News Center

Rep. Eric Swalwell to the Yahoo News "Skullduggery" podcast: Recent disclosures that the White House failed to act on intelligence showing that Russian operatives were paying bounties to kill American soldiers fully vindicates impeachment.

POSTED JULY 02, 2020 7:25 PM

Florida police officers responding to a George Floyd protest have been caught on camera laughing and bragging about shooting protesters with rubber bullets.The video shows police forming a line against a group of protesters in Fort Lauderdale on 31 May and eventually tossing tear gas to drive them away. When protesters began throwing the cannisters back at the police, they responded by shooting at demonstrators with rubber bullets.

POSTED JULY 02, 2020 5:45 PM

A Florida sheriff warned people protesting police brutality that he would call on individual gun owners to defend themselves if peaceful demonstrations got out of hand.

POSTED JULY 02, 2020 10:49 PM

The special police-free zone set up by protesters has now been cleared, but activists say they won’t stop the fight for justiceThe occupied protest zone near downtown Seattle known as the Capitol Hill Organized Protest, or “Chop”, effectively came to a swift end early on Wednesday morning when officers largely cleared the area of people and encampments, despite some protests lingering overnight into Thursday.Now activists say the relationships built and lessons learned over the last three weeks in the self-proclaimed police-free zone have already had a lasting impact that will live on past the physical presence of Chop.“We won, we’re winning, we made history,” said Rick Hearns, who had become head of security at Chop. “Look what we did here. The world saw it.”But the protest area also became the location of a series of night-time shootings, which left a 16-year-old boy and a 19-year-old man dead and several others seriously injured.In a series of tweets on Wednesday afternoon, Seattle’s mayor, Jenny Durkan, highlighted the violence in the zone, saying “the recent public safety threats have been well documented” and “this violence demanded action”.She said: “Our conversations over the weekend made it clear that many individuals would not leave, and that we couldn’t address these critical public safety concerns until they did.”The autonomous zone emerged organically following a series of dangerous clashes between protesters and law enforcement during marches against police brutality sparked by the killing of George Floyd, and African American, by a white police officer, in Minneapolis in May.Officers in Seattle abandoned their east precinct building as demonstrations closed in, after which protesters camped out around it, with the intention of protecting the building from possible destruction that might be blamed on them.In the days that followed, hundreds more joined, and suddenly several blocks of the city’s streets were teeming with people of different ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds, focused on calling for the defunding the city’s police department – echoing such protest cries emerging coast to coast, which can mean diverting money budgeted for police departments to social and education services, or even dismantling an entire department and restructuring the law enforcement system.And they wanted an end to police brutality against black people, explained Tarika Powell, an organizer with Seattle Black Collective Voice.> We’re going to organize sit-ins, we’re going to spam the city officials, we’re going to show up> > Jessie Livingston“It was a space where people came to learn. We screened documentaries, we put on people’s assemblies every day where people had the opportunity to speak and share their feelings and ideas … we put on educational events every single day,” she told the Guardian.“We had a space called the conversation cafe where people could come to learn about racism and to talk about it in ways they don’t get to do in their daily lives.”It spurred not only important conversations and learning, but also lasting bonds, which have since resulted in the organizing of anti-racist protests and the creation of social justice groups.The Seattle Black Collective Voice, for example, was formed after a group of organizers and protesters met in the Chop, explained Powell.Today, there are about 40 people involved with the collective, and they hold weekly educational events, and organize neighborhood cleanups and mental health outreach for people in the African American community.“We would have not been able to come together and engage in the work that we’re doing if it had not been for Chop,” she said.Pay the Fee Tiny Library was launched in a tent at the Chop, and now organizers have set up the library, which includes black, indigenous and people of color and LGBTQ literature, around the city and held events. And a garden started in the Cal Anderson Park is now expected to become a permanent addition to the neighborhood.Protesters have repeatedly stressed that the shootings and violence was not directly connected with Chop, and may have happened anyway . But it resulted in a dramatic decline in occupiers, it concerned local businesses and residents, and amplified officials calling on occupants to disperse.By the time police cleared Chop on Wednesday, following Mayor Durkan’s emergency executive order, the area had largely been reduced to a small number of activists and many homeless people, explained Powell.The truth is they “went in and did a violent sweep on homeless people, throwing away their tents and belongings”, she said.“Those homeless people had come into Chop to be safe from the sweeps. That is the vast majority of people that were in that space since the shooting started.”Officers reported on Twitter that they arrested 31 people during the sweep.Some activists have argued that the police precinct was needed as a bargaining chip in order to get their three main demands met, which involve defunding the police, using that money to invest in community health and services, and dropping criminal charges against protesters. Others say another occupation in the city could be a future possibility.Jessie Livingston, 36, a protester who has been camped at Chop almost every day since it was founded, said she didn’t know exactly the form the movement might take, but said: “We’re going to organize sit-ins, we’re going to spam the city officials, we’re going to show up to city council meetings, we’re going to do everything we know how to do.”She added: “We’re not going anywhere.”

POSTED JULY 02, 2020 9:33 AM

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told a meeting of the politburo of the ruling Workers Party the North had stopped the novel coronavirus from making inroads in the country, state news agency KCNA said on Friday. "We have thoroughly prevented the inroad of the malignant virus and maintained a stable anti-epidemic situation despite the worldwide health crisis, which is a shining success achieved," Kim Jong Un said in a statement carried by KCNA.

POSTED JULY 02, 2020 5:40 PM

A recent Harvard graduate who threatened to “stab” anyone who told her “all lives matter” has been fired from her job, she announced in a tearful video.Claira Janover, who said in a viral but since-deleted TikTok post that she would “stab” those with “the nerve” to say “all lives matter,” posted several tearful videos explaining that her new employer, Deloitte, had fired her.“I know this is what Trump supporters wanted because standing up for Black Lives Matter put me in a place online to be seen by millions of people,” Janover explained. “The job that I worked really hard to get and meant a lot to me just called me and fired me because of everything.”In a second video, Janover claimed that “Trump supporters took my job away from me.”“I have gotten death threats, rape threats, violent threats and it's okay — but now it's just like my future is entirely compromised because Trump supporters have decided to come for my life,” she stated. “I'm too strong for you. I am too strong for any of you, ‘all lives matter’ racist Trump supporters. It sucks but it doesn't suck as much as systemic racism.”Janover also criticized Deloitte, calling out the company for “cowardice.” The firm has not publicly commented on the situation.In the video that led to her firing, Janover warned “all lives matter” supporter that she would stab them. “While you’re struggling and bleeding out, I’ma show you my paper cut and say, ‘My cut matters too,'” she stated. After the video was picked up and circulated on Twitter, Janover posted a message on the video stating that “For legal reasons this is a joke.” She also explained in subsequent videos that her threat was “clearly” an “analogous joke.”“Apparently I’m threatening the lives of people — unlike cops, obviously,” she added.“Anyway, so If I get an email from the Department of Homeland Security or I get kicked out of Harvard or I get arrested or whatever — or I get murdered, according to the many death threats that I’m receiving right now — know that I appreciate you guys standing up for me,” she said.

POSTED JULY 02, 2020 8:54 AM

Authorities suspect the assault was part of a fierce turf battle that has transformed industrial Guanajuato into one of Mexico's deadliest states.

POSTED JULY 02, 2020 8:57 PM

O'FALLON, Mo. (AP) — The white St. Louis couple who became internationally famous for standing guard with guns outside their mansion during a protest have pulled a gun before in defense of their property, according to an affidavit in an ongoing case. As demonstrators marched near the Renaissance palazzo-style home of Mark and Patricia McCloskey on Sunday, video posted online showed him wielding a long-barreled gun and her with a small handgun. The protesters, estimated at around 500 racially mixed people, were passing the house on the way to the nearby home of Mayor Lyda Krewson.

POSTED JULY 02, 2020 2:44 PM

Gang members fired at the officers during a raid in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

POSTED JULY 03, 2020 4:11 AM

This Fourth of July, a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that no matter how polarized they might be politically, Americans finally seem to agree on one thing: America itself is getting worse.

POSTED JULY 02, 2020 4:29 PM