Trump's Federal Squads Steal Leaf Blower Idea From Portland Protest Dads

Protesters have been using garden tools to blast tear gas back at federal squads.

By Mary Papenfuss, HuffPost US
JULY 26, 2020

The vicious military-style federal squads sent by the Trump administration to protect U.S. buildings from graffiti were a bit slow on the uptake, but have now stolen a clever idea from protesters in Portland, Oregon: leaf blowers to redirect tear gas.

The hand-held machines were apparently first wielded earlier this week by protesters calling themselves Portland dads and “Fathers Against Fascism” (who joined the “Wall of Moms”) to blast tear gas back at federal forces. Other protesters have since adopted the idea. The leaf blowers serve as a kind of tech jiu-jitsu that employs an innocuous clean-up tool to redirect toxins back at those who fired them.

Portland dads 💕👏 pic.twitter.com/chZcu8BtrJ— Hermits United ☂️ (@HermitsUnited2) July 22, 2020

Now the federal squads have their own blowers, according to The Associated Press. Federal officers in camo and gas masks have also been photographed with leaf blowers. It’s not clear whether the appliances were purchased by the feds — or were confiscated from protesters.

The squads, now firing tear gas and leaf blowers, are adding to the “fog” of war as Portland’s downtown has been turned into a battle zone.

Federal officers throw tear gas into crowd, the crowd usss leaf blowers to push tear gas back, so most of the gas ends up in the courthouse pic.twitter.com/9x32vvX84p— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) July 25, 2020

DHS also carrying leaf blowers now pic.twitter.com/eZw35SgOJG— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) July 25, 2020

Far from quelling disruption in the city, the federal forces are exacerbating it and drawing new throngs of protesters outraged by the city’s occupying army, according to officials. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has characterized the deployments as “political theater” intended to provoke violence in a desperate bid by Donald Trump to win reelection with a crackdown.

Several videos posted on Twitter have shown federal squads attacking protesters for no apparent reason: striking them, jumping on them, blasting them in the face with gas.



Guy dancing with flowers in front of the DHSChadArmy kidnappedpic.twitter.com/HkmOJ0itwW— ALT-immigration 🛂 (@ALT_uscis) July 25, 2020



Portland protester hit in head by munition fired by federal officer recovering but still suffering from brain injury https://t.co/rhd7bsg44Wpic.twitter.com/NMRfFc3fgO— The Oregonian (@Oregonian) July 25, 2020

Police and the president's militarized federal agents are brutally attacking volunteer street medics in Portland.

We're suing. pic.twitter.com/abvG1jsNfM— ACLU (@ACLU) July 25, 2020

Thirty local officials from both political parties have demanded the uninvited squads leave the city. “We condemn the actions undertaken by the officers — shooting unarmed protestors in the face, breaking the bones of protesting veterans, tear gassing parents,” said a letter they sent Friday to Trump and acting secretary of the Department of Homeland SecurityChad Wolf. “We call on you both to put an end to this at once.”

They added: “We also want to declare to the rest of the country that Portland is not a ‘city under siege.’ There are nightly protests in our downtown core – something with which we are quite familiar. These protests are a foundational part of our democracy and are protected by the U.S. Constitution. Federal interference only inflames more animosity from those who have peaceably assembled.”

The federal squads were sent under the cover of protecting federal statues and monuments from damage and graffiti by protesters. Wolf posted a long list of his critical concerns over “graffiti” by what he calls “violent anarchists” on the DHS web site.
SCREEN SHOT/DHS WEBSITE

chad wolf on what 'violent anarchists' are up to in portland

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz has launched an investigation into use-of-force incidents against Portland protesters by federal agents.

Why Portland? The city's history of protest takes an exceptional turn
By Jason Kravarik and Sara Sidner, CNN
Updated  Sun July 26, 2020

(CNN)When Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler inhaled a face full of tear gas after addressing protesters on Wednesday, something atypical happened in the city's long history of protest: Its mayor went from years of managing protestors and conflict in the city to becoming a protester himself.
Wheeler's target was federal law enforcement's presence in the city, sent to curtail a months-long movement -- sparked by George Floyd's killing -- that had encroached on a federal courthouse in downtown Portland.

Policing tactics under fire as video shows medics in Portland getting shoved to the ground
Speaking to a crowd, which occasionally drowned him out, Wheeler called it an "unconstitutional occupation" and derided federal officer tactics as "abhorrent." He later told CNN: "They're not appropriately trained, and we're demanding that they leave."
Those officers made 18 arrests last week on charges ranging from assaulting a federal officer to arson, the US Attorney's Office said. Video has emerged of the federal officers yanking people off streets and placing them in unmarked vehicles. Those kinds of tactics, the mayor says, are escalating tension in the city.


Wheeler's contempt for the way federal law enforcement is acting exemplifies Portland's history of dissent -- and its impact on national politics.
"Our informal motto is Keep Portland Weird, so we like people who aren't sort of mainstream folks," said Randy Blazak, a former professor at Portland State University. "And that has allowed a lot of room on the margins, including the political margins."

Trump's militarized policing of Portland has no place in the US
But he says the "Portlandia" image -- of 1990s slackers driven by liberal ingenuity -- isn't entirely true to the city's history.
"We have communists and anarchists and we also have neo-Nazis and fascists," said Blazak, who also chairs the Oregon Coalition Against Hate Crimes. He says the region is also home to several militia and anti-government groups.
That petri dish of extremes has made Portland a hotbed for protest. Its predominantly White population, nearly 80%, also makes it attractive to White supremacists who see the city as fertile ground for an all-White ethnostate.
"It starts with the Oregon trail, when the land that was given was to White settlers only," Blazak said. "It was a state that would remind us of being in the deep South except it was in the Pacific Northwest."
When far-right groups gather in Portland it brings out the city's prolific anti-fascist movement, commonly referred to as Antifa. The ideologies of both sides were on display during a high-profile conflict last August, when the far-right group Proud Boys came to Portland and were met by a wall of counter protesters.


Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler stands at a fence guarding a federal courthouse as tear gas drifts by in Portland, July 23, 2020.
"Letting them come and protest is actually worse (than ignoring them)," an Antifa protester told CNN during a live interview last August. "They will get violence by any means necessary. If they get violent against Antifa, at least these are people who are prepared."
But the Proud Boys, a group that calls themselves "Western Chauvinists," say they come to Portland to take a stand against leftist groups in the city.
"As long as Ted Wheeler keeps pandering to Antifa and not calling them out by name we're going to keep coming out here, we're going to keep wasting his resources," Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio told CNN.
Though protesters had a few skirmishes, tension did not explode into major violence like it did just a few months before. That's when a bar brawl took Portland's protest movement from the streets to the courts.

A seminal case
Justin Allen thrives in Portland's supercharged world of political protest, which kindles on social media and sometimes erupts on the streets. May 1, 2019 was one of those days.
His foray into the protest scene began after a crime that shocked Portland and reminded it of the city's history of radicalism.
In 2017 a man who had been spotted at far-right rallies in Portland boarded a light rail train and allegedly berated two Black teenagers -- one wearing a traditional Muslim hijab. Three other passengers stepped in to help the teens but were stabbed. Taliesin Myrrddin Namkai-Meche, 23, and Ricky Best, 53, later died. A third person, Micah Fletcher, survived.
"That's what liberalism gets you," the suspect, Jeremy Christian, allegedly said in a police car, according to an affidavit. He was convicted of murder in February.
That case would bring Allen, 34, to tears at a memorial a few days after the murders. He was convinced he would have stepped in to help the girls, and the murders became a turning point in his life, he says.


Justin Allen infiltrated a group of far-right protestors.
For about a year Allen had picked up a camera and joined a protest movement. But instead of joining liberals in street demonstrations, he infiltrated a group of far-right protestors. His exposé is now evidence in a criminal case related to a brawl that erupted at Portland's now-closed Cider Riot bar.
Allen was recording with the far-right Patriot Prayer group as they discussed confronting left wing demonstrators. Dozens of people were taunting and provoking each other before punches were thrown and the brawl spilled into the streets.
"I had seen a woman get knocked unconscious with a steel baton striking her in the back of the neck," Allen said.
Allen's footage shows what happened before the riot, when Patriot Prayer members gathered blocks away, talking about carrying weapons and using pepper spray.
"You're a featherweight," a man tells another in the video, encouraging the group to wait for reinforcements. "You going to fight a heavyweight? Or are you going to wait to be a heavyweight?"
Allen offered his video to authorities, claiming it proved the riot was premeditated. Five followers of Patriot Prayer and its founder, Joey Gibson, were indicted on riot charges. One of the defendants faces an assault charge for allegedly striking a woman with a baton, according to the original complaint from the prosecutor's office.
Allen was named as a witness in court papers. He says he is unnerved by some of the threats he has received on social media. But he is willing to speak out as he prepares to testify at the upcoming trial.
"We need to use official power," he said. "It's all well and good to have a short-term solution of just keeping specific violent fascists from being violent in the moment... (but) if you have evidence of the crime, give that sh*t to the cops."


Joey Gibson of Patriot Prayer, a far-right group, speaks to demonstrators in Vancouver, Washington, May 16, 2020.
Gibson denies he committed any crime. He tells CNN he accepted an invitation from others who were planning to go to the Cider Riot but only planned to livestream Antifa followers.
"I just want people to see... you guys have a bar in your neighborhood where there's 50 people with weapons and masks drinking beer outside," Gibson said.
He maintains that except for shoving a woman who got too close to him, he did not engage in violence. He only appears in Allen's video at the bar, not during the group's preparation.
One of Gibson's attorneys, James Buchal, argues that Gibson can't legally be treated as someone who wields power over the group.
"This is obviously a spontaneous, disorganized mess, and all he does is stand in front getting sprayed," Buchal said. "And occasionally (saying) 'calm down,' you know, 'don't throw stuff.' But he's not in control of these people."

'A nation poised for outrage'
In an interview with CNN last year, Mayor Wheeler said the city hosts 200 demonstrations a year, with only "a very small percentage" resulting in violence and arrests. He insists there is a 21st century reason the city has the reputation it does.

Trump is calling protesters who disagree with him terrorists
"We're a nation poised for outrage, where the most extreme voices get the most attention on social media," Wheeler said. "They get the most coverage in the news. And frankly people rise to the top of certain movements by being the angriest and the most outrageous."
George Floyd's killing in Minneapolis ignited the latest round of protests in Portland. And while protests in Minneapolis died down weeks ago amid calls for peace from Floyd's family, they have continued to rage in Portland.
On Tuesday Wheeler told protesters during a CNN interview that "you've been heard" and "it's time to end it." Protesters returned the next day and Wheeler picked up a bullhorn himself, venting his own outrage at the federal government.
"This is a use of police force, federal police force, for political ends," he said. "That is not an acceptable solution anywhere in America."

Americans With Disabilities Act Turns 30

Years ago, discrimination people with disabilities started right at birth.

By Julie Taboh VOA
July 26, 2020 

That was the case with Danny Woodburn, an actor, comedian and activist who shared his story with VOA via Zoom.

Danny Woodburn is an actor, comedian and activist who is a passion advocate for people with disabilities.

“When I was born, a doctor came to my mom and explained to her my diagnosis in this way: ‘Your son is a midget like you see in the circus,’ Woodburn explained. “So, in that one sentence that he said to my mother, he's basically laid out my entire future.”

One family’s story

The family had been through a similar experience two years earlier, when Woodburn’s brother Steven was born with Down syndrome.

“The doctor came in and said to my mother, ‘your son will be institutionalized his entire life.’ So again, they laid out what his life would be without any sort of understanding of Down syndrome at the time.”

Discrimination against people with disabilities was not only was rampant then, but many were flat out rejected by society.

“What did we do with the disabled people with autism or Down syndrome?” Woodburn noted. “We locked them away; we hid them from the community.”

But luckily, times have changed.

Woodburn, who was officially diagnosed with dwarfism at the age of eight, went on to have a successful acting career, appearing in more than 30 films and making more than 150 television appearances, including the popular TV show Seinfeld.

ADA anniversary

His success reflects the impact of the ADA — the Americans with Disabilities Act, which offers protection against discrimination to the roughly one in four adults in the United States who have a disability.

Karen Goss is co-director of the Mid-Atlantic ADA Center, an organization dedicated to improving the lives of individuals through meaningful work and community inclusion.

Goss points out that the ADA is a civil rights law.

“As we know, our country has a rich history of civil rights, “she told VOA via Zoom. “But individuals with disabilities were not part of that protection and it became evident that they were not being included in ways that other previously marginalized groups were.”
President George H. W. Bush signs the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 into law. Pictured (left to right): Evan Kemp, Rev Harold Wilke, Pres. Bush, Sandra Parrino, Justin Dart. July 26, 1990.

Signed into law by President George H.W. Bush on July 26, 1990, the ADA provided protection against discrimination to millions of Americans in school, on the job, and in all public and private places. By doing so, it improved access and quality of life for millions.

“I think one of the most important things that we look at with the Americans with Disabilities Act is its opportunity to level the playing field,” Goss said.

On the job

But in the area of employment for people with disabilities, Goss acknowledges that the number remains low. In 2019, less than 20% of disabled adults had jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

It’s one reason why more advocacy is needed, says Woodburn.

“I feel like the real change that has occurred with me and the experience has been through the advocacy that I've been involved in,” he said. “And part of my advocacy with my own industry has been to change the landscape of employment of actors with disability, for example, because the belief system is that for kids if you can't see it, you can't be it.”

Besides improving lives, many of the law’s provisions have benefited those without disabilities.

Ramps and curb cuts, designed to accommodate wheelchairs, for example, help others.

“After those were put in place, people started to see more and more mothers walking their babies in strollers, and delivery persons using those.”

Bicyclists, seniors with walkers, and anyone with wheels needing a smooth path to roll over also are appreciative of these advancements.

And text messaging, another modern convenience, was borne out of technology for the hearing impaired, Woodburn says.

“We owe that to the deaf community and their need to have that access.”

As the world became more accessible, Woodburn says, society came to see more people with disabilities, which helped destigmatize them.

His message to people with disabilities?

“I say, ‘You know, get out! Get out in the world, make yourself known, meet people, be on the street. I don't care that you don't communicate as well as others or you don't move as well as others.’”

Advocacy

As the ADA celebrates 30 years of advancing the lives of millions of Americans, Woodburn says there’s still plenty of room for improvement…

“We have to be included, every step of the way, and we're just not right now. So, we have rhetoric that comes out about what is diversity, what is inclusion, and 95% of the time it doesn't include people with disabilities.”

His hope, he says, is that “anyone that has a diversity or inclusion discussion — either as an advocate or as a corporate leader — that they always include disability, despite how uncomfortable it might make them feel.”

Experts Say Collecting Immigration Data Through US Census for Reapportionment Is Unconstitutional

By Aline Barros, Aishwarya Airy

July 26, 2020 12:30 AM

FILE - In this June 25, 2020, photo, two young children hold signs through the car window that make reference to the 2020 US Census as they wait in the car with their family at an outreach event in Dallas, Texas.

President Donald Trump’s bid to exclude undocumented immigrants from a census tabulation used to determine how many U.S. representatives are apportioned to each state is unworkable and unconstitutional, according to civil rights groups and several American cities and counties suing the administration.

“It can’t be done,” Sarah Brannon, managing attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project, told VOA, adding that the citizenship determination Trump is mandating would be hard to ascertain and “not very reliable.”

Another civil liberties group, Common Cause, filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging Trump’s directive, joined by cities in New Jersey and Georgia. Later in the day, Arlington County, Virginia, said it was joining the suit.

“The Constitution requires an accurate count of our population every 10 years,” Arlington County Board Chair Libby Garvey said in a statement. “We must have an accurate count of everyone living in Arlington and refuse to allow this unlawful effort to scare people and suppress the census count of our immigrant community.”

Others are applauding the executive order. Alabama’s Attorney General Steve Marshall called it a “victory” for the state.

“When the states’ congressional seats and Electoral College votes are divided up, representation should be based on those people who reside in their states and this country lawfully,” Marshall said.

The Supreme Court last year blocked the Trump administration from including a citizenship question on the 2020 census.

In an executive order issued earlier this week, Trump directed Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the U.S. Census Bureau, to present data as to the number of undocumented people counted by the census. The administration would then exclude the undocumented from each state’s census count for the purpose of determining whether a state loses, gains or retains members in the House of Representatives, a process that occurs every 10 years.

The executive order reads: “For the purpose of the reapportionment of Representatives following the 2020 census, it is the policy of the United States to exclude from the apportionment base aliens who are not in a lawful immigration status under the Immigration and Nationality Act.”

The U.S. Constitution makes no mention of citizenship in relation to the census or congressional apportionment, a point underscored by law professor Ilya Somin, who teaches at George Mason University in Virginia.

“Section 2 of the 14th amendment specifically says that representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state,” Somin, a self-described libertarian, told VOA. “I think the overwhelming likelihood is the courts will rule against [Trump’s directive] because it is blatantly unconstitutional.”

Population subset not counted

On Tuesday, the Trump administration argued the Constitution “does not specifically define which persons must be included for the purposes of apportionment and requires only that representatives be apportioned according to what has long been understood to mean the ‘inhabitants’ of each state.”

But Howard University Constitutional Law Professor Steven Jamar told VOA the argument the administration is using deals with a subset of people – such as tourists and business travelers – who, though they might be counted in the census, are not counted for apportionment purposes.

“There are some people who are not within the state on the date of the census. They are traveling or they're out of the country. … There are some people who are just tourists visiting the state from somewhere else. And those people have historically not been counted for apportionment purposes. … they’re generally not even counted in the census because they aren't resident in the state. But an immigrant, whether they're documented or not, is residing in the state,” Jamar said.

Trump, however, vowed to “collect all of the information we need to conduct an accurate census and to make responsible decisions about public policy, voting rights, and representation in Congress.”

Last year the Supreme Court blocked an attempt by the Trump administration to add a citizenship question for the first time in 60 years.

“It's not about who can vote. It’s not about citizenship. It's about whole persons residing in the state. So, the question is really just ‘Who's living there?’” Jamar said.

Conservatives agree with administration

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, agrees with the administration’s directive, adding that Trump acted “firmly within his statutory authority to determine who are the ‘inhabitants’ of a state for purposes of apportionment.”

“The administration must now work diligently to collect and make available the data necessary to support and implement this substantial change, and hopefully this change can be implemented swiftly,” according to a statement.

In 2018, the state of Alabama filed litigation against the U.S. Census Bureau and argued the current system of apportioning congressional seats gives an unfair electoral advantage to states with more undocumented immigrants and that Alabamians would likely lose a congressional seat and an Electoral College vote if undocumented immigrants were counted. The lawsuit is currently pending before a federal court.

The Pew Research Center in its latest report showed that if unauthorized immigrants were excluded from the apportionment count, California would lose two seats instead of one, Florida would gain one instead of two, and Texas would gain two instead of three. Alabama, Minnesota and Ohio would keep a seat that they would have lost if apportionment were based only on total population change.

The report, released Friday, is based on projections of Census Bureau 2019 population estimates.

“In addition to these states, 11 more would gain or lose seats based on population change alone, no matter whether unauthorized immigrants are included or excluded," according to the analysis.

Gathering immigration data

The administration has not disclosed how it would identify undocumented immigrants. The questions in the census questionnaire does not include or require respondents to disclose their immigration status or citizenship status.

Terri Ann Lowenthal, a census consultant who once served as the staff director of the former House oversight subcommittee for the census, said all the data available on the undocumented immigrant population are estimates.

“We have some sense, right, we do have states that provide benefits to undocumented persons and so they have some administrative data, which give us some sense of the size of the population. But again, having said that, the apportionment formula for seats in Congress is an extraordinarily complex mathematical formula, I always say, that about five mathematicians in the country can explain,” Lowenthal said.

She is more concerned about the heightened fear the directive creates in immigrant communities.

“I'm concerned that this fear will affect participation in the rest of the census. The census still has to count more than 35 percent of households in this country, in the remaining field operation,” Lowenthal said.

This week, the Census Bureau started to visit households that have yet to respond. The bureau has also reported that so far 62 percent of U.S. households had completed their census forms.

The first results were due December 31 but because of the coronavirus outbreak, the Census Bureau has delayed fieldwork, and some of these dates have changed. The agency has also asked Congress to extend the legal deadline to publish data.

Stacey Abrams, a Georgia Democratic politician and voting rights activist, told VOA that people on both sides of the aisle need to worry about this directive because when the population is not accurately counted, everyone suffers. In 2019, Abrams launched a nonprofit to ensure that “hard-to-count” populations are recorded during the 2020 census.

Abrams emphasized the lack of legality to gather immigration status data.

“The census cannot inquire about the citizenship of any person. It's not on the form. They can't ask it out loud. And if you get that question, close the door and call the Census Bureau,” she said. 

RIP 

Nightmare On Elm Street Actor John Saxon Dies At 83 

Enter the Dragon star leaves behind vast body of work.

New Line

John Saxon, the rugged and intense-eyed actor who rose to iconic status for his roles in Enter the Dragon and A Nightmare on Elm Street, has died of pneumonia in his home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, according to his wife Gloria. He was 83 years old.

Born Carmine Orrico in Brooklyn, New York, he was discovered at age 17 by famed talent agent Henry Willson and rechristened John Saxon. His breakthrough came in 1956, when his starring roles in the film noir The Unguarded Moment and the musical Rock, Pretty Baby made him a teen idol and brought in some 3000 fan letters a week. At the 1958 Golden Globes, he won Most Promising Newcomer - Male.

For the next three decades Saxon would appear in dozens of films and television series as both a charismatic leading man and reliable supporting player. His turn as an unstable Mexican bandito opposite Marlon Brando in the 1966 Western The Appaloosa brought him a second Golden Globe nomination, and he played Dr. Theodore Stuart on the NBC drama The Bold Ones: The New Doctors for three seasons. During this time he also began appearing in European films, starring in Mario Bava's seminal giallo horror The Girl Who Knew Too Much (released stateside as Evil Eye), and several poliziotteschi (crime) films.

Warner Bros.

One of his most well-remembered parts would come in 1973, when he starred opposite martial arts icon Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon. Saxon, who was practiced in judo and Shotokan karate, played sleazy American gambler Roper, on the run from loan sharks and participating in a martial arts tournament with Lee and fellow martial artist Jim Kelly. Saxon was meant to die in the film's second act, but his agent insisted that he live through the end and had the script rewritten to accommodate the change.

Though no stranger to horror films, Saxon would become forever etched in the minds of horror fans when he starred as Lt. Donald Thompson, father of Heather Langenkamp's Nancy Thompson, in Wes Craven's iconic 1984 supernatural slasher A Nightmare on Elm Street. As a well-meaning but overbearing and ultimately-useless police officer, Saxon came to define the impotent authority figure that would be a central part of the series and the horror genre as a whole. He would later reprise his role in the 1987 sequel Dream Warriors, and play himself in the 1994 metasequel New Nightmare.

New Line

Saxon continued acting well into his seventies. His last credited role was in the 2017 indie film The Extra, and he's still listed as part of Bring Me the Head of Lance Henriksen, which is in post-production. At the time of his death, he had appeared in 200 film and television projects over 60 years. He was married three times, to screenwriter Mary Ann Murphy, airline attendant turned actress Elizabeth Saxon and, since 2008, cosmetician Gloria Martel. He is survived by his sons, Antonio and Lance; grandson Mitchell; great-grandson John; and sister Dolores.

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LAST WEEK
Thousands of US workers walk out in 'Strike for Black Lives'
21 July 2020 - BY AFP

The Strike For Black Lives rally, which brought together labour unions, fast food restaurant workers and racial and social justice groups and a car caravan in support of Black Lives Matter, is taking place in numerous cities across America.
Image: Frederic J. BROWN / AFP

Thousands of US workers walked out of their jobs across the country Monday for a strike in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and other minority groups which suffer racism.

The "Strike for Black Lives" saw employees from a broad range of industries briefly walk off their jobs in a call to end "systemic racism."

US media reported that tens of thousands of people in more than 200 cities across the country participated in the strike.
Although organizers did not have exact figures on how many people took part, they said around 1,500 janitors demonstrated in San Francisco, and nearly 6,000 nurses from 85 different nursing homes in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut also went on strike, according to The Washington Post.

In New York, some 100 people marched outside the Trump International Hotel to demand the adoption of the HEROES Act, legislation that would provide financial aid to households struggling during the coronavirus pandemic.

The bill was passed in May by the Democrat-majority House of Representatives but has since been blocked by the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans.

Among the New Yorkers who demonstrated in sweltering heat were nurses, doormen and cleaners -- workers who were considered essential during the pandemic and turned up for their jobs even when it put them at risk of infection.

African Americans and Hispanics died in disproportionately high numbers in New York City's coronavirus epidemic, which killed more than 22,000 residents.

"We are the ones who have kept the economy going and have kept everybody safe and in NY specially have kept the numbers down. We should be respected and compensated for that," said 42-year-old doorman Jordan Weiss.

The Service Employees International Union said protests would take place in more than two dozen cities including Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago.

Interview
Glenda Jackson: ‘I’m an antisocial socialist’

Rich Pelley

Glenda Jackson: ‘I am not very good at dressing up. I don’t really like parties.’ 

Photograph: Anton Corbijn/Trunk Archive

Glenda Jackson doesn’t much like going out, but to save the UK’s arts industry, the actor, former MP and slightly terrifying national treasure will consider it…

Published on Sun 26 Jul 2020

“Don’t be ridiculous,” barks Glenda Jackson down the phone. “Are you kidding me?”

Oh dear. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of Glenda Jackson. The 84-year-old double Oscar-winning actor and ex-MP is the national treasure of national treasures; as renowned for speaking her mind as she is for airing her politics. Indeed, as a Labour MP she famously threatened to challenge Tony Blair if he didn’t resign over the Hutton inquiry into Iraq. So she’s hardly likely to take any nonsense from some scruffy journalist who has just asked her if she would consider a return to politics.

“I’m 84 years old. You think I’ve got the energy to go pounding around the pavements again?” she says. How about if they just instantly promoted her to prime minister, I wonder, out loud, by accident, with immediate regret.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. I took being an MP very seriously. Questions like that don’t sit well with me.”

Insubordinate questions aside, Glenda Jackson is lovely; like any octogenarian who has spent their career in the public eye, she dishes out as good as she gets. She doesn’t do Zoom, and sensibly isn’t taking in visitors at the moment, but otherwise she’s more than happy to accommodate. (“This is your interview, my dear,” she reassures. “You choose what we talk about.”) She’s Glenda all over, but the only Glenda I get to appreciate today is that voice: velvet, austere and with the throaty rasp of smoking a lifetime’s stash of fags.

We’re speaking today because Jackson is back on our screens for the first time since 1992, and back in the running for awards in spite of the fact that she’s already won them all, from Emmys, Golden Globes and Oscars to Tony Awards. (“I’m not ungrateful,” she says nonchalantly, “but that isn’t what you work for. I was just grateful for getting the job. The idea of something on top was way down the list.”)

Vote winner: at a Labour Party meeting with Gordon Brown in 2010. Photograph: Alan Davidson/Rex/Shutterstock


This time she’s up for a TV Bafta for the BBC drama Elizabeth is Missing, screened last Christmas and based on the 2014 novel by Emma Healey. The Guardian awarded it five stars, praising Jackson’s “magnificent form in a poignant murder mystery that doubles as a study of the sorrows of dementia.” Jackson herself has been nominated for best actress at the ceremony, which takes place on 31 July. (“I’ll be watching in my living room, on Zoom, or whatever it’s called…”)

Is she enjoying the limelight again?

“I mean, there’s very little limelight in my small flat. I assure you of that.”

Jackson lives in a basement granny flat in Blackheath. Her 51-year-old son – Mail on Sunday columnist Dan Hodges – lives upstairs with his wife and 11-year-old son, Jackson’s only grandchild.

“I haven’t been out of my front door for three months,” she says. “Fortunately, my flat is garden level. The sun is shining. The rest of my family live upstairs, so I do have people looking after me, which is nice. I have lost all track of time. Time is an endless river, but I never know which day it is. It was my birthday in May. My grandson came downstairs and said, ‘Happy birthday’. I didn’t know it was my birthday. I’d completely forgotten. But then I’ve never been a birthday person.”

And how does she think the government has been coping with this terrible pandemic?

“I mean, they’re not, but you wouldn’t expect me to have any other reaction to a Conservative government. But in fairness, this is such an extraordinary interruption to life that I think we can be critical when we should be, but supportive when we have to be. I think Keir [Starmer] is doing very well. But at the moment, party politics are way down the level of national concern.”

The view from here: with her husband Roy Hodges 1971. She had just been awarded an Academy Award for her role as Gudrun in Women in Love. Photograph: Joe Bangay/Getty Images


The major political event since Jackson’s political retirement has of course been Brexit, to which the conversation naturally flows. Where did she stand?

“Well, I’m a Remainer,” she says. “I went to bed the night of the referendum hearing that the verdict was going to be remain. I woke up in the morning to discover we were coming out. I said to my daughter-in-law, ‘We’re going to have to emigrate to Scotland!’”

Only 27% of 18 to 24-year-olds who voted, voted to leave. But 60% of over-65s who voted, voted to leave. Does Jackson have any theories on why Brexit was so successful at securing the so-called grey vote?

“Was it really 60%?” she queries. “I can certainly see how it was a generational thing, looking through rose-tinted spectacles, saying, ‘We can be an empire again’. But do you seriously think Canada, New Zealand and Australia are going to say, ‘Please govern us again’? I think most young people are still shocked at the idea of coming out of Europe. Negotiations are still ongoing. We still don’t know what kind of deal we’re going to get and we won’t until the pandemic stops pushing it off the front pages.”

As part of its pandemic measures, the government earlier this month announced its £1.57bn investment to protect Britain’s cultural, arts and heritage institutions, having left much of the industry up the proverbial creak since March. What does Jackson say to this scheme?

Long to reign over us: as Queen Elizabeth I in Mary, Queen of Scots in 1971. Photograph: Moviestore/Rex/Shutterstock

“I say, ‘Thank you very much indeed.’ But the problem, certainly for the performing arts, is that generating money is vital. The problem remains: will audiences be confident enough to come back? The idea that performances now can take place outdoors is very positive. We’ve always had outdoor summer performances, even when it pours with rain. It’s good, but we’ll have to wait and see.”

Considering that the arts is Britain’s second biggest economy after finance, is £1.57bn enough? By comparison, the government’s furlough scheme is thought to have cost £14bn a month since March.

“The word ‘enough’ is meaningless, really,” Jackson continues. “Some productions require a great deal of money. Others can be very small. But it’s good to know that at least the validity of the arts, of our culture has been acknowledged and there is money to keep at least several arms and legs afloat. But I go back to my previous point. When will we, as people, feel confident enough to sit in theatres and concert halls? We’re still in this uncertain area. Have we actually crushed this pandemic? Or is a second spike going to come next week?”


So how would she feel about venturing out of the house for the first time in three months to put her Most Excellent Order of the British Empire bum on seat?

“As a member of the audience? I would seriously think about it. I was thinking about this earlier and wondered if it would be possible to stage something where you could see the stage, but any potential germs might be prevented by… a very fine net or something. I know it sounds ridiculous… Fortunately, we’re talking about the acknowledged creative aspect of a society. So people will come up with ideas.”

Anyway, she doesn’t particularly like going out. “I’m not good at dressing up. I don’t particularly like going out to parties. I think I’m an antisocial socialist, actually.”

So, not a big schmoozer? “No. I’m no good at it. I can’t do it. It’s just not my style. There’s always the element that you have to sell the product. But for me, it’s only the work that’s interesting.”

To play the king: as Lear at the Old Vic with Rhys Ifans as Fool and directed by Deborah Warner. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

Isn’t schmoozing just acting? Can’t she just act schmoozey? “Oh, come on. That isn’t what it’s about. The demands are very different.”

Jackson found fame in 1970s Academy Award-winning romantic dramas Women in Love and A Touch of Class, then quit a stellar acting career for politics when she was elected Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate in 1992. She was junior transport minister from 1997 to 1999 and stood down in the 2015 general election, two days before her 79th birthday.

The next year, she returned to the stage for the first time in 25 years, as King Lear at the Old Vic and later Broadway. Her performance was touted as “magnificent” and Jackson was nominated for an Olivier. Was she confident in returning to acting? What if she’d forgotten how to act?

“That’s what someone said to me when I was doing Lear at the Old Vic,” she says. “I was talking to a friend and I said, ‘My God, I might have forgotten.’ And she said, ‘It’s like riding a bike. You never forget.’”

Jackson was cast sex-blind as King Lear because King Lear is, more traditionally – and definitely according to Shakespeare – a bloke. Sir Ian McKellen (age 81) has just been cast as Hamlet (age 30) in a similar age-blind role.

“Well, that’s nice, isn’t it? If we’re all living longer, that includes actors as well, I hope,” says Jackson. “It will be interesting to see what he does with it.”

You’ve done sex-blind. Could you do age-blind, I ask? Could you be a Juliet?

“Are you kidding me?” laughs Jackson. “Come on! One of the things I’ve found most curious – given we’re not equal by any means as far as women in the world are concerned – is that contemporary dramatists still don’t find us interesting. Very few contemporary dramatists place a woman as the central dramatic. And I find that bizarre. I’ve been banging on about it for a very long time, but nobody takes any notice.”

But you’re Glenda Jackson! They should listen to your every word!

“Oh, come off it!”

How about Margaret Thatcher? Could you play her, um, politics-blind?

“I would find it very hard. I’ve always tried to abide by an unbreakable rule that you have to look at the world through the eyes of whoever you are playing. And I would find it very, very hard to see the world that Thatcher wanted us to inhabit.”

She’s played Elizabeth I, a role for which she famously shaved her head. Could she play Queen Elizabeth Version 2.0?

“Oh, well anybody can play the Queen. I mean, God, if ever a woman’s kept herself to herself, it’s the Queen. Who knows what she’s like? You know what she’s like as the Queen. What’s she like as a person? That is one of the best kept secrets in the world.”

Does Jackson watch her own TV shows and films?

“No.”

What happens if one comes on telly, would she change the channel?

“Well, it would be on very late at night, wouldn’t it? I’d be in bed and fast asleep.”


Is she critical of her own performances?

“I certainly don’t enjoy them. My reaction is completely subjective. I think, ‘Why did you choose to do that? Why didn’t you do something different there?’ But it’s all too late. It’s pretty much part of the sadomasochistic streak, which I think is in all actors.”

‘People have said that the care sector should be equated with the NHS’: starring in Elizabeth is Missing which deals with the challenges of living with Alzheimer’s. Photograph: Marsaili Mainz/Acorn TV

In Elizabeth is Missing, Jackson plays a widowed grandmother living with Alzheimer’s – something she thinks we ignore at our peril. “Despite the pandemic, we are – along with all other western democracies – living longer. And the big black hole that no one really has examined – is, how do we actually pay for those extra years when people may not have a family to support their inability to look after themselves, because of Alzheimer’s and dementia?

“We need to have that discussion: how do we pay for it? We’re beginning to see the first ripples in what will be a fairly big stream of how to provide the requisite care as a society. But this is not something that can be solved by individual practices. It is something that we, as a society, have to put on the table and think about seriously. For example, people have said that the care sector should be equated with the NHS. This is something that has to be looked at.”

I wonder if Jackson feels vulnerable herself? Does she feel her own immortality?

“Well, by virtue of my age and of the time we’re living in, I mean, of course one does. I’m not overtly religious, but when things get bad, I’m constantly calling on God. I’m grateful for the other dimensions that are there for all of us. I do believe that we’re more than flesh, blood and stone. I was partially raised as a Welsh Presbyterian and that runs quite deep. I do have a spiritual side.”

Has she ever met anyone else called Glenda?

“I did, actually. A woman came up to me. It was years ago. My mother was torn between two Hollywood stars – Glenda Farrell and Shirley Temple. I think I’m quite grateful she opted for Ms Farrell.

And has she taken up any bonkers hobbies during lockdown, to help pass the time?”

“No,” she chuckles. “But I do have the tidiest knicker drawer in the world.”

Elizabeth is Missing is available to stream on Acorn TV from 31 July


An interview with Glenda Jackson – archive, 1969

28 November 1969 While starring as Gudrun in Ken Russell’s Women in Love should have made here instantly recognisable, Jackson maintains her anonymity is safe

Glenda Jackson in Women in Love, 1969. Photograph: Everett/REX Shutterstock

Catherine Stott
Published onTue 28 Nov 2017 05.00 GMT

Glenda Jackson has a face which, while not actually anonymous, can change so much from one day to the next, from one emotion to another, as to be barely recognisable. Indeed no one ever has recognised her, for which fact she is enormously grateful. It would seem likely to anyone else that Miss Jackson cannot fail to be instantly recognisable henceforth, after the marvellous reviews she has collected for her performance as Gudrun in Women in Love, but she thankfully maintains that her precious anonymity is safe.

For several years she has been an actor’s, critic’s, and director’s actress; extremely diligent and professional on the job, but having a real horror of the glossy accompaniments to the success in her field. The only time she thinks about acting is when she is doing it and she divides her life rigidly into “work” and “home” – “an ordinary person leading a non public life” she calls herself. Asked to give a rundown of her acting career, she disposes of 13 years’ work in about 20 seconds, where far less talented actresses would take a good two hours.


Glenda Jackson on her scary reputation: ‘I’ve never understood the fear thing’
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She says that she had six lean years and seven where things were getting better and she was always in work. She first came to notice after playing Charlotte Corday in the Peter Brook production of The Marat/Sade.

She explains her workmanlike attitude: “The thing about acting is that you start out looking for work and that takes you three quarters of your time and the quality and size of it are immaterial – all you want to do is work. Then you work more regularly and perhaps do one thing which attracts notice and brings more work. The only people I ever meet are people involved with the work, never anybody outside who says, ‘Gosh, aren’t you Glenda Jackson?’ So the so-called acclaim is merely some thing you read about. It doesn’t touch me personally.

I’m quite sure I’ll never be recognised anyway because I never look outside like I look in anything I act in. I go out looking absolutely dreadful.” (She pulls an ugly face to demonstrate and for a moment it is hard to see how “Harper’s” once wanted to include her in their list of Most Beautiful Women.)

Oliver Reed, Glenda Jackson, Alan Bates, Jennie Linden and Eleanor Bron in a scene of Ken Russell’s film Women in Love. Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/UNITED ARTISTS


Women in Love is Glenda Jackson’s first film to have an automatic release. By the time she finished it she was six months pregnant. Now she is playing the mad wife of Tchaikovsky, again in a Ken Russell film, and next year expects to play the Dorothy Tutin part in The Devils – again for Ken Russell. Being a rather severe artist herself, she says characteristically that “this will be a very good thing for Ken Russell to do because it will mean that he can’t be lyrical and have people running through trees and fields of corn.”

She has become completely jaundiced by the live theatre, positively iconoclastic. “It is a dead loss, she says damningly. “Boring and tedious to work in. Everything about it is wrong these days – the theatres themselves, the plays they put on, the large companies. It would have to be a marvellous play to tempt me back.


From the archive, 8 April 1970: Women In Love and sex on the big screen
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In the theatre what happens is that you find something in a rehearsal and spend another five weeks trying to re-create it each night which is really a remembrance of things past. It gets dreary after a bit and I’m certainly out of key with that way of acting. I love the immediacy of films – you find it then and there and once you’ve found it, it’s done and then you are on to the next.”

Her next, after Tchaikovsky, will be John Schlesinger’s Bloody Sunday – with an original screenplay by Penelope Gilliat. She will again be playing a fraught, neurotic woman. She feels that playing “an out-and-out lunatic” in The Marat/Sade has rather set the trend for these downbeat roles.

Certainly she never gets offered a comedy which is a great pity since site has a very sharp sense of humour. An example of this was where she went to an after-theatre party in New York given by Jackie Kennedy, one of her rare outings, wearing a £2 cotton frock from M and S, hair in rats’ tails, and a pair of sunglasses to keep her fringe out of her eyes. “I thought that was great fun,” she says, “with the rest of them dripping diamonds down to their navels.”

Reluctantly, she agrees that the parts in films she is now getting offered are “star” roles. Certainly she will be one of the first women film stars to break all of the rules.

How to access past articles from the Guardian and Observer archive

King Lear review – Glenda Jackson is magnificent

Old Vic, London

Less is more as Glenda Jackson exudes command in Deborah Warner’s fitfully brilliant production

‘One of the most powerful Lears I have seen’: Glenda Jackson as King Lear, with Rhys Ifans, ‘genuinely funny’ as the Fool. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Observer



Susannah Clapp
@susannahclapp

Published on Sun 13 Nov 2016

Sandpaper voice; gliding movement; complete, ferocious concentration. Glenda Jackson cleavers her way through the part of King Lear. I was expecting her to be good. I was not prepared for her being one of the most powerful Lears I have seen.

It is not simply what Jackson does that makes her so authentic. It is what she does not do. No wavering voice, no rheumy eyes. Command shines out of her. In many productions when the disguised Kent says he sees authority in the old king’s face, it is hard to see what he means through the regal shambles. Not here. This monarch treats even her own emotions as if they were unruly lackeys. Scorn is a strong note. The curses are relished, delivered in a voice that sounds like a football rattle. The steps to madness are precisely marked. Nothing is wasted; nothing is superfluous. Which is one kind of great acting: it’s the economy, stupid.

Rhys Ifans (Fool) and Glenda Jackson (King Lear) at the Old Vic. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Observer

Jackson makes the hoo-hah about Lear being played by a woman look like an old-fashioned load of fussing. That fuss has rather obscured the importance of another woman’s work. Deborah Warner has been a trailblazing director: it is 21 years since she brilliantly directed Fiona Shaw as Richard II. It used to be said that more men got more first-class degrees than women because they were less cautious. Less afraid of making mistakes, they apparently have more flashes of brilliance. Warner turns that idea on its head. More than any other director she produces wonderfully good and really duff moments. Sometimes within one production.


Glenda Jackson returns to the stage as King Lear – in pictures
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As here. Throughout she uses the stage in an extraordinary way, continually bringing the action from its depths: it is as if the audience sees tragedy coming towards it through the mists of time. Yet she sets the play in what looks like a rehearsal room, with everyone in modern dress: all the women wear trousers. The design – on which Warner has collaborated with the French designer and artist Jean Kalman – is of featureless dun-coloured screens that you might find in a conference centre. The idea that we might be watching a run-through may appeal to Brechtians; not to me, for whom the power of Lear lies in its dreadful uncompromising finality. And in its untrammelled bellowing. Which Warner does capture in a tremendous storm scene: the stage is engulfed in billowing black plastic, shot through with zigzags of silvery light.

This is an uneven cast. Celia Imrie and Jane Horrocks, both actors I would travel to see, are strangely underpowered as Goneril and Regan. Karl Johnson’s Gloucester splutters monotonously, and his sons are disappointing. As Edmund, Simon Manyonda overexerts himself: through crucial speeches he moons, wanks, skips with a rope. Harry Melling’s Edgar throws away the beautiful clifftop speech: he clucks over the samphire gatherer’s “dreadful trade” as if he were offering careers advice. Yet as the Fool, Rhys Ifans brings a gentle warmth to the stage. He is also genuinely funny, particularly when embellishing with a saucy aside – “Hello Mike” – or a snatch of Dylan on his mouth organ. Lear can withstand this unevenness: its drama is so fragmented and ragged. And it is worth travelling through hurricano and cataract to see Jackson.

• At the Old Vic, London until 3 December

Tsunami of fake news hurts Latin America's effort to fight coronavirus

More than 160,000 people have died but from Mexico to Brazil, social networks are awash with quack cures and conspiracies

Children wearing masks sit on a hill in Puente Piedra shantytown on the outskirts of Lima. Ginger consumption in Peru has rocketed because of the belief it can treat or cure Covid-19. Photograph: Martín Mejía/AP

Tom Phillips in São Paulo, David Agren in Mexico City, Dan Collyns in Lima and Uki Goñi in Buenos Aires Published on Sun 26 Jul 2020

For months Gustavo Andrade has been battling to convince his parishioners to take Covid-19 seriously.


Desperate Bolivians seek out toxic bleach falsely touted as Covid-19 cure
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“This town is full of infected people. Two or three die every day,” said the priest, from the town of Venustiano Carranza in southern Mexico.

Yet for all Andrade’s efforts, many locals remain unconvinced. “Their understanding is that these deaths are from the poison the mayor is spraying as part of the anti-dengue fumigation,” he said.

The culprit for the confusion is fake news.

As Latin America battles the advance of Covid-19, which has now claimed more than 160,000 lives in the region, it is also fending off a tsunami of online disinformation designed to bamboozle and deceive.

From the Mexican state of Chiapas to Ceará in Brazil, social networks are awash with quack cures and fantastical conspiracies that can carry an all-too-real human cost.

The misinformation streaming through millions of Latin American mobile phones and computers ranges from the bizarre to the ridiculous.

A man checks his phone outside a branch of Caixa Econômica Federal in Belo Horizonte. Photograph: Pedro Vilela/Getty Images

In recent weeks, there have been claims that Brazilian coffins were being filled with rocks to inflate the country’s Covid-19 death toll; that drones were being used to deliberately contaminate indigenous communities in Mexico; that the CIA was helping spread the coronavirus in Argentina; that seafood in northern Peru was not safe to eat because the corpses of Covid-19 victims were being dumped in the Pacific Ocean; and even that the World Health Organization chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, had been spotted boogying and boozing at a bar on the São Paulo coast.


Many of the false claims include miracle Covid-19 cures including Peruvian sea water, Venezuelan lemongrass and elderberry tea and supernatural seeds being hawked by one Brazilian televangelist.

In Bolivia, politicians have been promoting the use of a toxic bleaching agent as a potential cure – with panicked residents in the hard-hit city of Cochabamba reportedly lining up to buy the poisonous product.

“Some clearly represent political or commercial agendas, others are just absurd,” said Jorge Bruce, a Peruvian newspaper columnist and psychoanalyst who studies the phenomenon.

“The problem is these are spread around by well-intentioned people in family WhatsApp chats probably because they can create a sense of control over a situation which is out of control.”

Yasodora Córdova, a Brazilian expert in online misinformation, said the tight-knit social groups that define Latin American society were one reason the region was such a “fertile ground” for fake news.

Disseminators of online disinformation had taken advantage of such pre-existing communities – such as church groups – and used them as a powerful mechanism through which to spread their lies.

Some sought financial gain from their fabrications.

Córdova, who has spent a decade studying online conspiracy theories, recalled how during the Zika epidemic viral YouTube videos falsely claimed the illness could be cured with honey or garlic, as has happened again this year with the coronavirus.

A Bolivian pharmacist with chlorine dioxide. At least 10 cases of chlorine dioxide poisoning have been reported in Bolivia in recent days. Photograph: Danilo Balderrama/Reuters

“Videos that promote this kind of ‘cure’ get thousands of views and the people who make them earn a lot of money,” said Córdova who said such producers could easily earn up to 7,000 reais (£1,050) per month. “It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not – what matters is the number of views.”

Others used falsehoods for political purposes. Córdova said that some far-right politicians in Brazil were engaged in a permanent “race to remain relevant” using bombastic and bizarre “news” to stay in the public consciousness.

“You need these fantastical-bordering-ridiculous [videos] for people to keep tuning in – either out of curiosity or because they genuinely believe in them.”

Whatever the motivation, the spread of fake news in a time of coronavirus has real-life consequences.

The misguided belief that 5G telecom towers spread the coronavirus via radio waves prompted villagers in Huancavelica in the Peruvian Andes to detain eight telecoms engineers for more than a day. Ginger consumption in Peru has rocketed and exports nearly tripled because of the belief it can treat or cure Covid-19. At least 10 cases of chlorine dioxide poisoning have been reported in Bolivia in recent days.


'Planes spray the city at night': Covid-19 conspiracy theories in Mexico's motor town
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In Chiapas – where WhatsApp rumours have spread claiming government health workers were deliberately spraying indigenous communities with the coronavirus – there has been violence. An angry mob reportedly ransacked the community hospital in the municipality of Los Rosas in early June before torching an ambulance, the town hall and the mayor’s home.

In May, another group rampaged through Venustiano Carranza, looting an electronics store and torching the town hall along with the homes of the mayor and state governor’s mother. “The call came through social networks, trying to confuse people with the false argument that Covid-19 doesn’t exist and was created to affect poor people,” the Chiapas state government said at the time.

In Brazil, the president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been caught peddling disinformation – and been punished for doing so, with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all deleting a video in which the far-right leader falsely claimed the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine had been “working everywhere” to treat Covid-19.

The Parque Taruma cemetery in Manaus. There have been unfounded claims that coffins were being filled with rocks to inflate Brazil’s Covid-19 death toll. Photograph: Bruno Kelly/Reuters

But Córdova said authorities and internet giants were not doing enough to deter the deceivers.

“The justice system needs to find a way to hold people responsible for the content they share – so they feel less comfortable distributing and sharing this kind of news,” she said.

“This will only stop when there is a counter-attack, when the justice system understands they must hold these people to account” by forcing those who alleged, for example, that Covid-19 was a Chinese experiment to prove such claims in court.

“As long as this doesn’t happen, people will keep believing the internet is a no-man’s land.”

Car drives through Black Lives Matter protest in Aurora, Colorado

A man was also shot during the Aurora march, as rival militias demonstrated in Kentucky

A car drives through a crowd of Black Lives Matter marchers on a Denver interstate on Saturday. Photograph: Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images


Associated Press
Published on Sun 26 Jul 2020
93

A car drove through a crowd and a protester was shot in the Denver suburb of Aurora during demonstrations against racial injustice.

The Aurora Police Department said on Twitter that protesters were walking on Interstate 225 Saturday when a vehicle drove through. Police said a protester fired a weapon, striking at least one person who was taken to a hospital in stable condition.

Authorities said the vehicle was towed and they are investigating. Protesters also broke windows at the courthouse and a fire was started in an office, police said. An unlawful assembly was declared and police ordered protesters to leave the area, authorities said.


America 'staring down the barrel of martial law', Oregon senator warns
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Tensions have been heightened at recent protests against racial injustice since federal officials were sent to quell demonstrations in Portland, Oregon. Police declared a riot in Seattle on Saturday.

Protests sparked by the 25 May death of George Floyd, a black man in Minnesota who died after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for eight minutes, have also highlighted other cases of fatal police violence.

In Colorado, protesters have been drawing attention to the death of Elijah McClain, who was stopped by police while walking down an Aurora street in August 2019 after a 911 caller reported him as suspicious. Police placed him in a chokehold, and paramedics administered 500 milligrams of ketamine, a sedative, to calm him down. He went into cardiac arrest, was later declared brain dead and taken off life support.

ARMED FOR SELF DEFENSE IN THE TRADITION OF THE BLACK PANTHERS

Black Lives Matter protesters gather in a park in Louisville, Kentucky, where they were demonstrating over the death of Breonna Taylor. Photograph: Leslie Spurlock/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock

In Kentucky meanwhile, hundreds of armed, predominantly black, activists demanded justice for Breonna Taylor during peaceful demonstrations in Louisville that drew counter-protesters from a white militia group.


Police closed streets and set up barricades to keep the two groups apart as tensions remained high in a town where protests have flared for months over the death of Taylor, a black woman killed when police burst into her apartment in March.

By the time black activists dressed in black fatigues arrived in the heart of downtown Saturday afternoon, most of the white militia members had already left. Police in full riot geared looked on.

Earlier in the day, three people were accidentally shot at a park where black activists had gathered, police said. The victims, all of whom were members of the militia group, were taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

“This is a tragic situation that could have been much worse,” Louisville metro police chief Robert Schroeder said in a news release. “I encourage anyone choosing to exercise their second amendment rights to do so responsibly.”

The only confrontation among the competing groups appeared to occur earlier Saturday when white militia members and Black Lives Matter activists yelled at each other over the police barricades.

Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron’s office is heading an investigation into Taylor’s death.

Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT, was fatally shot when police officers burst into her Louisville apartment using a no-knock warrant during a narcotics investigation. The warrant to search her home was in connection with a suspect who did not live there and no drugs were found.