The ride-hail services are threatening to stop service in the Golden State to protest a judge's ruling. They did something similar in Texas in 2016.
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She got plastic bags banned on Bali by 18. Now she wants to mobilize other young activists
Youth activist Melati Wijsen found her voice among politicians and world leaders — and she's helping others do the same.
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This 19-year-old is mobilizing the world's youth activists
Melati Wijsen co-founded Bye Bye Plastic Bags, aged 12, to eliminate single-use plastic bags on the island of Bali. Now she's helping other young activists find their voice.
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The Best Linux Distributions for KDE Plasma 5
Apart from GNOME, KDE Plasma is one of the powerful and dominant desktop environments that boasts a stunning appearance with polished icons and an amazing look-and-feel. KDE Plasma has evolved and is more crisp
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Obama, in scathing Trump rebuke, warns democracy on the line
Obama’s address amounted to one of the most sweeping condemnations ever of a sitting president by one of his predecessors.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Barack Obama painted an unsparing portrait of American democracy on the brink if President Donald Trump wins in November, warning in a scathing, and at times emotional, address Wednesday that his successor is both unfit for office and apathetic to the nation’s founding principles.
“This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that’s what it takes to win,” Obama said in unflinching remarks on the third night of the Democratic convention. He spoke from Philadelphia, where the United States Constitution was drafted and signed.
Obama’s address amounted to one of the most sweeping condemnations ever of a sitting president by one of his predecessors. It was aimed squarely at jolting Democrats, as well as Republicans who are skeptical of Trump, ahead of the November election, casting the contest not simply as a choice between two politicians or two parties, but as a test of the endurance of American ideals.
Read More: Kamala Harris says ‘there is no vaccine for racism’ in rousing DNC speech
Through much of Trump’s presidency, Obama has been restrained in his public comments, hewing to the tradition of former Oval Office occupants giving space to the current commander in chief. Yet he has become more pointed in his criticism in recent months, and his remarks Wednesday revealed the full extent of both his personal disregard for the current president and his belief that Trump presents an existential threat to democracy in the United States.
Obama said he had initially held out hope that Trump would grow into the job of president — but he has now concluded that Trump not only hasn’t, he simply can’t. Instead, he said Trump has focused on using the presidency to benefit his friends and family and turned the nation’s most powerful office into “one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.”
Trump, who appeared to be watching in real time, responded with all-caps tweets, questioning why Obama waited until after the Democratic presidential primary was over to endorse Biden. Obama maintained throughout the primary that he would not endorse a candidate in the large field.
Obama’s address also amounted to a call to action to a weary and anxious nation, particularly younger Americans frustrated with a government that may often appear out of touch with their interests. Democrats see Obama as a bridge to those voters in the 2020 race, someone who can speak both to Biden’s character and to the urgency of progressives pushing for more sweeping change to the nation’s economic and domestic policies.
He called out in particular to young people who took to the streets of American cities earlier this year to protest police brutality against Black Americans, casting them as the heirs to the legacy of civil rights leaders such as Georgia Rep. John Lewis, who died earlier this summer.
Read More: Obama eulogizes John Lewis as a man of ‘pure joy’ and ‘perseverance’
“You can give our democracy new meaning,” he said. “You’re the missing ingredient — the ones who will decide whether or not America becomes the country that fully lives up to its creed.”
Obama cast Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, as well positioned to help that younger generation of activists power through many of the changes they seek. Yet there is an inherent tension in Obama, whose own political rise was fueled by the power of barrier-breaking, generational change, touting Biden, a 77-year-old white man who has spent a career in politics, for the presidency.
Indeed, many of Obama’s public comments since leaving the White House have focused on encouraging a new generation of political leaders to step up, both in America and around the world. He drew particular attention during the 2020 Democratic primary when he said many of the world’s problems have been due to “old people, usually old men, not getting out of the way.”
With the general election now in full swing, Obama confidants say that while the former president’s support for Biden is unequivocal, he does worry about enthusiasm among younger voters, particularly younger voters of color. He’s well aware that one of the reasons Trump currently occupies the Oval Office is that those voters did not show up in the same large numbers in 2016 for Hillary Clinton as they did when he was on the ballot.
Obama spoke two nights after his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama, headlined the opening night of the convention and delivered her own condemnation of Trump. She urged Democrats to show up to vote the way they did in 2008 and 2012, the elections that sent her husband to the White House on the strength of high turnout among young people, women and voters of color.
The fact that the Obamas were headliners on two of the four nights of the Democratic celebration speaks to the crucial role they have in helping Biden try to reassemble that coalition — and the challenge the Democratic Party has in building a new bench of other leaders who can do the same.
“When you think about folks who have the capacity to really unify us, there are only a few people,” said Yvette Simpson, chief executive of Democracy for America, a progressive political action committee. “Certainly Barack Obama and Michelle Obama are among them.”
Indeed, the former president has enviable popularity, both among Democrats and all Americans. A Fox News poll conducted in May found 93% of Democrats had a favorable opinion of Obama, as did 63% of all registered voters.
Despite that strong support, there has been some rethinking of Obama’s legacy among some of his party’s most liberal activists, who argue he didn’t go far enough in overhauling the nation’s health care system and gave too much away to Republicans in fiscal negotiations. Obama himself has acknowledged there was more he wanted to do, but argued he was hamstrung by the realities of a Republican-controlled House, and eventually Senate, for much of his tenure.
But some of Obama’s more recent comments have energized liberals, who see signs of him embracing some of the tactics of his party’s activist wing. Progressives cheered in particular when Obama called for eliminating the Senate filibuster rules requiring 60 votes on major pieces of legislation, calling it a “Jim Crow relic” that is holding up rewriting voting rights laws. His surprise comments came during his eulogy at the funeral of the late civil rights leader and Georgia Rep. John Lewis.
“That’s the guy we remember from the election of 2008,” Simpson said. “It encouraged me that he might be the guy that pulls Joe Biden along a little bit.”
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Kamala Harris says ‘there is no vaccine for racism’ in rousing DNC speech
The daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants makes history with acceptance of Democratic vice-presidential nomination.
Kamala Harris made history on Wednesday night as she accepted the Democratic vice-presidential nomination, becoming the first Black woman and the first Indian-American to be on a major party ticket.
Harris, 55, delivered a rousing speech to American voters and made her pitch for why she and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden should become the nation’s next leaders in 2021.
Standing at a podium in Biden’s hometown, Wilmington, Del., Harris opened her remarks by acknowledging Black women for their sacrifice and loyalty to the Democratic Party. For that loyalty, African American women have been labeled the “backbone” of the party.
Read More: Kamala Harris has a message for voters who aren’t feeling her and Joe Biden
“They paved the way for the trailblazing leadership of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. And these women inspired us to pick up the torch, and fight on,” Harris said.
She also paid homage to Black women who came before her in politics and civil rights, paving the way for her historic moment. Harris, only the second Black woman in history to serve as a United States senator, recalled the names of Mary Church Terrell, Mary McCleod Bethune, Fannie Lou Hamer, Diane Nash, Constance Baker Motley and Shirley Chisholm.
The Howard University graduate shouted out her HBCU and Divine Nine “family” as well. “Family is my beloved Alpha Kappa Alpha … our Divine Nine … and my HBCU brothers and sisters,” she said.
Harris tributed to her deceased mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who immigrated to America from India at 19 to pursue her dream of curing cancer.
“My mother taught me that service to others gives life purpose and meaning. And oh, how I wish she were here tonight but I know she’s looking down on me from above. I keep thinking about that 25-year-old Indian woman — all of five feet tall — who gave birth to me at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, California,” said Harris.
“On that day, she probably could have never imagined that I would be standing before you now speaking these words: I accept your nomination for Vice President of the United States of America.”
Harris called out President Donald Trump by name and criticized his leadership in handling the coronavirus pandemic, among other perceived shortcomings. The former prosecutor also spoke out against the racial injustices that provoked national unrest and demands for systemic change.
Read More: Kamala Harris reacts to Trump’s racist birther attacks: ‘They’re going to engage in lies’
“This virus has no eyes, and yet it knows exactly how we see each other — and how we treat each other. And let’s be clear — there is no vaccine for racism,” Harris said.
“We’ve gotta do the work. For George Floyd. For Breonna Taylor. For the lives of too many others to name. For our children. For all of us. We’ve gotta do the work to fulfill that promise of equal justice under law. Because, none of us are free … until all of us are free.”
Harris praised her running mate, Joe Biden, as someone who will “bring us together to end this pandemic and make sure that we are prepared for the next one. She continued, “Joe will bring us together to squarely face and dismantle racial injustice, furthering the work of generations.
“Joe and I believe that we can build that Beloved Community, one that is strong and decent, just and kind. One in which we all can see ourselves.”
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How to travel plan during the pandemic in a matter of seconds
A new website, CovidControls.co, is designed to give travelers detailed Covid-19-related information to help with their travel planning.
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The factory of the future, batteries not included
Many analysts have predicted an explosion in the number of industrial “internet of things” (IoT) devices that will come online over the next decade. Sensors play a big role in those forecasts.
Unfortunately, sensors come with their own drawbacks, many of which are due to the limited energy supply and finite lifetime of their batteries.
Now the startup Everactive has developed industrial sensors that run around the clock, require minimal maintenance, and can last over 20 years. The company created the sensors not by redesigning its batteries, but by eliminating them altogether.
The key is Everactive’s ultra-low-power integrated circuits, which harvest energy from sources like indoor light and vibrations to generate data. The sensors continuously send that data to Everactive’s cloud-based dashboard, which gives users real time insights, analysis, and alerts to help them leverage the full power of industrial IoT devices.
“It’s all enabled by the ultra-low-power chips that support continuous monitoring,” says Everactive Co-Chief Technology Officer David Wentzloff SM ’02, PhD ’07. “Because our source of power is unlimited, we’re not making tradeoffs like keeping radios off or doing something else [limiting] to save battery life.”
Everactive builds finished products on top of its chips that customers can quickly deploy in large numbers. Its first product monitors steam traps, which release condensate out of steam systems. Such systems are used in a variety of industries, and Everactive’s customers include companies in sectors like oil and gas, paper, and food production. Everactive has also developed a sensor to monitor rotating machinery, like motors and pumps, that runs on the second generation of its battery-free chips.
By avoiding the costs and restrictions associated with other sensors, the company believes it’s well-positioned to play a role in the IoT-powered transition to the factory of the future.
“This is technology that’s totally maintenance free, with no batteries, powered by harvested energy, and always connected to the cloud. There’s so many things you can do with that, it’s hard to wrap your head around,” Wentzloff says.
Breaking free from batteries
Wentzloff and his Everactive co-founder and co-CTO Benton Calhoun SM ’02, PhD ’06 have been working on low-power circuit design for more than a decade, beginning with their time at MIT. They both did their PhD work in the lab of Anantha Chandrakasan, who is currently the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the dean of MIT’s School of Engineering. Calhoun’s research focused on low-power digital circuits and memory while Wentzloff’s focused on low power radios.
After earning their PhDs, both men became assistant professors at the schools they attended as undergraduates — Wentzloff at the University of Michigan and Calhoun at the University of Virginia — where they still teach today. Even after settling in different parts of the country, they continued collaborating, applying for joint grants and building circuit-based systems that combined their areas of research.
The collaboration was not an isolated incident: The founders have maintained relationships with many of their contacts from MIT.
“To this day I stay in touch with my colleagues and professors,” Wentzloff says. “It’s a great group to be associated with, especially when you talk about the integrated circuit space. It’s a great community, and I really value and appreciate that experience and those connections that have come out of it. That’s far an away the longest impression MIT has left on my career, those people I continue to stay in touch with. We’re all helping each other out.”
Wentzloff and Calhoun’s academic labs eventually created a battery-free physiological monitor that could track a user’s movement, temperature, heart rate, and other signals and send that data to a phone, all while running on energy harvested from body heat.
“That’s when we decided we should look at commercializing this technology,” Wentzloff says.
In 2014, they partnered with semiconductor industry veteran Brendan Richardson to launch the company, originally called PsiKick.
In the beginning, when Wentzloff describes the company as “three guys and a dog in a garage,” the founders sought to reimagine circuit designs that included features of full computing systems like sensor interfaces, processing power, memory, and radio signals. They also needed to incorporate energy harvesting mechanisms and power management capabilities.
“We wiped the slate clean and had a fresh start,” Wentzloff recalls.
The founders initially attempted to sell their chips to companies to build solutions on top of, but they quickly realized the industry wasn’t familiar enough with battery-free chips.
“There’s an education level to it, because there’s a generation of engineers used to thinking of systems design with battery-operated chips,” Wentzloff says.
The learning curve led the founders to start building their own solutions for customers. Today Everactive offers its sensors as part of a wider service that incorporates wireless networks and data analytics.
The company’s sensors can be powered by small vibrations, lights inside a factory as dim as 100 lux, and heat differentials below 10 degrees Fahrenheit. The devices can sense temperature, acceleration, vibration, pressure, and more.
The company says its sensors cost significantly less to operate than traditional sensors and avoid the maintenance headache that comes with deploying thousands of battery-powered devices.
For instance, Everactive considered the cost of deploying 10,000 traditional sensors. Assuming a three-year battery life, the customer would need to replace an average of 3,333 batteries each year, which comes out to more than nine a day.
The next technological revolution
By saving on maintenance and replacement costs, Everactive customers are able to deploy more sensors. That, combined with the near-continuous operation of those sensors, brings a new level of visibility to operations.
“[Removing restrictions on sensor installations] starts to give you a sixth sense, if you will, about how your overall operations are running,” Calhoun says. “That’s exciting. Customers would like to wave a magic wand and know exactly what’s going on wherever they’re interested. The ability to deploy tens of thousands of sensors gets you close to that magic wand.”
With thousands of Everactive’s steam trap sensors already deployed, Wentzloff believes its sensors for motors and other rotating machinery will make an even bigger impact on the IoT market.
Beyond Everactive’s second generation of products, the founders say their sensors are a few years away from being translucent, flexible, and the size of a postage stamp. At that point customers will simply need to stick the sensors onto machines to start generating data. Such ease of installation and use would have implications far beyond the factory floor.
“You hear about smart transportation, smart agriculture, etc.,” Calhoun says. “IoT has this promise to make all of our environments smart, meaning there’s an awareness of what’s going on and use of that information to have these environments behave in ways that anticipate our needs and are as efficient as possible. We believe battery-less sensing is required and inevitable to bring about that vision, and we’re excited to be a part of that next computing revolution.”
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Police shootings have not decreased during pandemic: ACLU report
As of June 30, law enforcement officers have fatally shot 511 people.
Fatal police shootings have not stopped or slowed down amid COVID-19 and people following social distancing mandates across the nation.
Despite Americans spending much of 2020 inside their homes to avoid contracting the potentially deadly contagion, as of June 30, law enforcement officers have fatally shot 511 people, according to the ACLU.
“The findings of this report show that police violence in our country is not situational, but rather endemic to our country’s policing institution. Despite a once in a lifetime public health crisis that has upended societal norms and caused a decrease in physical interaction, police still manage to kill people at the same rate as before the outbreak of COVID-19,” Paige Fernandez, policing policy adviser at the ACLU, said in a release, The Hill reports.
Read More: Mississippi police officers charged for murder after 2019 confrontation with Black man
The report comes as social justice advocates continue to call for police reform and divesting funds from police departments across the nation, and reallocating them to public safety initiatives, social services and youth services.
Last month, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Marshals Service, theGrio reported. The suit alleges that federal officers targeted medics with tear gas, rubber bullets, and unlawful arrests as they worked to serve peaceful protesters in Portland, according to The Hill
One of the plaintiffs, Michael Martinez, said in a statement: “I filed this lawsuit because many people in this country, such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, will never have their day in court,” he said. “I feel it’s all the more important to use whatever resources and power I have to confront this abhorrent system, which allows people in America, primarily Black people, to be beaten and killed by police without consequence.”
The latest report from the ACLU noted that police shootings are “so routine that even during a national pandemic, with far fewer people traveling outside of their homes and police departments reducing contact with the public so as not to spread the virus, police have continued to fatally shoot people at the same rate so far in 2020 as they did in the same period from 2015 to 2019,” according to the report, which examined only fatal on-duty shootings, per NBC News.
The data analysis comes from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Read More: ACLU files lawsuit against the feds and Portland police over protest attacks
“We thought maybe police would slow down their killing of people during the pandemic,” Udi Ofer, the director of the ACLU’s Justice Division, said. “We were wrong.”
“In order to address the tide of police violence that continues in Black and Brown communities despite a global pandemic, we must transform policing in this country by dramatically reducing police departments’ role, responsibilities, power, and funding,” Fernandez said. “Only then can we truly eliminate unnecessary interactions between the police and community members, thereby reducing violence and deaths.”
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Clive Davis says Whitney Houston biopic will be ‘no holds barred’
The project is the first authorized feature on the legendary songstress, set to be released in 2022.
Music industry veteran Clive Davis has teamed with acclaimed screenwriter Anthony McCarten to develop the script for a biopic on the late-great Whitney Houston.
The project has been confirmed as the first authorized biopic on the legendary songstress, set to be released by Sony in 2022.
In the latest episode of Variety podcast “Strictly Business,” Davis dishes about he and McCarten’s writing process and how they decided to raise their own financing for the film, with Stella Meghie tapped to direct.
“I didn’t pay a penny to him, and he didn’t pay a penny to me,” Davis says of his working relationship with McCarten. The iconic music producer describes their movie as a “no holds barred” portrait of Houston.
Read More: First authorized Whitney Houston biopic set to be released Thanksgiving 2022
“I have a mission here,” Davis says. “I have a mission to make sure that for all time that the full picture of Whitney Houston is captured in a no-holds-barred film that is musically rich and shows her genius and more of her character than we have seen to date” in other projects based on the life and career of the artist.
theGRIO previously reported, there have been several film depictions of Houston’s life over the years including the mostly panned 2018 Lifetime movie, Whitney, starring Yaya DaCosta and directed by Angela Bassett. Two docs – 2017’s Whitney: Can I Be Me and 2018’s Whitney, made with the family’s cooperation, have also been released.
But this biopic, titled I Wanna Dance With Somebody after her 1987 hit single, is the first one greenlit by Houston’s estate.
“There was a fierce competition for the movie,” Davis says. “I’m happy to say the reaction to the script was good. Almost every studio head called to tell me about their passion for the project. They know Whitney has been captured and the opportunity here is so special and unique.”
After decades of drug and alcohol abuse, Houston died in February 2012 inside her Beverly Hills hotel room from an accidental drowning. She was 48.
Listen to the latest episode of “Strictly Business” below:
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Postmaster has no plans to replace voting machines, drop boxes
Mail-in ballots are expected to flood the postal service as Americans opt to vote absentee this year amid the coronavirus outbreak.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi revealed Wednesday that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy does not intend to restore blue mailboxes and sorting equipment that were removed amid President’s Trump’s complaints against mail-in ballots.
DeJoy, a GOP donor and staunch Trump supporter, previously vowed to close mail processing facilities, cut overtime and remove many blue mailboxes from street corners as cost-cutting measures until after the Nov. 3 election.
Following public outcry, complaints from Democrats and threats of lawsuits, DeJoy announced Tuesday he would “suspend” his initiatives until after the election “to avoid even the appearance of impact on election mail.”
Read More: Democrats investigate the head of USPS after sudden changes
“We will deliver the nation’s election mail on time,” DeJoy said in a statement.
“I don’t, frankly, trust the postmaster general,” Pelosi said Wednesday in San Francisco. “If he’s sincere about it, it means the bully has backed off.”
Pelosi said when she spoke with DeJoy Wednesday morning, she explained that his reversal “is not a solution and is misleading,” The Hill reports.
“The Postmaster General’s alleged pause is wholly insufficient and does not reverse damage already wreaked. The Postmaster General frankly admitted that he had no intention of replacing the sorting machines, blue mailboxes and other key mail infrastructure that have been removed and that plans for adequate overtime, which is critical for the timely delivery of mail, are not in the works,” she said in a statement on Wednesday.
“All of these changes directly jeopardize the election and disproportionately threaten to disenfranchise voters in communities of color,” Pelosi added. “At the same time, we are highly concerned that the slowdown of the delivery of medicines to veterans is not being sufficiently addressed.”
An earlier report on theGRIO noted the Postmaster general’s plan to halt some operational changes until after the November election. Democrats had contended that the changes caused disruptions that threatened mail-in voting, and some states planned to file lawsuits.
Mail-in ballots are expected to flood the postal service as Americans opt to vote absentee this year amid the coronavirus outbreak.
DeJoy will appear Friday before the Senate to testify on mail delivery delays and service changes that lawmakers and others are warning could imperil the November election.
The top Democrat on the Homeland Security panel seeking DeJoy’s testimony called the Postal Service “a lifeline” to Americans.
Read More: What we have to lose: Everything Trump has cost Black America in 4 years
The House is expected to vote Saturday on legislation that would prohibit changes at the agency. The package will also include $25 billion to shore up the Postal Service, which faces continued financial losses.
The GOP-controlled Senate, however, may not pass a stand-alone Postal Service bill.
“The Postal Service is Election Central during the pandemic, and Democrats will not allow the President to force Americans to choose between their health and their vote,” Pelosi said.
“We have to save the Post Office from the President now,” she said late Monday on MSNBC.
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Kentucky dad and daughter, 3, shot and killed while playing in ‘Frozen’ playhouse
Master P will be paying for the funeral of Trinity Randolph and her father Brandon Waddles
A family in Kentucky is in mourning after a father and his young daughter were shot and killed while they played in her Frozen dollhouse.
Trinity Randolph, 3, has the unfortunate distinction of being the youngest victim of homicide in Louisville this year, The Courier-Journal reports. She was gunned down on August 14 alongside her father, Brandon Waddles, 21. The two of them were enjoying time together as they played in a Frozen-themed playhouse on their front yard.
“She was just 3 years old,” Valerie Randolph, her great-grandmother told the outlet. “It takes a mean, cold, selfish-hearted person to take a little 3-year-old’s life.”
Read More: Kentucky attorney general meets with Breonna Taylor’s family
The little girl was remembered as a “technology genius” who loved to make TikTok and Youtube videos. She would also Facetime her relatives who are now coping with the tragedy. Randolph and Wales are the 96th and 97th shootings of the year, according to The Louisville Metro Police Department.
Authorities do not yet have any suspects or a motive in their deaths.
Tenisha Porter, Trinity’s aunt, was in the room when Randolph was born in April 2017 and shared how the three-year-old was “was like a coping skill for me” after the death of her nephew Cortez Randolph, 17, four years ago.
“When I lost my nephew, the front part of my hair went gray in less than three months,” Porter said through tears. “When Trinity came into my life, my depression lifted. I had Trinity to always hug and hold and kiss.
“Every time I saw her she was always saying, ‘Auntie, I love you,’ and I knew she meant it.”
Read More: Breonna Taylor billboard vandalized in Louisville
Louisville Metro Councilman Jecorey Arthur shared on social media that Randolph was his cousin. He pleaded with the community for help.
“I promise to change this city that has failed you,” Arthur wrote.
New Orleans-born rap mogul Master P, born Percy Miller, has offered to pay for the funeral services which will be held Friday and to provide financial help to the grieving family. The No Limit record label founder has been a philanthropist in Louisville for the past 14 years.
“This is a 3-year-old innocent girl that’s gone from her family, from her future, somebody who could have come out of the community and be the next president, doctor, lawyer, teacher,” Miller told The Courier-Journal Sunday. “This is sad.”
A GoFundMe has also been set up to support Tynekia Randolph, the little girl’s mother who is taking the loss of her daughter very hard.
“As her family, we can do much, but there’s no timeframe on when she’s going to be OK and able to fend for herself,” Tyronn Howlett, Randolph’s grandfather, said. “… Something needs to be done, and the law needs to prevail, at least in this case, because this child is innocent.”
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Barr announces 1,000 arrests in federal Operation Legend violent crime intervention
The arrests in Operation Legend include 90 murder suspects, the attorney general revealed
When President Donald Trump announced he’d be sending federal agents to several cities experiencing spikes in gun violence this summer, most thought the move was government overreach.
Read More: What we have to lose with Trump: Criminal justice and fair policing
In July, Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot told NBC5 Chicago that the agents were being sent to help the city, not take over for the police department or show unnecessary force.
“If there was anything that happened like that, we would be making sure that we did everything possible to stop that in its tracks,” Lightfoot said. “These are not troops. Troops are people who come from the military. That’s not what’s coming to Chicago, and I’ve drawn a very firm line against that.”
Chicago was one of the cities that has traditionally had a gang and gun violence problem, which was exacerbated this year, likely due to the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.
In addition, protests and police actions against non-violent protesters in several cities not only further eroded the public trust but drew law enforcement resources away from crime.
Now attorney general William Barr says the federal help has resulted in more arrests being made, including for violent crimes. According to USA Today, Operation Legend, the federal initiative to bring more agents in to help local law enforcement, is an unqualified success.
In July, federal agents were dispatched to nine cities – Memphis, Kansas City, Missouri, Chicago, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Indianapolis.
Barr says that 1,000 arrests were made across those cities, including 90 homicide suspects.
“Operation Legend is the heart of the federal government’s response to this uptick in violent crime,” Barr said Wednesday. “Its mission is to save lives, solve crimes, and take violent offenders off our streets before they can claim more victims.”
Federal overreach was suspected after protesters in several cities who took. to the streets in May and June to protest the police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville and the Georgia shooting of Ahmaud Arbery by two white men.
Video of men believed to be federal agents taking protesters away in unmarked vans was filmed as protests swelled in Portland, Oregon. After 80 plus days of protests, some peaceful, some violent in Portland, federal officers were sent the city to “restore order.” But the protesters and the public believe the agents overstepped their authority by detaining suspects who committed no crimes.
However, Operation Legend, according to Barr, was strictly focused on assisting law enforcement with resources to address violent crimes. And the response in some cities was overwhelmingly supportive.
The operation was named after a Memphis boy, LeGend Taliferro, 4, who was killed in June when a man who had had several disputes with his family shot into his home. Taliferro was asleep in his family’s apartment when he was killed.
Ryson B. Ellis was arrested in August in Tulsa, Oklahoma for his murder.
Read More: 36 hours of violence leaves four dead, 36 shot in New York City
“Operation Legend is not to harass,” Charron Powell, Taliferro’s mother, said at the White House last month. She was there to support the deployment of agents in other cities.
“It’s not to harm or to hurt. It is to help investigate unsolved murders, in which one of those happens to be our innocent, 4-year-old son. This operation is personal to us. We want justice for our son and others. We have to take a stand in our communities and speak up to help this operation be successful.”
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New video proves security guard pushed Raptors president Ujiri first
Newly released video footage shows a security officer initiating violent contact with Raptors president Masai Ujiri after the team won the championship.
In 2019, the Toronto Raptors won the NBA championship and President of Basketball Operations, Masai Ujiri, attempted to take the court in celebration. There he met with a sheriff’s deputy demanding his credentials and resulting in an altercation and a lawsuit.
READ MORE: Toronto Raptors President Masai Ujiri finally speaks out about police assault after NBA Finals
TheGrio reports that after the final game which took place in Oakland, Ujiri and an on-court security officer got into a shoving match. Law enforcement officials claimed the NBA executive initiated the contact.
“That’s when he tried to push past our deputy, and our deputy pushed him back, and there was another push that kind of moved up and struck our deputy in the face,” Sgt. Ray Kelly told the San Francisco Chronicle.
After the allegations, Ujiri faced a lawsuit and potential criminal charges. ESPN reports that a lawsuit filed by the officer in question, Deputy Alan Strickland, states the altercation caused ” “injury to his body, health, strength, activity and person, all of which have caused and continue to cause Plaintiff great mental, emotional, psychological, physical, and nervous pain and suffering.”
Ujiri filed a countersuit, listing the Raptors, the NBA, and Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) as plaintiffs calling Strickland’s recount of events “a complete fabrication.” Now, newly released video evidence looks to back him up.
Body camera footage released by Ujiri’s lawyers, and shared by CBC Sports, shows Strickland pushing first. After being pushed twice, Ujiri questions the deputy, asking “Why did you push me? I’m the president of the Raptors.”
Eventually, bystanders separate the two men and Ujiri is able to join the on-court celebration.
Throughout the entire ordeal, he has had the support of the Toronto Raptors.
“We are mindful this remains before the courts, but we have always maintained that the claims made against Masai are baseless and entirely without merit,” a Raptors spokesperson says, according to the Toronto Star.
READ MORE: Authorities seek battery charge against Raptors executive Masai Ujiri
“We believe this video evidence shows exactly that — Masai was not an aggressor but instead was the recipient of two very violent, unwarranted actions. The events of that evening cast a pall over what should have been a night of celebration, and the year since.”
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Megan Thee Stallion shooting could result in felony charges, prosecutors say
The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office is reviewing possible charges in shooting that left the Houston rapper injured.
The shooter responsible for Megan Thee Stallion‘s foot injuries may soon face felony charges.
The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office revealed that it was reviewing a potential felony charge of assault with a firearm with an investigation involving Tory Lanez, Los Angeles Times reports.
Prosecutors requested the Los Angeles Police Department to look deeper into the incident.
According to the Times, Ricardo Santiago, a district attorney official said possible charges include felony assault with a semi-automatic firearm and personal use of a firearm.
Read More: Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion’s record-breaking ‘WAP’ shoots to No.1 on Billboard chart
On July 12, the day of the shooting, the Canadian artist, whose real name is Daystar Peterson, was arrested on suspicion of carrying a concealed weapon. Shortly before Tory Lanez and Megan Thee Stallion were seen on social media partying with Kylie Jenner.
Footage from the live broadcast was uploaded to Twitter by a Megan Thee Stallion fan page @theestallionhq.
Read More: Megan Thee Stallion shares, then deletes, photos of foot injury
While still healing, the Savage rapper has also had to publicly defend herself against rumors surrounding the shooting incident. Most recently she uploaded and deleted images of her actual wounds, to silence stories that she faked her shooting, theGrio reports.
“I got hit at the back of my feet because when I got shot I was WALKING AWAY FACING THE BACK. why would I lie abt getting shot? Why are y’all so upset that I don’t wanna be in the bed sad? Why y’all upset that I can walk?” she said, sharing the graphic photo of stitches and damaged skin.
Despite some fans, and even celebrities, such as 50 Cent making light of the ordeal, the Houston rapper has also received a wave of support and encouragement including flowers from both Rihanna and her Savage Remix collaborator Beyoncé, theGrio previously reported.
According to the Times, requesting a deeper investigation before filing charges is common practice in high-profile cases. There is currently no public timeline for a resolution.
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