Image caption
Mr Trump said he will “no longer deal with” Sir Kim Darroch
Downing Street says the UK’s ambassador to the US has the prime minister’s “full support”, despite Donald Trump saying he will no longer work with him.
The US president was responding after leaked emails revealed Sir Kim Darroch had called his administration inept.
In a series of tweets, Mr Trump also criticised Theresa May’s handling of Brexit saying she had created “a mess”.
Number 10 called the leak “unfortunate” and said the UK and US still shared a “special and enduring” relationship.
A Downing Street spokesman said: “We have made clear to the US how unfortunate this leak is. The selective extracts leaked do not reflect the closeness of, and the esteem in which we hold, the relationship.”
But he said ambassadors needed to be able to provide honest assessments of the politics in their country, and the prime minister stood by Sir Kim.
“The UK has a special and enduring relationship with the US based on our long history and commitment to shared values and that will continue to be the case,” he said.
The Trump question faced by the next PM
Downing Street’s response is a classically formal “thanks, but no thanks”. A stiff brush-off in riposte to the US president’s digital tirade, which was extraordinary even by his standards.
With the current prime minister almost out of the door, and the UK ambassador in Washington leaving too, the remarks are unlikely to change much directly, and this allows Number 10 to try to shrug off the criticism.
Less officially, though, there is real frustration. One senior Tory warned that “we cannot bow down to this form of lunacy” where the leader of another country tries to use online swagger to seek revenge on one of the UK’s diplomats – not least from one of our most important allies.
Confidential emails from the UK’s ambassador, leaked to the Mail on Sunday, contained a string of criticisms of Mr Trump and his administration, describing the White House as “clumsy and inept”.
Sir Kim, who became ambassador to the US in January 2016 about a year before Mr Trump took office, questioned whether this White House “will ever look competent” but also warned that the US president should not be written off.
The emails, dating from 2017, said rumours of “infighting and chaos” in the White House were mostly true and policy on sensitive issues such as Iran was “incoherent, chaotic”.
On Sunday the US president responded saying “we’re not big fans of that man and he has not served the UK well” but on Monday he escalated his response with a series of tweets criticising Mrs May and her handling of Brexit.
“What a mess she and her representatives have created,” the US president said.
“I do not know the ambassador, but he is not liked or well thought of within the US. We will no longer deal with him.”
He said that it was “good news” for the UK that it would soon have a new prime minister.
The US state department declined to comment on President Trump’s remarks, but the ambassador was disinvited from a dinner held at the White House on Monday night for the Emir of Qatar.
BBC New York correspondent Nick Bryant said Sir Kim was still planning to join International Trade Secretary Liam Fox for a scheduled meeting with the president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, unless he is rebuffed again.
Is ambassador now ‘persona non grata’?
Analysis by James Landale, BBC diplomatic correspondent
By saying he won’t deal with Sir Kim Darroch any more, Donald Trump is apparently all but declaring the ambassador to be persona non grata. That is the formal legal process by which a host government expels a foreign diplomat.
The key question now is what the president means by the word “deal”. If the royal “we” used by Mr Trump means that his entire administration will no longer deal with Sir Kim or any of his staff then the British government may have to decide to fast track the retirement of their man in Washington.
Sir Kim, who is an honourable man and was stepping down anyway in a few months, may decide to resign. If, however, Mr Trump merely means he won’t deal personally with Sir Kim then the ambassador may stay on until the new prime minister can make his own appointment.
This all presents the British government with an awkward dilemma – to buckle under US pressure and bring Sir Kim home, risking accusations of abject weakness, or to stand firm and defend their ambassador for doing his job and telling the truth as he sees it, risking even further damage to the UK-US relationship.
Any one senator can stop legislation from passing by unanimous consent. The Democratic-held House could also vote down legislation even if the Senate approves it.
A spokesman for McConnell did not immediately respond to a request to comment on whether the Kentucky Republican would consider adding any of the Democrats’ priorities to the proposal this week.
Congress is out of Washington as the pandemic wreaks havoc on the country. The U.S. now has roughly 400,000 COVID-19 cases, and the disease has been linked to at least 12,911 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
It has also devastated the economy. Roughly 10 million people filed new unemployment claims over a two-week period, and the U.S. lost 701,000 jobs in early March — before the biggest wave of business shutdowns.
The CARES Act passed last month included direct payments to individuals, enhanced unemployment insurance, small business loans, health care funding and a $500 billion pool of loans and grants for corporations and states.
Pelosi has called for another round of checks to individuals and to extend the unemployment benefits for two more months.
Frantic parents with children in their arms fled in every direction during a Black Friday shooting at a packed mall in Washington, witnesses said.
Kobe Marsh was inside Panera Bread at Tacoma Mall with a friend when they heard a loud bang, which they quickly realized was gunfire around 7:08 p.m., the Sun reported Saturday.
People were screaming and “running for their lives,” Marsh said.
“It was chaos,” Marsh said. “It all happened so fast. At first we didn’t realize. We stood there for about three to five seconds, but when saw a stream of people running we realized it was gunshots that we’d heard.”
Shopper Bethany Villero told CNN that after the shots rang out, “I saw people throwing up, I guess they were so scared.”
One person was shot and taken to the hospital in the mall shooting in Washington. @RyanKIRO7/Twitter
Kobe said he initially heard one gunshot and then heard about six or seven more. Other witnesses claim to have heard as many as 15 shots, the Sun said.
“We saw mothers crying, with their kids in their arms just running. Other people were just really confused” Marsh said.
“It was terrifying. There were just hundreds of people flooding out of the mall.
“Luckily we weren’t too far from my car. I just had tunnel vision as I was running.”
Kobe said the gunshots sounded as if they were coming from a “fully automatic weapon.”
Shoppers at the mall said they heard as many as 15 shots ring out. @RyanKIRO7/TwitterMall-goers said there was “chaos” in the mall with people running for their lives. @RyanKIRO7/Twitter
“I’ve never experienced anything like that before — I just can’t believe it,” he said.
One person was shot and taken to a local hospital with serious injuries in the incident, Tacoma police told CNN. No arrests have been made.
In 2005, the Tacoma Mall was the site of a 2005 mass shooting. Gunman Dominick Maldonado shot and wounded six people.
And in 2016, Clinton, ran into her own problems when she estimated that half of Trump’s supporters could go into what she called “the basket of deplorables” — meaning, she said, that they were “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic.” The phrase turned into a rallying cry for Trump’s supporters, and after he was elected, some threw a “DeploraBall” to celebrate.
A tradução deste artigo se encontra no final da versão em inglês.
As we near the end of 2015, all Brazilian television channels and networks are writing and broadcasting the most viewed and discussed news. The year of 2015 was a challenging year for Brazilians.
The economic chaos brought upon the country due to the ongoing investigation of Petrobras — Brazil’s semipublic multinational energy corporation — earned Brazil daily stories in most newspapers around the world. The scandal revealed the extent of corruption in the country.
Thousands of Brazilians took to the streets to demand that President Dilma Rousseff step down. Most believe that she, Brazil’s first female president, has been involved in the Petrobras scandal. The country experienced elevated inflation, with the dollar at the highest it has been ever since the real, Brazil’s currency, was implemented in 1994. There were tragedies: An estimated 2,400 babies in the northern Brazilian states were born with brain damage, possibly due to the mosquito-borne virus that led Brazil to declare an emergency. Two dams ruptured in the village of Bento Rodrigues in Minas Gerais state, located in the southern part of the country, which caused Brazil’s biggest environmental disaster.
Regardless of all the sadness and upheaval that transpired in Brazil in 2015, there were many news headlines that portrayed a population that always comes together and that makes people hopeful for a better future. On Monday, Dec. 28, a dengue vaccine was approved by Anvisa (Brazil’s health surveillance agency), and it is expected that in three months, the vaccine will be available to the public between the ages of 9 and 45, with a projected 66 percent protection.
In 2015, Brazilian surfer Adriano de Souza, 28, became the World Surf League champion. In October, a constitutional amendment was passed to give Brazilian domestic workers the same rights as everyone else in the country. These workers now have rights to the Fundo de Garantia do Tempo de Serviço (FGTS), a government fund into which an employer must pay 8 percent of their employee’s total salary each month, earmarked for their retirement. Then there was “the right to hope” — fosfoetanolina — a possible cancer cure created by retired University of São Carlos Professor Gilberto Chierice, who has been researching for more than 20 years.
For 2016, Brazilians will continue to carry in their hearts hope for a better future. It is the year of the Olympics in Rio. The eyes of the world will be on Brazil, and perhaps that will help heal a country that has suffered so much in its history. I know that the underlying sentiment among Brazilians is the desire for peace, social justice, a good education system for their kids, combating corruption, safety. These dreams cannot remain just a utopia. The so famous Brazilian resilience is indestructible, after all as Brazilians say, “God is Brazilian,” and in God we trust.
Feliz Ano Novo.
Portuguese translation – Tradução em português
Brothers Gabriel Corzo and Plinio Savio Quarto from the Brazilian “Heralds of the Gospel” congregation conducted ceremonies in Portuguese at the Saint Augustine Roman Catholic Mass on Monday. Photo by Sam Moore
Com o ano de 2015 chegando ao fim, todos os jornais brasileiros, assim como canais locais estão escrevendo e exibindo os assuntos mais vistos e comentados. O ano de 2015 foi um ano árduo para os brasileiros.
O caos econômico que as investigações na Petrobras trouxeram ao país, não só demonstrou a todos os brasileiros a corrupção incessante de nossos políticos, como também ao mundo. Diversos jornais pelo mundo inteiro fizeram reportagens sobre o assunto.
Milhares de brasileiros saíram as ruas em manifesto contra a presidente Dilma Rousseff, pedindo seu impeachment. Muitos acreditam que Dilma, a primeira mulher a ser presidenta, está envolvida com o escândalo de corrupções da Petrobras. O país teve a inflação elevada, o Dólar chegou ao pico desde que o Real foi implementado no país em 1994. Houveram tragédias: estima-se que 2,400 bebês no nordeste do Brasil nasceram com deficiência cerebral possivelmente causada devido ao Zika vírus, transmitido pelo mosquito Aedes aegypti, o que levou o Brasil a declarar estado de emergência. Duas barreiras se romperam no vilarejo de Bento Rodrigues em Minas Gerais, causando a maior tragédia ambiental da historia do Brasil.
Independente da tristeza de determinados fatos e tragédias ocorridas no Brasil no ano de 2015, houveram notícias demonstrando um povo unido que apesar de tudo sempre carrega a confiança de que o amanhã pode ser melhor. Nesta segunda-feira a Anvisa (Agência nacional de vigilância sanitária do Brasil) aprovou a vacina contra a dengue, e estima-se que em três meses a vacina estará disponível para o público entre 9 e 45 anos, com uma eficácia de 66 porcento.
Em 2015, o surfista brasileiro Adriano De Souza, o Mineirinho, 28, tornou-se o campeão de surf mundial. Em outubro, uma emenda constitucional aprovou uma lei que concede às trabalhadoras domésticas os mesmos direitos de todos as outros trabalhadores no país. Estas trabalhadoras terão direito ao Fundo de Garantia do Tempo de Serviço (FGTS), um fundo governamental ao qual seus empregadores terão que contribuir oito porcento no valor de seus salários mensalmente, auxiliando para suas aposentadorias. E por último, o direito a esperança — fosfoetanolina — uma possível cura do câncer criada pelo professor aposentado da Universidade de São Carlos, Professor Gilberto Chierice, o qual estudou a droga sintética por vinte anos.
Para 2016, os brasileiros continuarão a carregar em seus corações a esperança para um futuro melhor. É o ano das Olimpíadas no Rio. Os olhos do mundo estarão assistindo o nosso país, e talvez isso ajude a sarar um país com uma história sofrida. Eu sei que o sentimento predominante entre os brasileiros é o desejo por paz, a justiça social, um sistema de educação adequado para seus filhos, o combate a corrupção e a segurança. Estes sonhos não podem apenas permanecer como uma utopia. A tão famosa resiliência brasileira é indestrutível, afinal de contas como nós brasileiros dizemos, “Deus é brasileiro”, e em Deus nós confiamos.
Portland Police Association president Daryl Turner calls out Mayor Ted Wheeler on ‘The Story’
A rally organized by the far-right Proud Boys in Portland, Ore., is expected to draw thousands of supporters and counterprotesters Saturday.
With the city bracing for violent clashes, Gov. Kate Brown declared a state of emergency Friday and agreed to send in troopers to help local police, according to the Statesman Journal,.
The Proud Boys, designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, described the rally as a “free speech” event to support President Trump and police, restore law and order and condemn “violent gangs of rioting felons.”
Members of the Proud Boys and other right-wing demonstrators march across the Hawthorne Bridge during a rally in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)
“As we head into the weekend, we are aware that white supremacist groups from out of town, including the Proud Boys, are planning a rally on Saturday in Portland,” Brown, a Democrat, said in a statement. “Significant crowds of people are expected to join — some people will be armed, with others ready to harass or intimidate Oregonians. Many are from out of state.”
“The Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer groups have come time and time again looking for a fight, and the results are always tragic. Let me be perfectly clear: We will not tolerate any type of violence this weekend,” she added. “Left, right or center, violence is never a path towards meaningful change.”
“The First Amendment does not give anyone license to hurt or kill someone because of opposing political views,” the governor said.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, also a Democrat, said the city will “use every available power and resource … to protect free speech and our community from violence.”
The Proud Boys have held multiple events in Portland since Trump’s election, alongside other right-wing groups such as Patriot Prayer. The gatherings have sparked some violent clashes with left-wing counter-demonstrators.
People hold candles during a vigil in Vancouver, Wash., for Aaron “Jay” Danielson, a supporter of Patriot Prayer who was shot and killed in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Paula Bronstein, File)
Similar competing demonstrations have ended with fistfights and bloodshed, including the fatal shooting on Aug. 29 of Aaron “Jay” Danielson, a supporter of a right-wing group, who was killed in Portland after a caravan a pro-Trump supporters drove pickup trucks in a caravan downtown.
The suspect, Antifa supporter Michael Reinoehl, was shot in a hail of gunfire by federal officers as they moved in to arrest him in neighboring Washington state.
In an interview with Vice published the day he was killed, Reinoehl said he was acting in self-defense when he shot Danielson in the chest.
The Proud Boys mentioned the death of Danielson, a Trump supporter, in their permit application, as well as Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old charged in the shooting deaths of two protesters in Kenosha, Wisc.
The body of Michael Reinoehl is lifted onto a stretcher in the early morning hours of Friday, Sept. 4, 2020, in Lacey, Wash. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
Rittenhouse’s attorneys have said he was acting in self-defense.
The Proud Boys raised the specter of a vigilante response to the actions of a “mob” in a permit application filed with the city this week.
Shootings have also escalated. The Portland Police Bureau released gun violence statistics on Sept. 4 that showed there have been more than 480 shootings as of Sept. 3 compared to 299 shootings for all of 2019.
Authorities said in July that downtown Portland businesses have sustained an estimated $23 million in damages due to rioting.
In 2016, Mr. Xi put Mr. Luo in charge of cleaning up Shanxi Province, a northern coal-mining area plagued by corruption scandals. Mr. Luo oversaw a purge of the party’s senior ranks there, as a series of investigations documented broad misconduct.
Mr. Luo is an unexpected choice to run the Central Liaison Office because of his relatively advanced age, 65, and because he has already worked as a provincial-level leader in mainland China. He was also only a month into his latest job, in China’s national legislature, suggesting that the decision to send him to Hong Kong came together fast.
The Beijing leadership previously selected younger men with more expertise in the unique issues posed by Hong Kong, which has a different legal and economic system from mainland China because it was a British colony until its return in 1997 to Chinese sovereignty.
Like other Chinese provincial leaders, Mr. Luo has had some dealings with Hong Kong, especially over investment and business. He held talks with his predecessor, Mr. Wang, at least once, leading a delegation from Shanxi Province to Hong Kong in late 2018. On that visit, Mr. Luo also met the city’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, to discuss investment opportunities. But he appears to have no public record of ideas for ending the unrest in Hong Kong.
By contrast, Mr. Wang had spent most of his career as a Hong Kong specialist before he was named to run the office in Hong Kong in 2017.
When Mr. Luo stepped down as party chief in Shanxi, in November, he said he took pride in helping to clean up the province’s “political ecology” and overhaul its economy, two tasks that Mr. Xi may also want him to take on in Hong Kong. Mr. Luo also said then that he was most grateful to have the backing of Mr. Xi and other central leaders.
Mr. Wang and Mr. Luo are among the roughly 200 members of the Chinese Communist Party’s elite Central Committee, which gathers roughly once a year to discuss policy and review the performance of China’s political leadership.
Moderate Democrats are fuming over New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s closed-door warning last week that Democrats who vote with Republicans are “putting themselves on a list” – a comment interpreted as a primary challenge threat.
Ocasio-Cortez has since downplayed her comments, made in the wake of 26 Democrats joining Republicans to vote for a provision requiring Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be notified if illegal immigrants attempt to purchase guns.
“Being unified means ensuring that Democrats aren’t primary-ing other sitting Democrats,” Gottheimer told The Washington Post. “Since when is it okay to put you on a Nixonian list? We need to have a big tent in our party or we won’t keep the House or win the White House.”
The brouhaha began last week when two-dozen moderate Democrats broke from their party’s progressive wing and sided with Republicans on a legislative amendment having to do with illegal immigrants and guns.
In a closed-door meeting afterward, according to The Washington Post, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi scolded her wayward center-leaning colleagues, telling them: “We are either a team or we’re not.”
Ocasio-Cortez then told fellow Democrats that those who voted with Republicans were “putting themselves on a list.” Ocasio-Cortez later claimed she wasn’t talking about a list for primary challenges.
“I didn’t say that they were putting themselves on a list for primaries,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “I said that by Dems distinguishing themselves by breaking off on procedural…votes, they were inadvertently making a list of targets for the GOP and for progressive advocates on their pro-ICE vote.”
Reacting to Ocasio-Cortez’s comments, one party strategist who works for moderate Democrats argued Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t “respect” the views of other Democrats who don’t embrace her progressive politics.
“My main gripe about AOC is that while I respect her voice in the party, I don’t think she respects mine or anyone else’s who differs with her on policy or comes from a different political electoral reality,” said John Anzalone, a Democratic pollster in Alabama.
There’s been speculation since she was elected to Congress that Ocasio-Cortez could get involved in Democratic primary fights in 2020, especially with the group Justice Democrats signaling plans to primary incumbent Democrats they see as insufficiently progressive. Ocasio-Cortez has been aligned with that group.
It’s a tactic that has been embraced by some conservative groups and politicians on the right, especially during the 2010 and 2012 elections, when incumbent lawmakers in the House and Senate were ousted in primaries by conservative challengers.
Fox News’ Bradford Betz contributed to this report.
Once the COVID-19 outbreak hit U.S. soil, it quickly became evident that Americans would need some amount of financial relief to cope with widespread unemployment and income loss. The solution came in the form of the CARES Act, which called for a one-time, $1,200 stimulus payment that millions of Americans have received over the past two months.
But many people blew through that stimulus cash quickly, and with the jobless rate hanging tight in double-digit territory, it’s clear that Americans need additional relief. Democratic lawmakers agree, and so they’ve introduced the HEROES Act, which calls for, among other provisions, a follow-up round of stimulus cash that’s actually more generous than the first.
Image source: Getty Images.
Under the CARES Act, stimulus payments were worth up to $1,200 per qualifying adult and up to $500 per qualifying child under the age of 17. Under the HEROES Act, stimulus checks will be worth $1,200 per qualifying individual, children included. And while that benefit maxes out at three children per household, it means some families could be in line for a $6,000 check if the HEROES Act passes a Senate vote.
Unfortunately, though, the latter is unlikely to happen. Republican lawmakers have been vocal in their opposition to the HEROES Act, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already come out and said that it’s unlikely to pass in its current form.
Still, that doesn’t mean the public should give up hope on a second stimulus package. In fact, news on a follow-up stimulus will likely be available in July, which would at least give desperate Americans something to look toward.
Is a second stimulus payment in the cards?
Critics of the HEROES Act have pointed to the fact that it’s too expensive, and that with states easing restrictions and businesses opening back up, that level of aid isn’t necessary. Still, that doesn’t mean lawmakers won’t come together on some type of relief package, albeit a less generous one, especially as the nation continues to grapple with a recession.
Furthermore, last week, McConnell himself came out and said that if a follow-up relief package is passed, that decision will be made in July. Granted, that doesn’t mean stimulus checks will actually go out in July — but if a relief package is decided upon next month, Americans could conceivably find themselves on the receiving end of a second stimulus payment by August, especially now that the IRS has a tool in place for non-tax-filers to register their banking details in order to get their money via direct deposit.
Of course, the amount of that second stimulus check is up for debate, and Americans shouldn’t assume they’ll receive $1,200 apiece (or more) like they did the first time around. Additionally, McConnell has expressly stated that if there is a second round of stimulus payments, recipients can count on it being the last one they get their hands on as they grappled with the COVID-19 crisis. That may not be the news desperate Americans want to hear, but a second and final stimulus check is still better than no additional relief at all.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is facing another allegation of sexual harassment, this time from a woman currently employed by his office. Alyssa McGrath, a 33-year-old executive assistant, told The New York Times that Cuomo stared inappropriately at her body and commented on her looks.
Her attorney, Mariann Wang, confirmed McGrath gave the account to the Times.
McGrath, who does not work directly for Cuomo, said the interactions began shortly after she was hired in mid-2018. The next year she was with Cuomo in his office when he allegedly made a comment to her in Italian. She later asked her parents what the phrase meant.
“It was commenting on how beautiful I was,” she told the publication.
In another meeting in his office, McGrath claimed Cuomo looked down her shirt and then asked about her necklace. “I put my head down waiting for him to start speaking, and he didn’t start speaking,” she said. “So I looked up to see what was going on. And he was blatantly looking down my shirt.”
McGrath also said Cuomo kissed her on her forehead during the office Christmas party in 2019 and called her and a coworker “mingle mamas” after he asked the coworker about her romantic life.
“He has a way of making you feel very comfortable around him, almost like you’re his friend,” McGrath told the Times. “But then you walk away from the encounter or conversation, in your head going, ‘I can’t believe I just had that interaction with the governor of New York.'”
Cuomo is facing pressure to resign after multiple women came forward with allegations against him. Cuomo has rejected calls for his resignation and has denied sexually harassing anyone. He has, however, apologized for comments he made that may have made women uncomfortable.
“I never, ever meant to offend anyone or hurt anyone or cause anyone pain. I feel terrible that these people felt uncomfortable, felt hurt, felt pain from the interactions, and I’m embarrassed by it, and I feel bad from it,” he said.
Cuomo’s office did not immediately respond to CBS News’ request for comment.
His lawyer, Rita Glavin, issued a statement to the Times, saying, “the governor has greeted men and women with hugs and a kiss on the cheek, forehead, or hand. Yes, he has posed for photographs with his arm around them. Yes, he uses Italian phrases like ‘ciao bella.'”
“None of this is remarkable, although it may be old-fashioned. He has made clear that he has never made inappropriate advances or inappropriately touched anyone.”
McGrath’s lawyer told CBS News: “The governor’s deflections are not credible. This was not just friendly banter.”
President Donald Trump again suggested starting his own global news network to “put some really talented people and get a real voice out there. Not a voice that is fake.”
His remarks were yet another slam at CNN, but also existing media outlets that are funded by the U.S. government, the largest of which is Voice of America. VOA’s mission is to provide an “objective and reliable source of U.S., regional and world news and information,” and is set up with a “firewall” to be free of political interference.
Speaking to a crowd in Florida on Thursday, though, Trump criticized those entities, which are overseen by the U.S. Agency for Global Media. Trump said that “we used to have Radio Free Europe and Voice of America. We did that to build up our country, and that is not working out too well.”
Instead, he said that CNN “seems to be a voice that is a voice out there, and it is a terrible thing for our country.”
“CNN outside of the United States is much more important than it is inside the United States,” Trump said.
Trump has suggested starting a state-run network before. Last year, he wrote on Twitter that “Something has to be done, including the possibility of the United States starting our own Worldwide Network to show the World the way we really are, GREAT!”
Voice of America, which has a budget of about $235 million, employs more than 1,000, and programs in more than 40 languages.
Trump also ridiculed media fact-checking, arguing that they don’t spot his embellishments. He said that when he once said that California Gov. Gavin Newsom wanted to give everyone a Rolls Royce, CNN said, “The president isn’t telling the truth.”
Trump has nominated Michael Pack, a documentary filmmaker, to serve as CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, succeeding John Lansing, who resigned last month to serve as CEO of NPR. Pack has been CEO of the Claremont Institute and is a former executive for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He also has worked with Steve Bannon on two film projects and praised Bannon in an op ed that talked of the left’s monopoly on documentaries.
Jeff Shell, chairman of NBCUniversal Film and Entertainment, was on the Broadcast Board of Governors, which oversees the U.S. Agency, and resigned this week. A blog devoted to coverage of the broadcast entities, BBG-USAGM Watch, obtained Shell’s resignation letter to Trump, in which he wrote that the time was right to depart following Lansing’s resignation. He also wrote of the accomplishments they had made “while abiding by the ‘firewall’ that protects the full editorial independence of our journalists and networks, all of whom are required to at all times adhere to the highest professional standards of journalism.”
Trump’s longstanding gripes against the press and desire for his own news outlet prompted his establishment of a weekly webcast called Real News Update on July 30, 2017, garnering considerable attention, buzz and late-night TV jibes at the time. A version of the still-going Facebook webcast is hosted by daughter-in-law Lara Trump from a studio in Trump Tower and funded by the president’s re-election campaign.
The Republican pariah Liz Cheney has repeatedly refused to admit a link between Donald Trump’s lies about voter fraud and restrictive voting laws being introduced in Republican states, telling an interviewer on Sunday night she will “never understand the resistance to voter ID”.
“There’s a big difference between that and a president of the United States who loses an election after he tried to steal the election and refuses to concede,” said the Wyoming representative ejected from party leadership for opposing the former president.
Laws tightening regulations on voter ID, voting by mail and even giving water to those waiting on line to vote have been passed or are close to passage in states from Georgia to Texas and beyond.
Because of their disproportionate impact on minority voters – many of whom vote Democratic – Democrats including Joe Biden have compared such laws to Jim Crow segregation in southern states from the civil war to the civil rights era.
Most in a Republican party under Trump’s grip reject such claims. Cheney has ranged herself against Trump but when pressured by Axios on HBO interviewer Jonathan Swan, she stayed in lockstep with her party.
To Cheney’s remark about resistance to voter ID laws, Swan countered: “Even the Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia, Jeff Duncan, said … when this bill was started that the momentum was when Rudy Giuliani was testifying that the Georgia election was a sham.”
Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, pursued the electoral fraud lie through an array of cases in states won by Biden, the vast majority thrown out of court.
“Four hundred-some voting bills have been introduced,” Swan said, “90% by Republicans, supported by the Republican National Committee. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that after the election, this has happened.”
Cheney said: “I think everybody should want a situation and a system where people who want to vote and ought to have the right to vote, vote, and people that don’t shouldn’t. And again I come back to things like voter ID.”
“But what problems are [these laws] solving?” Swan asked. “What are all these states doing?”
“Well,” said Cheney, “each state is different.”
Swan asked what the problem was in Georgia, or Texas, or Florida.
“I think you’ve got to look at each individual state law,” Cheney said.
Swan said: “But you can’t divorce them from the context. Come on.”
Cheney said: “But I think what we can all agree on is that what is happening right now is really dangerous.”
Swan said: “I can agree with that.”
Cheney switched back to her preferred subject – Trump’s refusal to concede defeat, which led to the deadly attack on the Capitol by his supporters on 6 January, over which more than 400 people have been charged, while Republicans in Congress oppose a 9/11-style investigation.
“I think about 2000,” said the daughter of Dick Cheney, who became vice-president to George W Bush after a tight election that year.
“I think about sitting on the inaugural platform in January of 2001 watching Al Gore. We’d won. I’m sure he didn’t think he had lost. We had fought this politically very, very intense battle. And he conceded. He did the right thing for this nation.
“And that is one of the big differences between that and what we’re dealing with now and the danger of Donald Trump today.”
Diébédo Francis Kéré appears on a Zoom screen in a loose white Oxford shirt and an enormous, slightly flabbergasted smile.
“Can you imagine?” the newest Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate exclaims. “I was born in Burkina Faso, in this little village where there was no school. And my father wanted me to learn how to read and write very simply because then I could then translate or read him his letters.”
Diébédo Francis Kéré, this year’s Pritzker Architecture Prize winner.
Lars Borges/The Pritzker Architecture Prize
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Lars Borges/The Pritzker Architecture Prize
Diébédo Francis Kéré, this year’s Pritzker Architecture Prize winner.
Lars Borges/The Pritzker Architecture Prize
Kéré spoke to NPR from Porto-Novo, the capital of Benin, where Kéré Architecture is currently working a new parliamentary building inspired by the palaver tree. It is, he says, a West African symbol of consensus building, and he hopes the building will reflect a commitment both to tradition and democratic process. “Literally speaking, it is a tree under which people come together to make decisions, to celebrate,” Kéré explains. “You know, you get to think together and everyone can be part of the debate or the discussion.”
The first Black winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize had already received numerous accolades in his field, including the Aga Khan Award and the Thomas Jefferson medal, but Kéré was as surprised as anyone else to be selected for the field’s most famous prize. Many architects and critics had openly supposed that 2022 would be Sir David Adjaye’s year. The most prominent Black “starchitect” is best known for designing such notable buildings as the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Kéré, who is based in Berlin but centers much of his practice in Africa, has been – until now — far lesser known, with signature buildings that include primary schools and a health care clinic.
“Francis Kéré is pioneering architecture — sustainable to the earth and its inhabitants — in lands of extreme scarcity,” said committee chair, Tom Pritzker, in a statement. “He is equally architect and servant, improving upon the lives and experiences of countless citizens in a region of the world that is at times forgotten. Through buildings that demonstrate beauty, modesty, boldness and invention, and by the integrity of his architecture and geste, Kéré gracefully upholds the mission of this Prize.”
Burkina Institute of Technology
Jaime Herraiz/The Pritzker Architecture Prize
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Jaime Herraiz/The Pritzker Architecture Prize
Burkina Institute of Technology
Jaime Herraiz/The Pritzker Architecture Prize
Kéré says his architectural practice was inspired by his own experience attending school with around 100 other children in a region where temperatures regularly exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit. “You will sit and it’s very hot inside,” he told NPR. “And there was no light, while outside, the sunlight was abundant and in my head, I think, the idea one day grew [that] as an adult, I should make it better. I was thinking about space, about room, about how I can feel better.”
The Centre for Health and Social Welfare in Laongo, Burkina Faso
The Pritzker Architecture Prize
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The Pritzker Architecture Prize
In his designs for Gando Primary School and Naaba Belem Goumma Secondary School in Burkina Faso, Kéré drew on traditional building materials such as local clay mixed with concrete, and emphasized shade and shadows with well-ventilated spaces that reduce the need for air conditioning. He wanted the buildings to evoke the sense of an oasis. “I am creating a huge canopy for many, many children, to be happy and learn how to read and write,” he says.
Lycée Schorge in Palogo, Burkina Faso
The Pritzker Architecture Prize
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The Pritzker Architecture Prize
When he was twenty, in 1985, Kéré earned a vocational scholarship to study carpentry in Berlin. But while immersed in the practicality of roofing and furniture making, he also attended night school and was admitted to Technische Universität Berlin, from which he graduated in 2004 with an advanced degree in architecture. He was still a student when he designed and built the innovative Gando Primary School. The recognition it earned helped Kéré establish his own practice in Berlin.
The 2017 Serpentine Pavilion, built in London’s Kensington Gardens
Iwan Baan/The Pritzker Architecture Prize
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Iwan Baan/The Pritzker Architecture Prize
“He knows, from within, that architecture is not about the object but the objective; not the product, but the process,” says the 2022 Jury Citation, in part. “Francis Kéré’s entire body of work shows us the power of materiality rooted in place. His buildings, for and with communities, are directly of those communities – in their making, their materials, their programs and their unique characters.”
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