Month: July 2020

A Seattle judge’s decision to compel The Seattle Times and four local television stations to turn over unpublished photos and videos from Black Lives Matter protests to the police is raising new questions about news media independence and credibility.  On July 23, King County Superior Court Judge Nelson Lee ruled in favor of the city’s police department in forcing the outlets to comply with a legal request filed last month over protests that turned violent on May 30. Special laws called “shield” laws are designed to protect journalists from most of these requests, with exceptions for material critical to a criminal investigation. In this case, the judge said police needed the materials to identify suspects in open arson and gun-theft investigations.  Free press advocates say the ruling could set a dangerous precedent for First Amendment rights in the U.S. At least one other news outlet — Cleveland’s Plain Dealer — was served aSeattle Police ride on a vehicle behind bicycle police during a Black Lives Matter protest march, July 25, 2020, in Seattle.“Protests are already the most dangerous setting for journalists on the job in the United States,” she told VOA. “This only amplifies the danger that journalists are already in when they go to work at these events.” The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington condemned the ruling in a July 23 statement. “At a time when our basic freedoms are under attack, the City of Seattle should be doing everything possible to protect those foundational freedoms,” the ACLU said.  The case centered around whether the state’s shield law protects journalists from turning over information. Almost every U.S. state has a shield law, although protections vary. Under Washington’s law, journalists receive absolute protection from revealing information from confidential sources. For news or information that journalists gather in their reporting, it provides qualified protection allowing some to be disclosed through a subpoena, Lamo said. A subpoena may be granted if the information is highly relevant to a case, if it is critical to proving a material issue to a claim or defense, if there is a compelling interest in the information, and if alternative ways to get the information are exhausted, Lamo said. In his decision last week, Lee ruled that this request met all four criteria. The judge placed limits, however, saying the police department could not use the video to pursue suspects in investigations unrelated to arson or gun theft. He also allowed only video from professional camera equipment, not reporters’ cellphones. Before Lee’s ruling, the Reporters Committee filed a friend-of-the-court brief siding with efforts by the five news organizations to quash the request.  Michele Matassa Flores, executive editor of The Seattle Times, said earlier this month that the subpoena risked damaging the paper’s credibility.  “We don’t work in concert with government, and it’s important to our credibility and effectiveness to retain our independence from those we cover,” Matassa Flores said. A decision on whether to appeal has not been made, a lawyer representing the news outlets said last week. 
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U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr told U.S. lawmakers Tuesday federal intervention was needed to calm ongoing protests in the Northwestern U.S. city of Portland, Oregon. Barr pushed back against congressional Democrats’ accusations he has placed loyalty to President Donald Trump ahead of upholding the rule of law in the United States. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.Produced by: Katherine Gypson
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Major League Baseball (MLB) has suspended all Miami Marlins games for the rest of the week after at least 15 players and coaches reportedly tested positive for the coronavirus.The team is in Philadelphia where the affected players are in quarantine. The Philadelphia Phillies, who hosted the Marlins earlier this week, will also be idle through Friday.New York Yankees’ Gleyber Torres (25) celebrates his solo home run with Luke Voit during the seventh inning of a game against Washington at Nationals Park, July 26, 2020.Some players with the New York Yankees, who were scheduled to play the Phillies this week, balked at using the same visitors’ clubhouse in Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park that the Marlins had used.MLB officials say they postponed the Yankees-Phillies games “out of an abundance of caution.”The source of the coronavirus outbreak among the Marlins is unclear. But reports say some players may have picked up the virus during a night out in Atlanta following a July 22 exhibition game against that city’s team. There are no reported cases among Atlanta’s team.The Marlins were scheduled to host the Washington Nationals in Miami this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. But Nationals manager Dave Martinez said the team’s players voted not to go.“We all decided that it was probably unsafe to go there,” Marinez said. “It had nothing to do with the Miami Marlins. It was all about Miami and the state of Florida, this pandemic. They didn’t feel safe.”MLB is trying to have as normal a season as possible during the coronavirus pandemic. But the usual 162 games were slashed to just 60 and, to avoid a lot of traveling, no teams in the West will play teams in the East.Games are also off-limits to fans. Players have been hitting home runs into empty stands.As of now, there are no plans to give up on the entire 2020 season. But the country’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told ABC television network’s “Good Morning America” Tuesday that the situation with the Marlins could “put it in danger.””I don’t believe they need to stop, but we just need to follow this and see what happens with other teams on a day-by-day basis. Major League Baseball — the players, the owners, the managers — have put a lot of effort into getting together and putting protocols that we feel would work,” Fauci said.Milwaukee Brewers’ Ryan Braun stands on second base after driving in two runs with a double during the ninth inning of a game in Pittsburgh, July 27, 2020.Left fielder Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers said Tuesday it has been “very difficult to focus on baseball at all the last couple of days.”“It’s important that we are able to provide a source of entertainment and an outlet for people who are dealing with such a challenging time in their lives,” Braun said. “But at the same time, the health and safety should be the top priority for all of us at all times. You think about all the hotel employees, bus drivers, pilots, flight attendants, anybody else all the Marlins guys might have come into contact with, and it’s obviously scary.”Meanwhile, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo offered the ballparks in his state to any team that needs a place to play.The governor said Tuesday that New York now has one of the country’s lowest rates of CIOVID-19 infections, adding that a successful baseball season would be “good for the economy. I think it would be good for the psyche. I think it would be good for the nation’s soul.”New York City has two major league parks, and other cities across the state have well-equipped minor league parks.The Toronto Blue Jays are already playing their 2020 home games at the minor league stadium in Buffalo, New York after Canadian authorities shut them out of their home field. Canadian officials said they do not want U.S. players continually crossing the border while U.S. tourists are being turned away.Other professional North American sports leagues hope to restart their seasons shortly. The National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League (NHL) have opened training camps.All basketball games are being played in Orlando, Florida, and NHL games will be played in two Canadian cities, Toronto and Edmonton. Canadian authorities have granted exceptions to U.S. players to allow them to cross the border.The National Football League (NFL) is opening training camps this week but has canceled the usual four exhibition games each team plays in August.The football season is set to open Sept. 10. But Fauci has said because of the extremely close contact that NFL players have to each other on the field, he would not be surprised to also see a curtailed 2020 football season. 
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“Watchmen,” cloaked in superhero mythology and grounded in real-world racism, received a leading 26 nominations Tuesday for the prime-time Emmy Awards.  
The series, which captured America’s unease as it faces racial clashes amid a pandemic, was nominated as best limited series and received bids for cast members including Regina King and Jeremy Irons.
King was part of a vanguard of actors of color who showed that TV academy voters took heed of the calls for change.
The Amazon comedy “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” is the second most-nominated series with 20, followed by Netflix’s “Ozark” with 18.  
“This year, we are also bearing witness to one of the greatest fights for social justice in history. And it is our duty to use this medium for change,” Frank Scherma, chairman and CEO of the Television Academy said at the outset of the presentation.
The nominations, typically unveiled with fanfare at the TV academy’s Los Angeles headquarters, were announced online Tuesday by Leslie Jones (“Saturday Night Live”) and presenters Laverne Cox (“Orange is the New Black”), Josh Gad (“Frozen”) and Tatiana Maslany (“Orphan Black”). Cox, Gad and Maslany appeared on by video feeds.
The nominees for best comedy series are: “Curb Your Enthusiasm”; Dead to Me”; “The Good Place”; “Insecure”; “The Kominsky Method”; “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”; “Schitt’s Creek’: “What We Do in the Shadows”
The nominees for best drama series are: “Better Call Saul”; “The Crown”; “Killing Eve”; “The Handmaid’s Tale”; “The Mandalorian”; “Ozark”; “Stranger Things”; “Succession.”
The nominees for drama series actress are: Jennifer Aniston, “The Morning Show”; Olivia Colman, “The Crown”; Jodie Comer, “Killing Eve”; Laura Linney, “Ozark”; Sandra Oh, “Killing Eve”; Zendaya “Euphoria.”
The nominees for drama series actor are: Jason Bateman, “Ozark”; Sterling K. Brown, “This is Us”; Billy Porter, “Pose”; Jeremy Strong, “Succession”; Brian Cox, “Succession”; Steve Carell, “The Morning Show.”
The nominees for lead actor in a comedy series are: Anthony Anderson, “black-ish”; Don Cheadle, “Black Monday”; Ted Danson, “The Good Place”; Michael Douglas, “The Kominsky Method”; Eugene Levy, “Schitt’s Creek”; Ramy Youssef, “Ramy.
The nominees for lead actress in a comedy series are: Christina Applegate, “Dead to Me”; Rachel Brosnahan, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”; Linda Cardellini, “Dead to Me”; Catherine O’Hara, “Schitt’s Creek”; Issa Rae, “Insecure”; Tracee Ellis Ross, “black-ish.”
A high energy Jones kicked off the announcement Tuesday morning by appearing on a virtual set and joking that she was told there would be many others on set to announce the nominees and that she was locked in a studio with only a camerman.
The Emmy Awards, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, will be presented Sept. 20 on ABC.
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Twitter has limited Donald Trump Jr.’s account and deleted one of his tweets for violating Twitter’s COVID-19 misinformation policies.  The tweet, posted on Monday, had what Twitter termed a misleading video on the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine.  An adviser to Trump Jr., Andrew Surabian, tweeted an angry response, in which he said that Trump Jr.’s account had been suspended, adding that “big tech is the biggest threat to free expression in America.”  He added in a statement to Business Insider that Twitter’s action is evidence that “the company is committing election interference to stifle Republican votes.”BREAKING: @Twitter & @jack have suspended @DonaldJTrumpJr for posting a viral video of medical doctors talking about Hydroxychloroquine.Big Tech is the biggest threat to free expression in America today & they’re continuing to engage in open election interference – full stop. pic.twitter.com/7dJbauq43O— Andrew Surabian (@Surabees) July 28, 2020A Twitter spokesman said that the account was not suspended, and instead “Twitter required the tweet to be deleted because it violated our rules” and they merely limited “some account functionality for 12 hours.”  Under limited account functionality, Trump Jr.’s account remains visible and he is able to browse Twitter, but during the 12 hours he is not able to tweet, retweet, or like anything on the micro-blogging platform.
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New York state authorities are opening an investigation into a drive-in concert by the musical group the Chainsmokers on Long Island this weekend that did not appear to be adhering to COVID-19 social distancing guidelines.The Saturday concert, which might have had an audience of thousands of people, was intended as a benefit, with proceeds going to charity and took place in the town of Southampton.New York Governor Andrew Cuomo tweeted Monday that videos of the concert “show egregious social distancing violations. I am appalled.” He added that, “The Department of Health will conduct an investigation” and “we have no tolerance for the illegal and reckless endangerment of public health.”The concert, according to its event page, was intended to be a socially-distanced drive-in event with a maximum of 600 vehicles. Attendees were supposed to stay within a certain distance of their car and leave only to use the restroom, in which case they were required to wear a mask.But various clips from the concert show large groups of people standing shoulder to shoulder, many without masks.All non-essential gatherings of over 50 people are banned in New York, with a fine of up to $1,000.New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker sent a letter on Monday about the concert to Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman. In his letter, Zucker said he was “greatly disturbed” by reports of “thousands of people in close proximity, out of their vehicles, a VIP area where there was no pretense of a vehicle, and generally not adhering to social distancing guidance.”He added that he did not know why the concert was “allowed to continue when it became clear violations were rampant.”The U.S. has had over 140,000 COVID-19 deaths. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends social distancing and wearing a mask to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
 
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President Donald Trump’s lawyers filed fresh arguments Monday to try to block a criminal subpoena for his tax records, saying it was issued in bad faith, might have been politically motivated and calling it a harassment of the president. Lawyers filed a rewritten lawsuit in Manhattan federal court to challenge the subpoena by a state prosecutor on grounds they believe conform with how the U.S. Supreme Court said the subpoena can be contested. They asked a judge to declare it “invalid and unenforceable.” FILE – Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., responds to a question during a news conference in New York, May 10, 2018.The high court ruled earlier this month that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. could subpoena tax records from Trump’s accountant over his objections. But the court said Trump could challenge the subpoena as improper just as anyone else can. Trump’s lawyers had argued that the president could not be criminally investigated while he was in office. In their new court papers, Trump’s lawyers said the subpoena of his tax records was “wildly overbroad” and “amounts to harassment of the President.” They said it was issued in bad faith, copying a Congressional subpoena. “Whether the District Attorney photocopied a congressional subpoena for political reasons, for efficiency reasons, or for both, he knowingly and intentionally issued a wildly overbroad subpoena for the President’s records,” the lawyers said. They said the subpoena seeks detailed information about all of Trump’s assets in the U.S. and abroad for a 10-year period. “Simply put, it asks for everything,” the lawyers wrote. FILE – This combination photo shows, from left, President Donald Trump, attorney Michael Cohen and adult film actress Stormy Daniels.Vance sought the tax records in part for a probe of how Trump’s then-personal lawyer arranged during the 2016 presidential race to keep the porn actress Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal from airing claims of extramarital affairs with Trump. Trump has denied the affairs. Vance, a Democrat, has requested eight years of the Republican president’s personal and corporate tax records. Danny Frost, a spokesperson for Vance, declined comment Monday. The Supreme Court had returned the case to a federal judge in Manhattan who has arranged for both sides to finish filing their legal arguments over challenges to the subpoena by mid-August. Last year, the same judge ruled against Trump in a written opinion that was upheld by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. In their new court filing, Trump’s lawyers said the tax subpoena “demands voluminous documents related to every facet of the business and financial affairs of the President and numerous associated entities — from the banal to the complex, from drafts and memoranda to formal records, from source documents to summaries.” They said it was wrong for Vance to seek records dating to 2011 when he was primarily investigating events that took place in 2016. The lawsuit said the subpoena concerns entities in California, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. It said other affected entities are located outside the U.S., including in Canada, the Dominican Republic, Dubai, India, Indonesia, Ireland, the Philippines, Scotland, and Turkey. “Taken together, the subpoena demands an accounting and analysis of every single asset and liability of the President, including each one of the listed entities,” the lawyers wrote, calling the request “an overreaching demand designed to pick apart the President.”  
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The mayors of Portland, Oregon, and five other major U.S. cities appealed Monday to Congress to make it illegal for the federal government to deploy militarized agents to cities that don’t want them.  
“This administration’s egregious use of federal force on cities over the objections of local authorities should never happen,” the mayors of Portland, Seattle, Chicago, Kansas City, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Washington wrote to leaders of the U.S. House and Senate.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty late called for a meeting with Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf to discuss a cease-fire and removal of heightened federal forces from Portland.
Earlier in the day, a U.S. official said militarized officers would remain in Portland until attacks on a federal courthouse cease — and more officers may soon be on the way.
“It is not a solution to tell federal officers to leave when there continues to be attacks on federal property and personnel,” U.S. Attorney Billy Williams said. “We are not leaving the building unprotected to be destroyed by people intent on doing so.”  
Local and state officials said the federal officers are unwelcome.  
The city has had nightly protests for two months since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May. President Donald Trump said he sent federal agents to Portland to halt the unrest, but state and local officials said they are making the situation worse.
Trump’s deployment of the federal officers over the July 4 weekend stoked the Black Lives Matter movement. The number of nightly protesters had dwindled to perhaps less than 100 right before the deployment, and now has swelled to the thousands.Federal officers launch tear gas at a group of demonstrators during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland, Oregon, July 26, 2020.Early Monday, U.S. agents repeatedly fired tear gas, flash bangs and pepper balls at protesters outside the federal courthouse in downtown Portland. Some protesters had climbed over the fence surrounding the courthouse, while others shot fireworks, banged on the fence and projected lights on the building.
Trump said on Twitter that federal properties in Portland “wouldn’t last a day” without the presence of the federal agents.
The majority of people participating in the daily demonstrations have been peaceful. But a few have been pelting officers with objects and trying to tear down fencing protecting the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse.
Williams, whose office is inside the courthouse, called on peaceful protesters, community and business leaders and people of faith to not allow violence to occur in their presence and to leave downtown before violence starts. He said federal agents have made 83 arrests.
Demonstrations in support of racial justice and police reform in other cities around the U.S. were marred by violence over the weekend. Protesters set fire to an Oakland, California, courthouse; vehicles were set ablaze in Richmond, Virginia; an armed protester was shot and killed in Austin, Texas; and two people were shot and wounded in Aurora, Colorado, after a car drove through a protest.
The U.S. Marshals Service has lined up about 100 people they could send to hot spots, either to strengthen forces or relieve officers who have been working for weeks, agency spokesperson Drew Wade said.
Kris Cline, principal deputy director of Federal Protective Service, said an incident commander in Portland and teams from the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice discuss what force is needed every night.
Cline refused to discuss the number of officers currently present or if more would be arriving.
Some protesters have accused Wheeler of hypocrisy for speaking out against the federal presence because, under his watch, Portland police have used tear gas and other riot-control weapons on protesters, including peaceful ones.
Cline said Portland police should take over the job of dispersing protesters from the courthouse area from the federal officers.
“If the Portland Police Bureau were able to do what they typically do, they would be able to clear this out for this disturbance and we would leave our officers inside the building and not be visible,” Cline said.
He said relations between the federal officers, some of whom live in Portland, and city police were good.
Portland police responded Sunday evening to a shooting at a park close to the site of the protests. Two people were detained and later released, police said. The person who was shot went to the hospital in a private vehicle and was treated for a non-life-threatening wound.
Also late Sunday, police said someone pointed out a bag in the same park, where officers found loaded rifle magazines and Molotov cocktails. The shooting was not related to the items, police said. 
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The body of the late U.S. congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis is lying in state again Tuesday at the Capitol in Washington for mourners to pay their last respects. Lewis died last week at the age of 80 after a yearlong battle with advanced-stage pancreatic cancer.     His flag draped casket was escorted Monday to the Capitol where he served the people of his Georgia district for 33 years.The hearse with the flag-draped casket of Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., drives on 16th Street, renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza, near the White House, July 27, 2020.Before arriving on Capitol Hill, the motorcade carrying his body took a final journey past several civil rights landmarks in Washington as well as a new mural on a street near the White House reading “Black Lives Matter.”     House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California speaks during a service for the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., as he lies in state at the Capitol in Washington, July 27, 2020.In remarks Monday in the Capitol Rotunda, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Lewis the conscience of the Congress.     “It is fitting that John Lewis joins this pantheon of patriots, resting upon the same catafalque as President Abraham Lincoln,” she said. A catafalque is an ornamental wooden framework that supports a coffin lying in state.   Pelosi had led a delegation Monday to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to greet Lewis’s casket.     Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., speaks during a memorial service for Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., at the U.S. Capitol, July 27, 2020, in Washington.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also praised Lewis, saying “Lewis lived and worked with urgency because the task was urgent.”     Absent from the ceremonies was President Donald Trump, who has publicly traded words with Lewis on Twitter. After Lewis said the president was not legitimate, Trump called Lewis’ congressional district “crime-infested.”Vice President Mike Pence paid his respects later Monday along with Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden.     Due to concerns over the coronavirus, the public viewing is taking place just outside the Capitol on the building’s east side. Visitors are required to wear masks and engage in social distancing.      Lewis is the second Black lawmaker to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol. Congressman Elijah Cummings, who died last year, was the first.  The flag-draped casket of the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a key figure in the civil rights movement and a 17-term congressman, lies in state, July 27, 2020, at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.Lewis’ body will be flown to Atlanta to lie in state Wednesday in the Georgia Capitol. A funeral will be held at Ebenezer Baptist Church, the historically black church where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. preached. He will be laid to rest in Atlanta’s South View Cemetery.     Lewis rose to fame as a leader of the modern-day American civil rights movement of the 1960s. At 23, he worked closely with King and was the last surviving speaker from the August 1963 March on Washington where King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.     FILE – Martin Luther King Jr., second from right, speaks at a news conference next to John Lewis, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, in Baltimore, Maryland, April 2, 1965.The civil rights movement led Lewis into a career in politics. He was elected to the Atlanta City Council in 1981 and to Congress in 1986, calling the latter victory “the honor of a lifetime.” He served 17 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia’s fifth district.
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U.S. Attorney General William Barr is set to testify Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee where lawmakers are expected to ask him about a range of topics involving the Trump administration, including the deployment of federal officers in response to protests in the northwestern city of Portland, Oregon. Text of Barr’s opening statement released ahead of the hearing says the late May death of George Floyd in police custody was a “horrible” event that sparked a necessary examination of the relationship between law enforcement and African Americans in the United States. But Barr says the ongoing protests in Portland and elsewhere have become disconnected from Floyd’s death. “Largely absent from these scenes of destruction are even superficial attempts by the rioters to connect their actions to George Floyd’s death or any legitimate call for reform,” Barr says. He reiterates Trump administration criticisms of local leaders, many of whom have offered their own rejections of the federal government’s responses and called for Congress to block deployments of federal forces in their cities.A bloodied demonstrator is arrested by federal police during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse, July 27, 2020, in Portland, Ore.“As elected officials of the federal government, every Member of this Committee – regardless of your political views or your feelings about the Trump Administration – should condemn violence against federal officers and destruction of federal property,” Barr says. “So should state and local leaders who have a responsibility to keep their communities safe. To tacitly condone destruction and anarchy is to abandon the basic rule-of-law principles that should unite us even in a politically divisive time.” There have been clashes between protesters and federal forces in Portland, with the situation there escalating in the days following accusations the federal officers were hauling people away from the demonstration area without probable cause.  Federal officials have defended the deployments as necessary to defend federal property such as the courthouse in the city. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said Monday in sharing a letter from a group of mayors asking Congress to act to restrain the use of federal forces that “the actions taken in recent weeks have no place in this nation.” “We demand that federal troops be removed from our cities and encourage Congress’ continued vigilance and action to pass legislation in both chambers to end this dangerous overreach,” Wheeler tweeted.  “This Administration has shown no hesitation or remorse in playing the most toxic and damaging form of politics with the lives and livelihoods of the American people. We say no more. We say unequivocally Black Lives Matter.” Lawmakers could also ask Barr about another instance of clashes between federal officers and protesters that took place June 1 in Lafayette Square, just across from the White House.  The officers drove the protesters from the park with smoke bombs and pepper balls, shortly before Trump, accompanied by Barr and others, walked to a nearby church to pose in front of cameras. That incident is the subject of another hearing Tuesday on Capitol Hill in front of the House Natural Resources Committee. Adam DeMarco, a major in the District of Columbia National Guard, says in his prepared opening remarks to the committee that what he witnessed at the site was “deeply disturbing” to both himself and fellow National Guard members. “Having served in a combat zone, and understanding how to  assess threat environments, at no time did I feel threatened by the protestors or assess them to be violent,” DeMarco says.  “In addition, considering the principles of proportionality of force and the fundamental strategy of graduated responses specific to civil disturbance operations, it was my observation that the use of force against demonstrators in the clearing operation was an unnecessary escalation of the use of force.” DeMarco further says those protesting were fellow Americans peacefully expressing their rights, and that they were subject to “an unprovoked escalation and excessive use of force.” Acting U.S. Park Police Chief Gregory Monahan is set to give a different perspective of the events, saying in his prepared testimony that during demonstrations at the park from May 29 to June 1, protesters threw “bricks, rocks, caustic liquids, water bottles, lit flares, fireworks” and pieces of wood at law enforcement officers. “The unprecedented and sustained nature of the violence and destruction associated with some of the activities in Lafayette Park and surrounding park areas immediate and adjacent to the White House required de-escalation,” Monahan says.  “On the whole, the United States Park Police acted with tremendous restraint in the face of severe violence from a large group of bad actors who caused 50 of my officers to seek medical attention. Our actions as an agency on June 1 centered around public safety and the safety of my officers.” 
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The ruling Zanu-PF party in Zimbabwe is threatening to expel the United States ambassador to that nation, Brian Nichols, accusing him of being a “thug” who undermines the country’s laws. The party’s acting spokesperson, Patrick Chinamasa told reporters in Harare, if Nichols continues engaging in acts such as supporting disturbances, coordinating violence and training insurgency the party’s leadership will not hesitate to give him his marching orders.Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa and Agriculture Minister Joseph Made (right). (Photo/Irwin Chifera)Chinamasa’s comments suggest the US supports Friday’s planned protest by opposition groups, calling for more economic parity, less government corruption and the resignation of President Emmerson Mnangagwa. The ZANU-PF party’s verbal attack on the US ambassador follows the government’s accusation the US is helping to finance disturbances in the country three days before the planned anti-government protest.  The opposition spokesman, the leader of Transformation Zimbabwe, Jacob Ngarivhume said, the demonstration is going to mark a turning point for Zimbabwe. President Mnangagwa has not withheld his intolerance for criticism and the government has already promised to shut down protests. 
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Much of Hawaii was spared when Hurricane Douglas passed just north of Oahu, Maui and the island of Hawaii, also known as the Big Island, early Monday. The Category 1 storm was on what forecasters had called a “dangerously close” path, but the islands managed to “dodge the bullet” as one police chief put it, when the storm veered slightly away from its forecast path. No severe damage has been reported from Douglas’ heavy rain and fierce winds. But the threat to Hawaii is not totally over. Hurricane warnings are out for some parts of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument – a World Heritage site described as “cluster of small, low lying islands and atolls” – northwest of the main Hawaiian Islands. Tropical storm warnings and watches have been issued for other parts of Papahānaumokuākea, which is the largest contiguous fully protected conservation area in the U.S., and one of the largest marine conservation areas in the world, encompassing 1,508,870 square kilometers of the Pacific Ocean. As of Monday afternoon, Hawaiian time, Douglas was still a dangerous storm with top sustained winds of 130 kilometers per hour but is forecast to weaken Tuesday into Wednesday.  
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One of the most famous gardens in America is getting a face-lift.  Melania Trump on Monday announced details of a plan already under way to spruce up the White House Rose Garden, an iconic outdoor space famous for its proximity to the Oval Office. The current garden design has been around since the Kennedy years, but the first lady  says a “comprehensive renovation” is needed after decades of use for weddings, state dinners and countless presidential news conferences, statements and Thanksgiving turkey pardons. She used the Rose Garden to announce her “Be Best” youth program in May 2018. Mrs. Trump said the redesign will increase the garden’s “beauty and functionality” and blend the past with the present in “complete harmony.” FILE – First lady Melania Trump speaks during an Indian Health Service Task Force briefing at the White House in Washington, July 23, 2020.”Protecting the historic integrity of the White House landscape is a considerable responsibility, and we will fulfill our duty as custodians of the public trust,” she wrote in the opening of a detailed report on the project, which is expected to be completed in about three weeks. Early signs of the work ahead were visible Monday. Tarps, drapes and other padding had been hung to protect the West Wing colonnade, including in front of the Oval Office. The most visually striking change to the garden will be the addition of a limestone walking path bordering the central lawn, according to Perry Guillot, the landscape architect working on the project. Less noticeable changes include improved drainage and infrastructure, and making the garden more accessible for people with disabilities. Audiovisual, broadcasting and other technical fixes are part of the plan, too. President Donald Trump has been using the Rose Garden more lately for open-air statements and news conferences in the age of coronavirus, a trend he’s likely to continue until the virus is brought under control and as the November presidential election nears.  Mrs. Trump said the plan will return the Rose Garden to its original 1962 footprint. President John F. KennedyPresident John F. Kennedy was so inspired by the gardens he saw during a 1961 state visit to France, and other stops in Europe, that he enlisted his friend Rachel Lambert Mellon to design the outdoor space by the Oval Office.  Inspiration came to Mellon as she walked along New York’s Fifth Avenue on a cold October afternoon in 1961, she wrote for the White House Historical Association.  First ladies are largely in charge of ensuring upkeep of the White House and its grounds, and they often endeavor to leave something behind for future presidential families to enjoy.  Michelle Obama planted a produce garden on the South Lawn that Mrs. Trump has continued.  Mrs. Trump has overseen several renovation projects, including refurbishment of Red Room wall coverings, Blue Room furniture and the White House bowling alley.She faced sharp criticism for announcing, around the time of the virus outbreak earlier this year, that construction had begun on a privately funded tennis pavilion on the south grounds. She pushed back in a tweet that encouraged those “who choose to be negative & question my work” to “contribute something good & productive in their own communities.” The Rose Garden renovation plan, which is also to be paid for with private donations, has been approved by the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, which offers advice on preservation projects. The White House did not provide a cost estimate. 
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Google employees will work from home until summer 2021 due to COVID-19 concerns, the company announced Monday.The decision affects almost 200,000 employees worldwide, including full-time and contract workers, making Google the first large U.S. company to keep its employees working remotely for over a year.The company stated earlier that most of its employees would work from home for the rest of 2020.The choice to extend remote work into next year could cause other businesses to announce similar plans.Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai made the choice after debating options with an internal group of executives. According to someone familiar with the situation, Pichai’s decision was influenced by employees with children, many of whom are facing the possibility of online school this year.”To give employees the ability to plan ahead, we’ll be extending our global voluntary work-from-home option through June 30, 2021, for roles that don’t need to be in the office,” Pichai told employees in a memo. “I hope this will offer the flexibility you need to balance work with taking care of yourselves and your loved ones over the next 12 months.” 
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Deep-pocketed and often anonymous donors are pouring over $100 million into an intensifying dispute about whether it should be easier to vote by mail, a fight that could determine President Donald Trump’s fate in the November election. In the battleground of Wisconsin, cash-strapped cities have received $6.3 million from an organization with ties to left-wing philanthropy to help expand vote by mail. Meanwhile, a well-funded conservative group best known for its focus on judicial appointments is spending heavily to fight cases related to mail-in balloting procedures in court.  And that’s just a small slice of the overall spending, which is likely to swell far higher as the election nears.  The massive effort by political parties, super PACs and other organizations to fight over whether Americans can vote by mail is remarkable considering the practice has long been noncontroversial. But the coronavirus is forcing changes to the way states conduct elections and prompting activists across the political spectrum to seek an advantage, recognizing the contest between Trump and Democrat Joe Biden could hinge on whether voters have an alternative to standing in lines at polling places during a public health crisis.  Some groups are even raising money to prepare for election-related violence. “The pandemic has created a state of emergency,” said Laleh Ispahani, the U.S. managing director for Open Society, a network of nonprofits founded by billionaire progressive donor George Soros. “Donors who haven’t typically taken on these issues now have an interest.” How much will be spent is unclear because many of the organizations are nonprofits that won’t disclose those details to the IRS until well after the election. Even then, many sources of money will remain unknown because such groups don’t have to disclose their donors, commonly referred to as “dark money.”  Tax filings, business records and campaign finance disclosures offer some clues. They reveal vast infrastructure that funnels money from wealthy donors, through philanthropic organizations and political groups, which eventually trickles down to smaller nonprofits, many of which operate under murky circumstances.  On the conservative side, organizations including Judicial Watch, the Honest Elections Project, True the Vote and the Public Interest Legal Foundation are litigating cases related to voting procedures across the U.S.  A substantial portion of the financing comes from Donors Trust, a nonprofit often referred to as the “dark money ATM” of the conservative movement. The organization helps wealthy patrons invest in causes they care about while sheltering their identities from the public.  In other instances, funding comes from charitable foundations built by the fortunes of Gilded Age industrialists.  Litigation is a primary focus. Democrats and good government organizations are pushing to eliminate hurdles to absentee voting, like requiring a witness’s signature or allowing third parties to collect ballots. Conservatives say that amounts to an invitation to commit voter fraud. As these issues wind their way through courts, they say judges could decide complex policy matters that often were already debated by state legislatures.  “The wrong way to go about this is to run to court, particularly a week or two before an election, trying to get judges to intervene and second-guess decisions legislatures have made,” said Jason Snead, the executive director of the Honest Elections Project.  His organization is a newly formed offshoot of the Judicial Education Project, a group that previously focused on judicial appointments and received more than $25.3 million between 2016 and 2018 from the Donors Trust, records show. They are deeply intertwined with the conservative Catholic legal movement and share an attorney, William Consovoy, with the Republican National Committee, which has pledged $20 million for voting litigation.  Leonard Leo, a Trump confidant who was instrumental in the confirmations of the president’s Supreme Court nominees, plays a leading role. He’s now chairman of a public relations firm called CRC Advisors, which is overseeing a new effort to establish a clearinghouse for anonymous donors to fund conservative causes, including the fight over vote by mail.  The firm played a significant role in the 2004 election by publicizing unfounded claims made by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth, which questioned Democratic nominee John Kerry’s record as a Vietnam War hero, records show.The group’s involvement in vote by mail marks a sea change for Republicans. Claims of widespread voter fraud have long energized segments of the party’s base. But it did not elicit much interest from donors, and the handful of groups devoted to the issue operated on minuscule budgets.  But in recent years, Democrats have mounted legal challenges that threatened voting laws championed by conservatives. And Trump’s repeated focus on “rigged elections” has made the issue part of a broader culture war. Still, some activists question the GOP establishment’s commitment to the cause.  “They aren’t going to take on Republicans like we have,” said Catherine Engelbrecht, the founder of True the Vote. While Republicans are focused on the courts and raising doubts about vote by mail, the challenge faced by Democrats is far more daunting. In addition to litigation, they must mobilize their base during a pandemic. That includes educating the public about vote by mail, a difficult task when door-to-door canvasing isn’t an option.  Some groups are donating directly to local governments. In Wisconsin, the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonprofit with ties to left-leaning philanthropy, has donated $6.3 million to the state’s five largest cities to set up ballot drop boxes, help voters file absentee ballot requests and expand in-person early voting. Even before the pandemic, government funding for elections was limited. Since then, the outbreak has escalated costs while cratering tax revenue.  “Due to COVID, there definitely has been a higher cost,” said Mayor John Antaramian, of Kenosha, which received $863,000 through the grant — roughly four times what the city budgeted for the election. “Is there a financial shortfall on that basis? Of course.”  Much of the money on the left is likely to come from a series of nonprofit funds controlled by the consulting firm Arabella Advisors, which typically routes upwards of $500 million a year to causes supported by liberal donors. The firm was founded by Eric Kessler, who served in Bill Clinton’s White House. The firm has been instrumental in financing so-called resistance groups following Trump’s election. And some nonprofits they’ve provided seed money were responsible for millions of dollars in TV advertising that blistered Republicans during the 2018 midterms. They’ve also pioneered the practice of creating “pop-up” organizations: groups that appear to be grassroots-driven efforts to influence public policy, which use trade names that obscure a deep pool of resources from those with ideological or financial motivations.  The firm recently registered a handful of trade names for groups that appear to be focused on voting rights, records show.  Another effort Arabella Advisors are involved in, the Trusted Elections Fund, aims to raise between $8 million and $10 million in case the pandemic leads to chaos in November.  The group is preparing for potential foreign hacking of state voting systems, “election day or post-election day violence,” as well as contested results.  A Trusted Elections Fund representative declined to comment. But a two-page summary available online elaborated on their aims.  “Philanthropy has a responsibility to make sure that we are prepared for emergencies that could threaten our democracy,” it read.   
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Social media has become the target of a dueling attack ad campaign being waged online by the sitting president and his election rival. They’re shooting the messenger while giving it lots of money.
President Donald Trump has bought hundreds of messages on Facebook to accuse its competitor, Twitter, of trying to stifle his voice and influence the November election.
Democratic challenger Joe Biden has spent thousands of dollars advertising on Facebook with a message of his own: In dozens of ads on the platform, he’s asked supporters to sign a petition calling on Facebook to remove inaccurate statements, specifically those from Trump.  
The major social media companies are navigating a political minefield as they try to minimize domestic misinformation and rein in foreign actors from manipulating their sites as they did in the last U.S. presidential election. Their new actions — or in some cases, lack of action — have triggered explosive, partisan responses, ending their glory days as self-described neutral platforms.  
Even as the two presidential campaigns dump millions of dollars every week into Facebook and Google ads that boost their exposure, both are also using online ads to criticize the tech platforms for their policies. Trump is accusing Twitter and Snapchat of interfering in this year’s election. Biden has sent multiple letters to Facebook and attacked the company for policies that allow politicians, Trump specifically, to freely make false claims on its site. Biden is paying Facebook handsomely to show ads that accuse Facebook of posing a “threat” to democracy.
Meantime Trump is paying Facebook to run ads trashing the medium he uses like none other, Twitter.
“Twitter is interfering in the 2020 Election by attempting to SILENCE your President,” claimed one of nearly 600 ads Trump’s campaign placed on Facebook.
It’s “a huge departure from 2016,” said Emerson Brooking, a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, a Washington think-tank. “If you were leading the Trump or Clinton campaign, you weren’t writing letters to Facebook all day long. It wasn’t so much a central campaign issue. Now it seems like it very much is.”  
Americans, after all, are on high alert about the platforms’ policies after discovering that Russian trolls posted divisive messages, created fake political events and even used rubles to buy Facebook ads intended for U.S. audiences in the 2016 election. Research already shows the Kremlin is at it again.  
Since the last presidential election, Facebook and Twitter  have banned voting-related misinformation and vowed to identify and shut down inauthentic networks of accounts run by domestic or foreign troublemakers. Before this year’s election, Twitter banned political ads altogether, a decision a company spokesman told the AP it stands behind. And Facebook, along with Google, began disclosing campaign ad spending while banning non-Americans from buying U.S. political ads.  
Facebook didn’t comment for this story.  
But calls to deflate Big Tech’s ballooning power have only grown louder from both Democrats and Republicans, even though the two parties are targeting different companies for different reasons to rally supporters.  
Those politics will no doubt be on full display Wednesday, when four big tech CEOs, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Apple’s Tim Cook, testify to a House Judiciary Committee panel as part of a congressional investigation into the tech industry’s dominance.
Biden has focused on Facebook, with a #MoveFastFixIt campaign that admonishes Facebook for not doing enough to protect users from foreign meddling or being duped by falsehoods, particularly those spread by Trump about mail-in voting.
His campaign just last month spent nearly $10,000 to run ads scolding the company on its own platform.  
“We could lie to you, but we won’t,” says one of Biden’s ads. “Donald Trump and his Republican allies, on the other hand, spend MILLIONS on Facebook ads like this one that spread dangerous misinformation about everything from how to vote to the legitimacy of our democratic process.”
Despite criticizing Facebook, Biden’s campaign said it’s still purchasing millions of dollars in Facebook ads because it’s one of the few ways to counter Trump’s false posts — since Facebook won’t fact check him.  
The ads are also a cheap and effective way for the campaigns to rally supporters who are unhappy with the platforms, said Kathleen Searles, a Louisiana State University political communications professor.
“We do know that anger can be very motivating — it motivates them to get their name on an email list, or donate $20,” Searles said. “What better way to get people angry than a faceless platform?”
While Biden has focused on Facebook, Trump has honed in on Twitter, and occasionally Snapchat, with his campaign running online ads that accuse both companies of “interfering” in the election.
 
Twitter became a Trump campaign target after the company rolled out its first fact check of his inaccurate tweet about voting in late May. Twitter has since applied similar labels to five other Trump tweets, including two that called mail-in ballots “fraudulent” and predicted that “mail boxes will be robbed” if voting doesn’t take place in person.
Trump responded by signing a largely symbolic executive order challenging Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides protections from lawsuits for internet companies that have served as a bedrock for unfettered speech online.
“It’s preposterous that Silicon Valley, the bastion of diversity and liberalism, is terrified of intellectual diversity and conservative voices,” Trump deputy national press secretary Ken Farnaso said in a statement.  
Republican leaders have since joined in railing against Twitter.  
This month, Rep. Jim Jordan, a firebrand conservative from Ohio, demanded Twitter hand over a full accounting, including emails, of how it decided to fact check the president. Saying “big tech is out of control,” Republican Sen. Ted Cruz joined dozens of conservative media outlets, Trump staffers and politicians who waged a two-day campaign last month urging their Twitter followers to ditch the platform and join Parler, a social media app that does not moderate its content as closely.  
Facebook could be next for a face-off with the president and his allies now that the company has vowed to label any posts — Trump’s included — that violate its rules against voting misinformation or hate speech. Facebook has yet to take such action, though.
“Social media censorship is going to be a very potent campaign issue,” Brooking said. “And there’s going to be incentive from a number of folks running for office in 2020 to push the envelope still further, to try to invite more and more social media moderation because they see it as a potent political stunt.” 
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So you’ve probably read a lot about “cancel culture.” Or know about a new poll that shows a plurality of Americans disapproving of it. Or you may have heard about a letter in Harper’s Magazine condemning censorship and intolerance.  
But can you say exactly what “cancel culture” is? Some takes:  
— “It seems like a buzzword that creates more confusion than clarity,” says the author and journalist George Packer, who went on to call it “a mechanism where a chorus of voices, amplified on social media, tries to silence a point of view that they find offensive by trying to damage or destroy the reputation of the person who has given offense.”
— “I don’t think it’s real. But there are reasonable people who believe in it,” says the author, educator and sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom. “From my perspective, accountability has always existed. But some people are being held accountable in ways that are new to them. We didn’t talk about ‘cancel culture’ when someone was charged with a crime and had to stay in jail because they couldn’t afford the bail.”
— “‘Cancel culture’ tacitly attempts to disable the ability of a person with whom you disagree to ever again be taken seriously as a writer/editor/speaker/activist/intellectual, or in the extreme, to be hired or employed in their field of work,” says Letty Cottin Pogrebin, the author, activist and founding editor of Ms. magazine.
— “It means different things to different people,” says Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.  
In tweets, online letters, opinion pieces and books, conservatives, centrists and liberals continue to denounce what they call growing intolerance for opposing viewpoints and the needless ruining of lives and careers. A Politico/Morning Consult poll released last week shows 44% of Americans disapprove of it, 32% approve and the remaining 24% had no opinion or didn’t know what it was.
For some, “cancel culture” is the coming of the thought police. For others, it contains important chances to be heard that didn’t exist before.  
Recent examples of unpopular “cancellations” include the owner of a chain of food stores in Minneapolis whose business faced eviction and calls for boycotts because of racist social media posts by his then-teenage daughter, and a data analyst fired by the progressive firm Civis Analytics after he tweeted a study finding that nonviolent protests increase support for Democratic candidates and violent protests decrease it. Civis Analytics has denied he was fired for the tweet.
“These incidents damage the lives of innocent people without achieving any noble purpose,” Yascha Mounk wrote in The Atlantic last month. Mounk himself has been criticized for alleging that “an astonishing number of academics and journalists proudly proclaim that it is time to abandon values like due process and free speech.”
Debates can be circular and confusing, with those objecting to intolerance sometimes openly uncomfortable with those who don’t share their views. A few weeks ago, more than 100 artists and thinkers endorsed a letter co-written by Packer and published by Harper’s. It warned against a “new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity.”
The letter drew signatories from many backgrounds and political points of view, ranging from the far-left Noam Chomsky to the conservative David Frum, and was a starting point for contradiction.  
The writer and trans activist Jennifer Finney Boylan, who signed the letter, quickly disowned it because she “did not know who else” had attached their names. Although endorsers included Salman Rushdie, who in 1989 was forced into hiding over death threats from Iranian Islamic leaders because of his novel “The Satanic Verses,” numerous online critics dismissed the letter as a product of elitists who knew nothing about censorship.
One of the organizers of the letter, the writer Thomas Chatterton Williams, later announced on Twitter that he had thrown a guest out of his home over criticisms of letter-supporter Bari Weiss, the New York Times columnist who recently quit over what she called a Twitter-driven culture of political correctness. Another endorser, “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, threatened legal action against a British news site that suggested she was transphobic after referring to controversial tweets that she has written in recent months.
“The only speech these powerful people seem to care about is their own,” the author and feminist Jessica Valenti wrote in response to the Harper’s letter. “(‘Cancel culture’ ) is certainly not about free speech: After all, an arrested journalist is never referred to as ‘canceled,’ nor is a woman who has been frozen out of an industry after complaining about sexual harassment. ‘Canceled’ is a label we all understand to mean a powerful person who’s been held to account.”
“Cancel culture” is hard to define, in part because there is nothing confined about it — no single cause, no single ideology, no single fate for those allegedly canceled.This combination photo shows, from left, morning news show anchors Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose, filmmaker Woody Allen and actor Kevin Spacey, who have all been accused of sexual abuse and harassment.Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, convicted sex offenders, are in prison. Former television personality Charlie Rose has been unemployable since allegations of sexual abuse and harassment were published in 2017-18. Oscar winner Kevin Spacey has made no films since he faced allegations of harassment and assault and saw his performance in “All the Money in the World” replaced by Christopher Plummer’s.
Others are only partially “canceled.” Woody Allen, accused by daughter Dylan Farrow of molesting her when she was 7, was dropped by Amazon, his U.S. film distributor, but continues to release movies overseas. His memoir was canceled by Hachette Book Group, but soon acquired by Skyhorse Publishing, which also has a deal with the previously “canceled” Garrison Keillor. Sirius XM announced last week that the late Michael Jackson, who seemed to face posthumous cancellation after the 2019 documentary “Leaving Neverland” presented extensive allegations that he sexually abused boys, would have a channel dedicated to his music.  
Cancellation in one subculture can lead to elevation in others. Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has not played an NFL game since 2016 and has been condemned by President Donald Trump and many others on the right after he began kneeling during the National Anthem to protest “a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” But he has appeared in Nike advertisements, been honored by the ACLU and Amnesty International and reached an agreement with the Walt Disney Co. for a series about his life.
“You can say the NFL canceled Colin Kaepernick as a quarterback and that he was resurrected as a cultural hero,” says Julius Bailey, an associate professor of philosophy at Wittenberg University who writes about Kaepernick in his book “Racism, Hypocrisy and Bad Faith.”
In politics, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, remains in his job 1 1/2 years after acknowledging he appeared in a racist yearbook picture while in college. Sen. Al Franken, a Democrat from Minnesota, resigned after multiple women alleged he had sexually harassed them, but Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax of Virginia defied orders to quit after two women accused him of sexual assault.
Sometimes even multiple allegations of sexual assault, countless racist remarks and the disparagement of wounded military veterans aren’t enough to induce cancellation. Trump, a Republican, has labeled cancel culture “far-left fascism” and “the very definition of totalitarianism” while so far proving immune to it.
“Politicians can ride this out because they were hired by the public. And if the public is willing to go along, then they can sometimes survive things perhaps they shouldn’t survive,” Packer says.
“I think you can say that Trump’s rhetoric has had a boomerang effect on the rest of our society,” says PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel, who addresses free expression in her book “Dare to Speak,” which comes out next week. “People on the left feel that he can get away with anything, so they do all they can to contain it elsewhere.” 
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Gathered in the small assembly hall in Little Rock, Arkansas, their chairs spaced 6 feet (1.83 meters) apart, the business leaders listen admiringly to the nation’s chief law enforcement official.
They ask Attorney General William Barr about elder fraud. They ask about the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, about protection of federal monuments. And each thanks Barr for his devotion and service, praising him as a patriot who is working tirelessly to protect America and restore order.
But there are those who disagree. Outside, Black Lives Matter protesters approach the doors, screaming, chanting and banging on the windows. The business leaders strain to be heard over the din.
“We’ve been here an hour and now we all understand what you go through every day,” a middle-age banker tells Barr, “so thank you.”
Barr can expect this kind of praise when he appears Tuesday for the first time before the House Judiciary Committee — but only from its Republicans. To them, he is a conservative stalwart, an unflappable foe of the left and its excesses, and — most importantly — a staunch defender of President Donald Trump.
The reception from the Democrats will be closer to the hostility of Little Rock’s demonstrators.
In the course of roughly 18 months in office, the 70-year-old Barr has become inexorably linked to a norm-busting president with sagging popularity and uncertain reelection prospects.
His actions, including the investigation he launched into the Russia probe, have deepened criticism of him as Trump’s faithful protector. Democrats have suggested he should be impeached and are holding hearings into what they say is the politicization of the Justice Department under his watch.
He came to the job with the reputation of an establishment Republican, and the expectation, by some, that he would temper the behavior of an impulsive and iconoclastic president. He has not, leading some to believe he has tailored his principles to conform with Trump’s views on politics and the law.
In fact, for decades Barr has made no secret of his commitment to law and order and his support for expansive presidential power. Those views have married neatly with a president who has repeatedly tested the limits of executive authority, a pairing that has benefited both men and perhaps allowed Barr to let down his hair more than ever before.
The people who know him insist that Barr is just being Barr — that he is not motivated by ambition or anything other than the opportunity to put his heartfelt beliefs into practice.
“He doesn’t have anything to prove from a professional or career standpoint,” said his longtime colleague and friend, attorney Chuck Cooper. “He’s been at the apex of the legal profession for a long time. And so, in that respect, he’s unlike any other attorney general. He’s already ascended to that pinnacle once before.”
 
Only one other attorney general has served two non-consecutive terms — John J. Crittenden, who held the job under presidents William Henry Harrison and John Tyler and later Millard Fillmore in the 19th century. Barr’s first stint was from 1991 to 1993, under President George H.W. Bush.
He first encountered Bush, then director of the CIA, when Barr was working for the intelligence agency’s legislative counsel while attending law school. Bush was testifying before Congress against a proposal to notify people whose mail had been read by the CIA.
Barr would recall, in an oral history for the University of Virginia: “Someone asked him a question, and he leaned back and said, ‘How the hell do I answer this one?’ I whispered the answer in his ear, and he gave it, and I thought: ‘Who is this guy? He listens to legal advice when it’s given.'”
Clearly, he liked having the ear of the powerful.  
Devoutly Catholic son of the headmaster at a tony prep school, Barr had an upper-class, New York City upbringing: parochial elementary school, then storied Horace Mann prep school, and on to Columbia University and George Washington University for law.
He was conservative from a young age. It is often noted that as a kindergartner, he gave a speech for Dwight Eisenhower. He announced he was supporting Richard Nixon in his Roman Catholic elementary school and a nun took him aside and promised to pray for him. He told a high school counselor he wanted to run the CIA.  
But he did not stay at the CIA. He held a clerkship with a U.S. Court of Appeals judge on the D.C. circuit, then went into private practice — though he kept a toe in the political world, working on candidate vetting, among other things. He served in the Reagan White House for more than a year.
Then, when Bush was elected, Barr joined the Justice Department — first as assistant attorney general of the Office of Legal Counsel, then as deputy attorney general, and finally as attorney general.  
Even then, his views of executive power were expansive: He advised George H.W. Bush’s administration that congressional authorization was not needed to attack Iraq but said a resolution of support would be helpful, nonetheless. He blessed Bush’s desire to pardon Reagan administration officials in the Iran-Contra scandal as within the president’s authority, and provided legal justification for the Bush administration to invade Panama and arrest Manuel Noriega.
His post-government career included a string of lucrative private-sector legal jobs — including general counsel for Verizon Communications and attorney for the Caterpillar construction equipment company — until he answered Donald Trump’s call to replace Jeff Sessions as attorney general.
Barr arrived at his confirmation hearings with credentials as a member of more mainstream, and conventional, Republican circles than Trump. He was seen as a reasonable choice to restore normalcy to an agency riven with tumult, including an attorney general whose recusal from the Russia investigation left him openly and publicly despised by the president.|
Despite early indications of an askance view of the Russia investigation — he authored a memo months before his nomination critical of special counsel Robert Mueller’s efforts — he struck a soothing note at his confirmation hearing.
Mueller would of course be permitted to finish his work, he said. A president who offered a pardon in exchange for the concealment of incriminating information may well be committing obstruction, Barr said. And a nominee who had proposed names other than his own for the job reassured the Senate that, as someone already near the end of his career, he had no need to curry favor with the president.
He was confirmed 54-45, mostly along party lines.
But that support began to erode weeks later after he cleared Trump of obstruction of justice allegations even when Mueller and his team had pointedly declined to do the same, and after he produced a summary letter of Mueller’s investigation that painted a more flattering portrait for the president than the special counsel had done.
He’s since initiated an investigation of the Russia probe that Trump supporters have embraced, but that Democrats see as vindictive and backward-looking.
“In his confirmation hearing, I came in with an open mind, especially because a series of people who’d previously served with him in the DOJ, a long time ago, had reached out to me to say they believed he was committed to the rule of law and would be a good attorney general,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del. “But I have become more and more concerned about his priorities, and his leadership as the months have gone on.”
Barr’s supporters and friends describe him as unmoved by the criticism, committed to actions that he sees as appropriate and proper regardless of what anyone thinks.
“Nobody likes criticism, but Bill is one of those folks who follows his own path and is self-confident enough that he believes he’s doing the right thing in each case. I think he’s less affected by public criticism than some. I would compare him to someone like Justice Scalia,” said Andrew McBride, a Washington lawyer and longtime Barr friend.
Which is a good thing for Barr, because in his second term as AG he has faced far more criticism than he did in his first. And as Barr often jokes, he’s far more recognizable now than he was in the 1990s; he’s even been stopped in European bars for selfies.  
He sought leniency in the sentencing of Trump ally Roger Stone — his idea alone, he insists, and a “righteous decision based on the merits.” The move promoted angry dissent in the Justice Department and the swift resignation of a well-regarded prosecutor, and though the judge did impose a sentence shorter than what the trial team had sought, Trump commuted the sentence anyway.
He also moved to dismiss the prosecution of former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn, a request the Justice Department expected would be simple but that has instead produced a pitched fight before a federal appeals court.
He tried to fire the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, but that didn’t go precisely as planned when U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman refused to step aside, leaving Berman’s deputy in his place instead of the prosecutor Barr had selected to replace him.
The actions have resulted in open letters signed by thousands of Justice Department alumni who have demanded Barr’s resignation.
They’ve also reinforced criticism that he is facilitating the vision of a president who has shown little regards for the historic norms that have for decades guided the relationship between the White House and the Justice Department, chief among them that law enforcement operates independent of politics when it comes to cases and matters.
Trump and Barr have broken on occasion: Trump wanted a full-on prosecution of players in the Russia probe, like Andrew McCabe, and bristled when Barr asked him to stop tweeting about Stone, saying that the tweets were making it impossible to do his job.
But largely, Barr has delivered, Trump has told confidants, including when he moved to drop the Flynn prosecution and ousted Berman.
And it was Barr, acting on the president’s “law and order” pledge, who stood in Washington’s Lafayette Square last month before law enforcement cleared the street of demonstrators at the height of the George Floyd protests. A short time later, he stood just a few feet away as the president held a Bible aloft outside St. John’s Church, creating one of the defining — and, as it turned out, politically damaging — moments of his presidency.
Barr fancies himself a lawman’s lawman. While sheriffs and even many rank-and-file officers adore him, after all these years he doesn’t quite fit in with the blue-collar world of the working-class cop.
Just before Christmas, Barr visited New York’s One Police Plaza to meet with New York Police Department brass after a series of suicides among New York police officers. Later that night, he hosted a thank-you dinner for hundreds of officers. The NYPD sent two officers from each precinct, along with some chiefs, the NYPD’s commissioner and his chief deputy.
As the officers streamed into the Queens catering hall, bagpipes played in the background. (Barr is a competitive bagpipe player, though he also rocks out to Shakira.)
The officers were offered drinks. But they were in uniform — Barr didn’t realize that they were not allowed alcohol. Barr apologized and told them to eat up. He paid the bill — well over $10,000 — out of his own pocket, handing the owner his credit card.
Barr has devoted numerous speeches to discussing restoring the rule of law in America. A signature line: There is no more noble profession than being a law enforcement officer. Even as the nation engages in a growing conversation about police reform, Barr has loudly cautioned that going too far — allowing the pendulum to swing all the way — would be detrimental.
Earlier this month, Barr flew to South Carolina and Arkansas to meet with police officials and community leaders. At a predominantly African American church, community leaders told him they didn’t want to “defund” the police. The officers in their communities needed more training and better resources. Police officials shared the same views.  
Barr has said he recognizes there is racism in the U.S., and that there’s reason for some communities to be more suspicious of law enforcement than others, but he doesn’t think that the system is systemically racist.  
“Like all power, it can be abused. And people just sort of act like it is an either-or situation, it’s all about abuse or, you know, beat the Iron Fist,” Barr said in an interview.  
Instead, he believes it is incumbent upon the government to ensure there are adequate policies in place to protect against abuse and that officers have proper training. But going too far and pushing to defund or disband police departments or moving quickly to bring criminal charges against police officers without robust investigations is likely to lead to a mass exodus of officers, he argues.
The demonstrations happening across the country aren’t a totally new phenomenon for Barr, and George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer is reminiscent of a major civil rights investigation he handled in his first stint as attorney general — the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles in the early 1990s.  
When a state jury acquitted three officers, and failed to reach a verdict on a fourth, it was the Barr Justice Department that brought federal charges in the case, leading to convictions of two officers.  
Barr is one of the most hands-on attorneys general the nation has ever seen. He often digs into the minutia of cases or pressing investigations and demands briefings, sometimes every half hour.
But Democrats on Capitol Hill have accused Barr of acting more like Trump’s personal lawyer than America’s chief law enforcement officer. For Barr, that’s a criticism easily shrugged off.
“I dismiss it because like many other talking points these days, there’s never any actual particular matter presented to support it, so I ignore it as just part of the general background noise,” Barr said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.
But the criticism isn’t limited to congressional Democrats. Many former federal prosecutors have puzzled over actions that they see as breaking against Justice Department convention and tilting in the favor of Trump allies, including his push to drop the prosecution of a former adviser, Michael Flynn, who had already pleaded guilty.
Like Trump, he believes there must be a thorough investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation that shadowed Trump’s presidency, even as Democrats decry those probes as politically motivated. What seems “to upset them is that I am dead set on making sure we get to the bottom of what happened during the 2016 election period,” he said.
He points to the Justice Department inspector general’s report that found flaws in how the FBI’s Russia investigation was conducted. Despite the problems the watchdog office identified, it nonetheless determined that the FBI had a legitimate basis to launch a full investigation — a finding Barr disagrees with — and that the probe was not motivated by political bias.
At the end of the day, Barr insists his most controversial decisions have been right and just.  
“I think the only way to handle this kind of job, especially in the kind of environment we are in, is to just put one foot in front of the other, and every time a decision is brought to you, you make a decision and walk away with a clear conscience,” Barr said.
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Republicans in the U.S. Senate are expected to unveil Monday a $1 trillion coronavirus aid package proposal, days before the expiration of federal unemployment payments for millions of Americans who are out of work. After several days of talks with Republicans on Capitol Hill, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Sunday the package includes extending unemployment benefits, but at 70% of a person’s previous pay. The benefits set to expire Friday, which were part of an earlier coronavirus relief bill, pay unemployed people $600 per week in addition to state unemployment benefits.  Republicans have expressed objections to the fact that the existing level means some people, when combining the federal payments with state benefits, were making more money than when they were working.Democrats have countered that given the persisting level of coronavirus infections in the country many people do not yet feel safe returning to their jobs. Republicans control the Senate, but Democrats have the majority in the House of Representatives, meaning leaders of the two halves of the legislature will need to reach an agreement on any aid package. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he hopes a deal can come together in the next two or three weeks. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday criticized Republicans as being “in disarray, and that delay is causing suffering for America’s families.” Meadows and Mnuchin said in order to ensure the unemployment benefits do not lapse, there is the possibility of passing a smaller bill targeting pieces of the original coronavirus aid package that are due to expire soon. 
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President Donald Trump won’t be throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium next month after all.Trump tweeted Sunday that he won’t be able to make the trip because of his “strong focus” on the coronavirus, vaccines and the economy. Trump said in the tweet: “We will make it later in the season!”  He had announced at a briefing Thursday on Major League Baseball’s opening day that he’d be at Yankee Stadium on Aug. 15 to throw out the first pitch.Trump has been trying to show voters that he is taking the virus seriously by holding briefings and canceling Republican convention events set for Jacksonville, Florida. Florida is among several states where the virus is raging. 
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Protests took a violent turn in several U.S. cities over the weekend with demonstrators squaring off against federal agents outside a courthouse in Portland, Oregon, forcing police in Seattle to retreat into a station house and setting fire to vehicles in California and Virginia.A protest against police violence in Austin, Texas, turned deadly when police said a protester was shot and killed by a person who drove through a crowd of marchers. And someone was shot and wounded in Aurora, Colorado, after a car drove through a protest there, authorities said.The unrest Saturday and early Sunday stemmed from the weeks of protests over racial injustice and the police treatment of people of color that flared up after the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Floyd, who was Black and handcuffed, died after a white police officer used his knee to pin down Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes while Floyd begged for air.In Seattle, police officers retreated into a precinct station early Sunday, hours after large demonstrations in the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Some demonstrators lingered after officers filed into the department’s East Precinct around 1 a.m., but most cleared out a short time later, according to video posted online.At a late-night news conference, Seattle police Chief Carmen Best called for peace. Rocks, bottles, fireworks and mortars were fired at police during the weekend unrest, and police said they arrested at least 45 people for assaults on officers, obstruction and failure to disperse. Twenty-one officers were hurt, with most of their injuries considered minor, police said.In Portland, thousands of people gathered Saturday evening for another night of protests over George Floyd’s killing and the presence of federal agents recently sent to the city by President Donald Trump. Protesters breached a fence surrounding the city’s federal courthouse building where the agents have been stationed.Police declared the situation to be a riot and at around 1:20 a.m., they began ordering people to leave the area surrounding the courthouse or risk arrest, saying on Twitter that the violence had created “a grave risk” to the public. About 20 minutes later, federal officers and local police could be seen attempting to clear the area and deploying tear gas, however protesters remained past 2:30 a.m., forming lines across intersections and holding makeshift shields as police patrolled and closed blocks abutting the area. Multiple arrests were made, but it wasn’t immediately clear how many.In the Texas capital of Austin, 28-year-old Garrett Foster was shot and killed Saturday night by a person who had driven through the march against police violence.Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said a car turned onto the block where protesters stood and honked its horn. The driver and several witnesses told police that Foster approached the driver and pointed an assault rifle at them.In video streamed live on Facebook, a car can be heard honking before several shots ring out and protesters start screaming and scattering for cover. Police could then be seen tending to someone lying in the street.Manley said the driver called 911 to report the incident and was later taken into custody and released. Police didn’t immediately identify the driver.Sheila Foster, Garrett’s mother, said she was told her son was pushing his fiancée, who uses a wheelchair, through an intersection when the suspect was driving “erratically” through the crowd. She said she was told the driver shot her son three times.In the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado, meanwhile, a protester shot and wounded someone after a car drove through a crowd marching on an interstate highway, police said. The wounded person was taken to a hospital in stable condition. Police didn’t release many details about the shooting, including whether the person who was shot had been in the car. Police said on Twitter that demonstrators also caused “major damage” to a courthouse.Protesters in Oakland, California, set fire to a courthouse, damaged a police station, broke windows, spray-painted graffiti, shot fireworks and pointed lasers at officers after a peaceful demonstration Saturday evening turned to unrest, police said.In Virginia’s capital, Richmond, a dump truck was torched as several hundred protesters and police faced off late Saturday during a demonstration of support for the protesters in Portland. Police declared it to be an “unlawful assembly” at around 11 p.m. and used what appeared to be tear gas to disperse the group. Five people were arrested in the incident and charged with unlawful assembly. A sixth person was also arrested and charged with rioting and assault on a law enforcement officer.In downtown Atlanta on Sunday, federal agents examined damage to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility where windows were shattered late Saturday. The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, FBI spokesman Kevin Rowson said in an email. No arrests had been announced.And in Baltimore, people from a group of nearly 100 demonstrators spray-painted anti-police messages on a Fraternal Order of Police building and adjacent sidewalks on Saturday night, The Baltimore Sun reported.|
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With more than four million confirmed cases of COVID-19 across the country, many U.S. states are pausing reopening efforts, leaving those who remain unemployed unsure about their futures. Senate Republicans plan to introduce another coronavirus relief bill this week. VOA’s Esha Sarai has more.
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says a new coronavirus economic aid package being unveiled Monday would pay the country’s 16 million unemployed workers 70% of their one-time salaries, but tough negotiations lie ahead with opposition Democrats over the scope of more assistance to offset the severe economic effects of the pandemic. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin speaks with reporters about the coronavirus relief package negotiations, at the White House, July 23, 2020, in Washington.Mnuchin, on the “Fox News Sunday” show, called the 70% wage replacement figure “a very fair level.”  However, the new figure, if eventually adopted by Congress, would sharply cut the national government’s current $600-a-week boost to less generous state unemployment benefits that expire Friday, to perhaps $200 a week. “I think workers understand you shouldn’t be paid to stay home,” Mnuchin said. On CNN, Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow called the 70% figure “quite generous.” The White House and its Republican allies in Congress have sought to cut the federal unemployment benefits to end a significant effect of the bigger payments that have been in effect since March: about 60% of the unemployed workers over the last four months have been receiving jobless payments that were bigger than what they were earning when they were working. Watch related video by VOA’s Esha Sarai:Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 6 MB480p | 8 MB540p | 11 MB720p | 22 MB1080p | 45 MBOriginal | 55 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioAmericans Await New Stimulus Bill as COVID Cases Continue to RiseOne mid-May report reported that a fifth of the unemployed workers declined requests from their employers that they return to work because their wages were lower than what they were collecting in jobless benefits. 
Kudlow said the overall $1 trillion economic aid package would include another round of $1,200 checks to most adults in the U.S. and payments to businesses to retain employees rather than cut the size of their workforces. In this illustration photo taken May 08, 2020, a COVID-19 Unemployment Assistance Updates logo is displayed on a smartphone against the backdrop of an application for unemployment benefits, in Arlington, Virginia.But Democratic lawmakers are demanding that the $600-a-week boost in payments to the jobless workers be kept in place through the end of 2020. They are pushing for an overall coronavirus aid package totaling $3 trillion, the figure approved by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives in mid-May. “I see no reason why we can’t move quickly,” Mnuchin said. But Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican majority leader, said late last week that completion of a new deal could take weeks. Meanwhile, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told ABC’s “This Week” show that the administration is “hopeful” that it can announce new therapies to treat the coronavirus “in the coming days.” “The president has been very clear — whatever amount of money and whatever amount of time needs to be invested, we’re doing that,” Meadows said. “We’re not going to have a solution to this,” he said. “It’s not masks. It’s not shutting down the economy. Hopefully it is American ingenuity that will allow for therapies and vaccines to ultimately conquer this.” FILE – Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) arrive with a patient while a funeral car begins to depart at North Shore Medical Center where the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients are treated, in Miami, Florida, July 14, 2020.Meadows’s comments came after Trump acknowledged last week that the virus will “get worse before it gets better” after previously downplaying the surge in new infections in the U.S. The U.S. has recorded nearly 4.2 million coronavirus cases and more than 146,000 deaths, with both figures more than any other national figures across the globe. 
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Hurricane Hanna battered the south Texas coast with blistering winds and crashing waves into the early hours of Sunday, leaving a large area already badly hit by COVID-19 bracing for torrential downpours and potential flash floods. Hanna came ashore on Padre Island on Saturday afternoon as a Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, and later made a second landfall in Eastern Kennedy County, Texas. Weakening as it headed west over land, Hanna was a tropical storm by Sunday morning, with its center about 40 miles (65 km) from Mcallen, Texas and about 65 miles (105 km) from Monterrey, Mexico, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. Two men stand near a seawall as Hurricane Hanna makes landfall, July 25, 2020, in Corpus Christi, Texas.At 0400 CDT (0900 GMT), Hanna’s top sustained winds were around 60 miles per hour (95 kph), it said. It was forecast to further lose steam as it moved across Texas and northeastern Mexico. The center canceled storm surge warning it had issued for the Texas coast but said Hanna could dump upward of 18 inches (45 cm) of rain in the area through Monday. “This rain will produce, life-threatening flash flooding, rapid rises on small streams, and isolated minor to moderate river flooding,” the NHC said. Texas Governor Greg Abbott said during a Saturday briefing that the storm was especially challenging as it was sweeping through an area of the state that has been the worst hit by the coronavirus. He issued a disaster declaration for 32 counties in Texas that were in the storm’s path. The storm was not expected to affect offshore oil and gas production. Energy companies have not evacuated workers or shut down production from their Gulf of Mexico platforms because of Hanna. The Texas area struck by Hanna has struggled to contain outbreaks of COVID-19 in recent weeks. Cases along the state’s coast have soared into the tens of thousands. More than 400 people in Corpus Christi were hospitalized with the illness on Friday, according to city data. 
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The body of U.S. congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis was carried across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama Sunday.  The event at the place where he and other voting rights demonstrators were beaten in 1965 on a day known as “Bloody Sunday” began the second of six days of memorials for Lewis, who died July 17 at the age 80, after a yearlong battle with advanced-stage pancreatic cancer. Later Sunday, Lewis’ body will be taken to Alabama’s capital, Montgomery, where Mayor Steven Reed is encouraging people to line the sidewalks on the final leg of the journey. Officials are asking the public to wear facemasks and socially distance.   Alabama Governor Kay Ivey ordered flags to be flown at half-staff on Saturday and Sunday in honor of Lewis.   During the nearly weeklong memorial events, Lewis’ body will lie in state at the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery, the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta and the U.S. Capitol in Washington.   U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced last week that visitors could pay their respects to Lewis at the U.S. Capitol Monday and Tuesday.    Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the public viewing will take place outside the Capitol building instead of in the Capitol Rotunda as is traditional. Social distancing will be “strictly enforced” and facemasks will be required.    The Georgia Democrat will be the second Black lawmaker to lie in state at the Capitol.  Congressman Elijah Cummings, who died last year, was the first.   Lewis’ family said there will also be a procession through Washington this week and said members of the public will be able to pay their respects in a “socially-distant manner.”   Lewis’ funeral will be held Thursday at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was once the pastor. Following the service, which will be private, Lewis will be interred at South View Cemetery in Atlanta. Two memorial services were held for Lewis Saturday in Alabama. Dr. Jack Hawkins Jr., university chancellor, speaks behind the casket of the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., during a service at Troy University, July 25, 2020, in Troy, Ala.At the public service at Troy University, five siblings and a great-nephew spoke of Lewis as a loving and fearless family man.  “He’d gravitate toward the least of us,” said brother Henry “Grant” Lewis. “He worked a lifetime to help others.”Brother Samuel said his mother had warned John “not to get in trouble, not to get in the way.”  Samuel Lewis added that his brother did not heed their mother’s warning, saying, “We all know that John got in trouble, got in the way, but it was a good trouble.”  Ethel Mae Tyner, sister of the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., dries her eyes during a service celebrating “The Boy from Troy” at Troy University, July 25, 2020, in Troy, Ala.The Lewis siblings reminded the crowd of their brother’s famous injunction to make “good trouble” — ruffling feathers when it was for a righteous cause.Lewis had wanted to attend Troy University, in Troy, Alabama, his birthplace, but was denied admission to what was then a whites-only school.   Lewis, who as a young boy preached to the chickens on his family’s farm, eventually earned a degree from Fisk University, in religion and philosophy.  Years later, Troy University bestowed an honorary doctoral degree on Lewis. Senator Doug Jones from Alabama said the current crop of protesters “are protesting peacefully, nonviolently,” as Lewis did during the civil rights movement. U.S. President Donald Trump “paints them all with a broad brush and calls them thugs, but he is wrong,” he said, “They are patriots who want America to move forward to a nation of equals together.”    At Troy University, Lewis lay in repose as visitors paid their respects. Later Saturday, a private ceremony honored him at a chapel in Selma, Alabama, ahead of another public viewing.   FILE – U.S. Rep. John Lewis speaks to the crowd as they cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, Sunday, March 1, 2020, in Selma, Ala.Lewis rose to fame as a leader of the modern-day American civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s. At 23, he worked closely with King and was the last surviving speaker from the August 1963 March on Washington where King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.   The civil rights movement led Lewis into a career in politics. He was elected to the Atlanta City Council in 1981 and to Congress in 1986, calling the latter victory “the honor of a lifetime.” He served 17 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia’s fifth district.  
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The body of U.S. congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis will be carried across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama Sunday.  The event at the place where he and other voting rights demonstrators were beaten in 1965 on a day known as “Bloody Sunday” begins the second of six days of memorials for Lewis, who died July 17 at the age 80, after a yearlong battle with advanced-stage pancreatic cancer. Later Sunday, Lewis’ body will be taken to Alabama’s capital, Montgomery, where Mayor Steven Reed is encouraging people to line the sidewalks on the final leg of the journey. Officials are asking the public to wear facemasks and socially distance.   Alabama Governor Kay Ivey ordered flags to be flown at half-staff on Saturday and Sunday in honor of Lewis.   During the nearly weeklong memorial events, Lewis’ body will lie in state at the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery, the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta and the U.S. Capitol in Washington.   U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced last week that visitors could pay their respects to Lewis at the U.S. Capitol Monday and Tuesday.    Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the public viewing will take place outside the Capitol building instead of in the Capitol Rotunda as is traditional. Social distancing will be “strictly enforced” and facemasks will be required.    The Georgia Democrat will be the second Black lawmaker to lie in state at the Capitol.  Congressman Elijah Cummings, who died last year, was the first.   Lewis’ family said there will also be a procession through Washington this week and said members of the public will be able to pay their respects in a “socially-distant manner.”   Lewis’ funeral will be held Thursday at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was once the pastor. Following the service, which will be private, Lewis will be interred at South View Cemetery in Atlanta. Two memorial services were held for Lewis Saturday in Alabama. Dr. Jack Hawkins Jr., university chancellor, speaks behind the casket of the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., during a service at Troy University, July 25, 2020, in Troy, Ala.At the public service at Troy University, five siblings and a great-nephew spoke of Lewis as a loving and fearless family man.  “He’d gravitate toward the least of us,” said brother Henry “Grant” Lewis. “He worked a lifetime to help others.”Brother Samuel said his mother had warned John “not to get in trouble, not to get in the way.”  Samuel Lewis added that his brother did not heed their mother’s warning, saying, “We all know that John got in trouble, got in the way, but it was a good trouble.”  Ethel Mae Tyner, sister of the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., dries her eyes during a service celebrating “The Boy from Troy” at Troy University, July 25, 2020, in Troy, Ala.The Lewis siblings reminded the crowd of their brother’s famous injunction to make “good trouble” — ruffling feathers when it was for a righteous cause.Lewis had wanted to attend Troy University, in Troy, Alabama, his birthplace, but was denied admission to what was then a whites-only school.   Lewis, who as a young boy preached to the chickens on his family’s farm, eventually earned a degree from Fisk University, in religion and philosophy.  Years later, Troy University bestowed an honorary doctoral degree on Lewis. Senator Doug Jones from Alabama said the current crop of protesters “are protesting peacefully, nonviolently,” as Lewis did during the civil rights movement. U.S. President Donald Trump “paints them all with a broad brush and calls them thugs, but he is wrong,” he said, “They are patriots who want America to move forward to a nation of equals together.”    At Troy University, Lewis lay in repose as visitors paid their respects. Later Saturday, a private ceremony honored him at a chapel in Selma, Alabama, ahead of another public viewing.   FILE – U.S. Rep. John Lewis speaks to the crowd as they cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, Sunday, March 1, 2020, in Selma, Ala.Lewis rose to fame as a leader of the modern-day American civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s. At 23, he worked closely with King and was the last surviving speaker from the August 1963 March on Washington where King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.   The civil rights movement led Lewis into a career in politics. He was elected to the Atlanta City Council in 1981 and to Congress in 1986, calling the latter victory “the honor of a lifetime.” He served 17 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia’s fifth district.  
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