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Protests/Race Relations
- A statue of Frederick Douglass, installed in 2018 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolitionist’s birth, was ripped from its pedestal in Rochester, N.Y., on Sunday.
The statue was found about 50 feet away from its base in Maplewood Park, just beyond a fence near the Genesee River gorge. It “had been placed over the fence to the gorge and was leaning against the fence,” Rochester police said.
- NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace on Monday called for Americans to meet hate with love after President Trump attacked the top racing league’s only African American driver and falsely accused him of carrying out a “hoax” involving a noose found in his garage stall.
- Trump criticized possible moves by the Washington Redskins and Cleveland Indians to change their team names as “politically correct,” writing in a Tweet: “They name teams out of STRENGTH, not weakness, but now the Washington Redskins & Cleveland Indians, two fabled sports franchises, look like they are going to be changing their names in order to be politically correct. Indians, like Elizabeth Warren, must be very angry right now!”
- Authorities in Indiana are investigating after a Black man said he was attacked by a group of white people as he mistakenly walked through private property to get to a public lake shore on Saturday.
Videos of the incident show multiple white men holding Vauhxx Rush Booker’s body against a tree as a few white women stand next to them, telling the men to let him go.
In another video, a shirtless man is seen apparently yelling at a bystander, calling her a “nappy-headed bitch.” A third video shows the same man yelling at bystanders “you invaded us.”
“We were having a great time and you invaded us,” he says. “You stupid fucking liberal fucks.”
- Police have identified a suspect, a Black man, 27-year-old Cedric Charles Moore Jr. and charged him with second-degree felony assault and first-degree child endangerment, after a 12-year-old White boy was attacked while he was dancing in downtown Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
The incident happened around 11:40 p.m. Friday. The boy was performing with his dance instructor and a fellow student on a sidewalk on Main Street. A man got out of a nearby vehicle, sneaked up behind the boy, hit him hard on the back of the head and fled back to his vehicle. The boy fell to the pavement, and he had to be taken to a local hospital. The incident was recorded in a Facebook Live video.
- Disney is partnering with former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick to deliver “scripted and unscripted stories” exploring race and social justice, including a documentary series chronicling Kaepernick’s life. The deal will extend across Disney platforms, including ESPN, Hulu, Pixar and The Undefeated, a site dedicated to exploring the intersection of race, culture and sports.
- Amy Cooper, a White woman who was caught on video calling the police on a Black man who was birdwatching in New York’s Central Park, is now facing charges of falsely reporting an incident in the third degree
- Restaurant chain Jimmy John’s says it has fired workers who were seen in a viral clip laughing and playing with what appeared to be a noose shaped from dough at one its stores in Georgia over the weekend with a filter reading “Happy 4th of July.”
- Philadelphia Eagle DeSean Jackson shared anti-semitic quotes attributed to Adolf Hitler on his Instagram story over the July 4th holiday, and continued to use the quotes as a conversation piece during several posts on the social media network on Monday afternoon.
- The Pentagon is working on a policy that would ban the display of Confederate flags at military bases, according to multiple reports on Monday.
The draft policy, if put into effect, would ban the flag’s display in Department of Defense workplaces or public areas by service members and civilian personnel.
- Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has declared a state of emergency and called up the National Guard after what he said were “weeks of dramatically increased violent crime and property destruction in the City of Atlanta.”
- Kanawha County, WV school board members have unanimously voted in favor of changing the name of Stonewall Jackson Middle School in Charleston.
Administration News
- President Trump is expected to refile paperwork this week to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that offers protections for thousands of young immigrants after the Supreme Court ruled last month that the administration failed to give an adequate justification for terminating the program as required by federal law.
- EU lawmakers overwhelmingly backed a proposal on Monday to allow the European Union to retaliate more quickly in trade disputes, with a clear eye on the tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
- The January U.S. drone strike in Iraq that killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and nine other people represented a violation of international law, a U.N. human rights investigator said on Monday.
- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada confirmed he won’t attend a meeting in Washington this week with President Donald Trump and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico.
- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said late on Monday that the United States is “certainly looking at” banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok.
“I don’t want to get out in front of the president, but it’s something we’re looking at,” Pompeo said.
Sources: ABC News, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post
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