conversations because I was the minority in the household," Joni Kueng said in her first interview since her son's arrest. She said that race was not an issue with her, but that she was conflicted. "It didn't really matter, but it does matter to them because they are African American. And so they had to be able to have an outlet to tell their stories and their experience as well, especially having a white mom."Joni Kueng taught math at the schools her children went to, where the student body was often mostly Hmong, African American and Latino. Classmates described Alex Kueng as friends with everyone, a master of juggling a soccer ball and a defender against bullies. Photos portray him with a sly smile.Darrow Jones said he first met Alex Kueng on the playground when he was 6. Jones was trying to finish his multiplication homework. Alex Kueng helped Jones and then invited him into a game of tag.When Jones' mother died in 2008, Joni Kueng took him in for as long as a month at a time.By high school, Alex Kueng had found soccer, and soon that was all he wanted to do. He became captain of the soccer team; he wanted to turn pro. The quote next to his senior yearbook picture proclaimed, "We ignore failures and strive for success."Alex Kueng went to Monroe College in New Rochelle, New York, to play soccer and study business. But after surgery on both knees, soccer proved impossible. Alex Kueng quit. Back in Minneapolis, he enrolled in technical college and supported himself catching shoplifters at Macy's.About that time, he started talking about joining the police, Joni Kueng recalled. She said she was nervous, for his safety and also because of the troubled relationship between the Minneapolis police and residents.Given his background, Alex Kueng thought he had the ability to bridge the gap between white and Black worlds, Jones said. He often did not see the same level of racism that friends felt. Jones, who is Black, recalled a road trip a few years ago to Utah with Alex Kueng, a white friend and Alex Kueng's girlfriend, who is Hmong. Jones said he had to explain to Alex Kueng why people were staring at the group."Once we got to Utah, we walked into a store, and literally everybody's eyes were on us," recalled Jones, whose skin is darker than Alex Kueng's. "I said, 'Alex, that's because you're walking in here with a Black person. The reason they're staring at us is because you're here with me.'"By February 2019, Alex Kueng had made up his mind: He signed up as a police cadet.Only a few months later, his sibling Taylor, a longtime supporter of Black Lives Matter who had volunteered as a counselor at a Black heritage camp and as a mentor to at-risk Black youths, had a confrontation with law enforcement.Taylor Kueng and a friend saw local sheriff's deputies questioning two men in a downtown Minneapolis shopping district about drinking in public. They intervened. Taylor Kueng used a cellphone to record video of the deputies putting the friend, in a striped summer dress, on the ground. "You're hurting me!" the friend shouted.As the confrontation continued, a deputy turned to Taylor Kueng and said, "Put your hands behind your back." "For what?" Taylor Kueng asked several times. "Because," said the deputy, threatening to use his Taser.Taylor Kueng called home. Alex Kueng and their mother rushed to get bail and then to the jail. "Don't worry, I got you," Alex Kueng told his sibling, hugging Taylor, their mother recalled.Alex Kueng reminded his sibling that those were sheriff's deputies, not the city force he was joining, and criticized their behavior, his mother recalled.After Taylor Kueng's video went public, the city dropped the misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and obstructing the legal process. The sheriff's office announced an official review of the arrests, which resulted in no discipline.Diverging PathsAlex Kueng's choice to become a police officer caused a rift in his friendship with Jones."It was very clear where we stood on that," said Jones, a Black Lives Matter supporter who protested on the streets after the deaths of Jamar Clark and Philando Castile at the hands of Minneapolis-area police. "Our fundamental disagreement around law enforcement is not that I believe cops are bad people. I just believe that the system needs to be completely wiped out and replaced. It's the difference between reform and rebuilding."After Alex Kueng became a cadet, Jones went from seeing Alex Kueng twice a month to maybe three times a year. He said he did not even tell Alex Kueng when the police pursued him for nothing and then let him go.In December, Alex Kueng graduated from the police academy. For most of his field training, Chauvin, with 19 years on the job, was his training officer.At one point, Alex Kueng, upset, called his mother. He said he had done something during training that bothered a supervising officer, who reamed him out. Joni Kueng did not know if that supervisor was Chauvin.Chauvin also extended Alex Kueng's training period. He felt Alex Kueng was meeting too often with a fellow police trainee, Thomas Lane, when responding to calls, rather than handling the calls on his own, Joni Kueng said.But on May 22, Alex Kueng officially became one of about 80 Black officers on a police force of almost 900. In recent years, the department, not as racially diverse as the city's population, has tried to increase the number of officers of color, with limited success.That evening, other officers held a small party at the Third Precinct station to celebrate Alex Kueng's promotion. The next evening, he worked his first full shift as an officer, inside the station. On that Sunday, he worked the 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. patrol shift, his first on the streets.On May 25, Alex Kueng's third day on the job, Alex Kueng and Lane, now partnered up despite both being freshly minted rookies, were the first officers to answer a call of a counterfeit $20 bill being passed at a corner store. They found Floyd in a car outside.After they failed to get Floyd into the back of a squad car, Chauvin and Tou Thao, another officer, showed up.As Chauvin jammed his knee into the back of Floyd's neck, Alex Kueng held down Floyd's back, according to a probable cause statement filed by prosecutors.Chauvin kept his knee there as Floyd repeated "I can't breathe" and "mama" and "please." Through the passing minutes, Alex Kueng did nothing to intervene, prosecutors say. After Floyd stopped moving, Alex Kueng checked Floyd's pulse. "I couldn't find one," Alex Kueng told the other officers.Critics of the police said the fact that none of the junior officers stopped Chauvin showed that the system itself needed to be overhauled."How do you as an individual think that you're going to be able to change that system, especially when you're going in at a low level?" said Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality in Minneapolis. "You're not going to feel OK to say, 'Stop, senior officer.' The culture is such, that that kind of intervening would be greatly discouraged."All four officers have been fired. All four face 40 years in prison. Alex Kueng, who was released on bail on June 19, declined through his lawyer to be interviewed. He is set to appear in court Monday.A day after Floyd's death, Jones learned that Alex Kueng was one of the officers who had been present. Around midnight, Jones called Alex Kueng. They talked for 40 minutes -- about what, Jones would not say -- and they cried."I'm feeling a lot of sadness and a lot of disappointment," Jones said. "A lot of us believe he should have stepped in and should have done something."He added: "It's really hard. Because I do have those feelings and I won't say I don't. But though I feel sad about what's occurred, he still has my unwavering support. Because we grew up together, and I love him."Jones said he had gone to the protests but could not bring himself to join in.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

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Mississippi to remove Confederate emblem-emblazoned state flag

In 2001, voters decided two to one in a ballot measure to keep the flag as is, many arguing it was a nod to their ancestors who fought for Mississippi in the Civil War.

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Trump visits private golf course as US battles rapid surge in coronavirus cases

US president heads to Virginia a day after saying he’d stay in Washington DC to ‘make sure law and order is enforced’ amid ongoing anti-racism protests * Coronavirus in the US – follow live updatesDonald Trump visited one of his own private golf courses in Virginia on Saturday as America continued to see fallout from a rapid surge in coronavirus cases. The trip came a day after the US president said he would stay in Washington DC to “make sure law and order is enforced” amid ongoing anti-racism protests.The president has been frequently criticized for the scale of his golfing habit while in office. CNN – which tallies his golfing activities – said the visit to the Trump National course in Loudon county, just outside Washington DC, was the 271st of his presidency – putting him at an average of golfing once every 4.6 days since he’s been in office. His predecessor, Barack Obama, golfed 333 rounds over the two terms of his presidency, according to NBC.The visit comes as the number of confirmed new coronavirus cases per day in the US hit an all-time high of 40,000, according to figures released by Johns Hopkins on Friday. Many states are now seeing spikes in the virus with Texas, Florida and Arizona especially badly hit after they reopened their economies – a policy they are now pausing or reversing.Trump has been roundly criticized for a failure to lead during the coronavirus that has seen America become by far the worst hit country in the world. Critics in particular point to his failure to wear a mask, holding campaign rallies in coronavirus hot spots and touting baseless conspiracy theories about cures, such as using bleach.On Friday night Trump tweeted that he was cancelling a weekend trip to his Bedminster, New Jersey golf course because of the protests which have rocked the capital, including taking down statues of confederate figures.“I was going to go to Bedminster, New Jersey, this weekend, but wanted to stay in Washington, D.C. to make sure LAW & ORDER is enforced. The arsonists, anarchists, looters, and agitators have been largely stopped,” he tweeted.Trump’s latest visit to the golf course put him in the way of some opposition. According to a White House pool media report: “A small group of protesters at the entrance to the club held signs that included, ‘Trump Makes Me Sick’ and ‘Dump Trump’. A woman walking a small white dog nearby also gave the motorcade a middle finger salute.”It is not yet known if Trump actually played a round of golf. But a photographer captured the president wearing a white polo shirt and a red cap, which is among his common golfing attire.

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Priti Patel says Labour MPs who accused her of 'gaslighting black people' were being racist

Priti Patel has said Labour MPs who accused her of attempting to "gaslight" black people in her response to Black Lives Matter protests were "racist" in their views of her. Ms Patel clashed with a group of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) Labour MPs after they accused the Tory politician of using her Indian heritage to cast doubt on black communities' experience of racism in the UK. The Cabinet minister had previously told the 33 MPs who wrote to her that she would "not be silenced" by those suggesting she had used her own experiences of prejudice to "gaslight" the "very real racism" faced by black people. Gaslighting refers to the act of psychologically manipulating someone to doubt their own experiences. In fresh comments about the row, Ms Patel accused the opposition cohort of being "racist" in their perceptions of the views ethnic minority women should espouse. Ms Patel, asked on Sky News' Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme whether her rivals had an issue with her, said she thought they did. "I think clearly in the case of those Labour MPs, they simply do primarily because they clearly take the stance or the position that I don't conform to their preconceived idea or stereotypical view of what an ethnic minority woman should stand for and represent," she said. "In my view, that in itself is racist. "It is very disappointing and I have made it quite clear I'm not going to dignify that letter any further." Shadow minister Naz Shah and other Labour MPs, including Diane Abbott, Tan Dhesi and Rosena Allin-Khan, were among those to question Ms Patel's attitude towards the Black Lives Matter protests. They said: "We write to you as black, Asian and ethnic minority Labour MPs to highlight our dismay at the way you used your heritage and experiences of racism to gaslight the very real racism faced by black people and communities across the UK. "Being a person of colour does not automatically make you an authority on all forms of racism."

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New top story on Hacker News: India Debates Skin-Tone Bias as Beauty Companies Alter Ads

India Debates Skin-Tone Bias as Beauty Companies Alter Ads
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New top story on Hacker News: USPS sells nearly $20B worth of money orders a year

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How to finish your side project
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Trump Suggests Desire to Pardon Roger Stone as Three-Year Prison Term Nears - Slate

1. Trump Suggests Desire to Pardon Roger Stone as Three-Year Prison Term Nears  Slate
2. Trump retweets petition effort to pardon Roger Stone  Fox News
3. Judge sets July 14 surrender date, immediate home confinement for Roger Stone  POLITICO
4. Roger Stone ordered to report to prison July 14, as judge denies request for two-month delay  The Washington Post
5. Court orders Roger Stone to report to Bureau of Prisons on July 14  Fox News
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Texas Bar Owners Plan Protest Against New Shutdowns as Coronavirus Cases Spike - Newsweek

1. Texas Bar Owners Plan Protest Against New Shutdowns as Coronavirus Cases Spike  Newsweek
2. I thought I’d be safe waiting out the coronavirus in Texas. I was wrong.  The Washington Post
3. Texas governor says "If I could go back and redo anything, I would slow down the reopening of bars"  CBS News
4. Texas orders bars closed, reduces restaurant capacity as coronavirus cases hit all-time high  Fox News
5. Coronavirus spreading at 'unacceptable' rate, says Texas governor  The Independent
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Photos: KSAT viewers send in photos of San Antonio skies as Saharan dust arrives - KSAT San Antonio

1. Photos: KSAT viewers send in photos of San Antonio skies as Saharan dust arrives  KSAT San Antonio
2. Dust and isolated showers with highs near 90 degrees  KPRC Click2Houston
3. North Texas Air Deemed 'Unhealthy' Due To Saharan Dust Cloud  CBSDFW
4. DHEC warns SC residents of possible health risks due to Saharan dust  WCBD News 2
5. Saharan dust arrives in Houston  KHOU 11
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Restrictions leave US travelers high and dry - CNN

Restrictions leave US travelers high and dry  CNN

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Trump signs executive order directing DOJ to prosecute people who destroy monuments - Vox.com

Trump signs executive order directing DOJ to prosecute people who destroy monuments  Vox.comView Full Coverage on Google News

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Afghanistan war: Russia denies paying militants to kill US troops

US reports say a Russian intelligence unit offered rewards for killing US and allied troops.

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Rolling Stones warn Trump not to use their songs - or face legal action

The president's campaign could face legal action if it ignores "cease and desist directives".

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Mississippi Votes to Remove Confederate Emblem from State Flag

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Gunfire at Walmart Distribution Center in California, Worker Says

By BY JENNY GROSS from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3i8UHvC

Biden Campaign Says Just Over a Third of 2020 Staff Members Are People of Color

By BY SHANE GOLDMACHER AND THOMAS KAPLAN from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2B9KRce

Satellite images show buildup on disputed India-China border

Construction activity appeared underway on both the Indian and Chinese sides of a contested border high in the Karakoram mountains a week after a deadly clash in the area left 20 Indian soldiers dead, satellite images showed. The images released this week by Maxar, a Colorado-based satellite imagery company, show new construction activity along the Galwan River Valley, even as Chinese and Indian diplomats said military commanders had agreed to disengage from a standoff there. China has said that India first changed the status quo last August when it split the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two federal territories — the territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the territory of Ladakh, parts of which are contested by China.

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