Category: Aktualności

Afghanistan’s security forces have suffered their bloodiest week so far in the 19-year-old Afghan war.    The Afghanistan’s National Security Council said 291 members of Afghan National and Defense Security Forces (ANDSF) were killed and 550 others wounded in multiple Taliban attacks last week.    “Taliban carried out 422 attacks in 32 provinces, martyring 291 ANDSF members and wounding 550 others. Taliban’s commitment to reduce violence is meaningless, and their actions inconsistent with their rhetoric on peace,” tweeted Javid Faisal, a spokesman for the NSC.   The NSC statement also said that at least 42 civilians, including women and children, were killed and 105 others were wounded in the violence Taliban committed across 18 provinces in the past week.    The statement comes at a time when hopes are high for the start of intra-Afghan negotiations, a term used for negotiations between the Taliban and a representative group of other Afghans including the government, political factions, and civil society activists.   FILE – Afghan National Army soldiers keep watch at the site of a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, April 29, 2020.“We haven’t seen the reduction in violence that we expect and that we think is necessary to really underpin the peace efforts, but we call on the Taliban to reduce violence. We call of course on Taliban to, in a constructive way, engage in intra-Afghan negotiations,” said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg last week, following a meeting with NATO defense ministers.    On Sunday, the head of United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Deborah Lyons, met Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, head of the Taliban political team in Doha.    “The UN envoy for #Afghanistan highlighted the need for a just peace that was inclusive of all Afghans, including women, youth and minorities,” a Tweet from the official UNAMA account said.    .FILE – Members of a Taliban negotiating team enter the venue hosting U.S.-Taliban talks in the Qatari capital Doha, Aug. 29, 2019.The international community’s efforts to resolve both issues seems to be bearing fruit. The first round of the negotiation is expected at the end of this month in Doha, although the coronavirus pandemic has created another logistical hurdle.  
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AIDS activist Larry Kramer used to wear an oversized rectangular turquoise ring on his left finger, tinged with variations of green.  A turquoise band circled a second finger.  Two large turquoise rings decorated his other hand.When Kramer first moved to New York in the 1970s, a fortune teller told him he “must always wear something turquoise to look after your health.”  He trusted the superstition, surviving hepatitis B and a liver transplant — and battling an HIV infection for more than 30 years.”God knows how,” Kramer told VOA in his final interview before he died of pneumonia on May 27, less than a month before his 85th birthday.Turquoise’s health benefits are unproven, but a revolutionary generation of antiviral drugs, the first of which was studied and approved 25 years ago, kept Kramer and millions of other HIV-positive people alive for decades.Before that success though, the search for an effective treatment took well over a decade and triggered some of the fiercest confrontations between Americans and their government during that period.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
FILE – Demonstrators from the organization ACT UP, angry with the federal government’s response to the AIDS crisis, protest in front of the headquarters of the Food and Drug Administration in Rockville, Md., Oct. 11, 1988.Silence = DeathWhat would prove to be ACT UP’s most consequential clash came on October 11, 1988, when the group shut down the headquarters of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the agency that approves and regulates medications in America.  ACT UP blocked roads to the complex outside Washington, as participants lay on the ground in front of the building with mock tombstones, some reading, “RIP Killed by the FDA.” Activists hung a banner above the entranceway with ACT UP’s motto: Silence = Death.Richard Klein, who served as the FDA’s liaison with the AIDS community at the time, called ACT UP’s protest “a great wake-up call for the FDA.”In a recent VOA interview, Klein recalled “very heady days” as tensions boiled over between AIDS activists and federal officials. And he notes that changes did come about. Activists were added to FDA advisory committees as patient representatives.  Patient access was expanded for experimental drug studies, many of which were fast-tracked and revamped. Trial subjects in placebo groups whose health deteriorated were reassigned to groups receiving the drug or drugs being tested.”It took people who were dying to really make the point of ‘We don’t want to die in these clinical trials,'” Klein said.Yet AIDS patients continued to die — 300,000 in the United States by 1995. Ending the plague was by no means a given.The most commonly prescribed drug at the time, azidothymidine or AZT, was developed in the 1960s and approved for AIDS treatment in 1987. AZT did initially slow the deterioration of patients’ immune systems. Inevitably, however, the HIV virus became resistant to the medication and the deadly progression of AIDS would resume.New class of drugsFourteen years into the epidemic, 1995 saw a breakthrough. In June of that year, the FDA authorized a study of saquinavir, the first of a new category of drugs called protease inhibitors designed to prevent the HIV virus from replicating,”This new class was seen as a way to possibly overcome the virus resistance issues,” Klein said. Saquinavir proved ineffective by itself. But, when combined with AZT and another anti-viral medication, the resulting “drug cocktail” brought about an increase in AIDS patients’ white blood cell counts, a clear indication that their immune systems had begun to recover. Critically, the HIV virus did not develop resistance to the cocktail.Fewer than four months after receiving the heartening results, the Richard Klein, who worked for more than 41 years with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said activists who served on FDA advisory committees, as seen here, forced the agency to change policies that laid the groundwork for future epidemics.Ending a feud Beyond physical healing, the advent of life-saving drugs allowed for the eventual transformation of a stormy public feud into a friendship.  At the height of the AIDS epidemic, Larry Kramer branded Fauci, who was the face of the government’s efforts to combat HIV, an “incompetent idiot” and a “murderer.” Over time, the two men grew to respect and appreciate each other. Kramer called Fauci a “friend” in his interview with VOA. Writing for Time magazine after Kramer’s death, Fauci lauded his activism, adding, “I will miss a lot about Larry, but I think his warmth most of all.” Protease inhibitor drugs saved countless people after 1995, including Kevin Taylor, who shared his story with VOA. The 57-year-old Richmond, Virginia, man is still living with HIV, 35 years after he tested positive for the virus and doctors told him to get his affairs in order in anticipation of an early death. Taylor says HIV medications gave him a new lease on life: “Not necessarily to be cured, but to least have some kind of life as opposed to just living in the shadows waiting for your end to come.”  Drugs keep HIV at bay, reducing viral loads to undetectable levels for many. In recent years, the same drugs have proven effective in preventing HIV infections when taken prophylactically by those at high risk for contracting the virus. Despite these advances, there is no cure and no effective vaccine for HIV/AIDS.
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An American man was among three people killed in a stabbing incident in the British town of Reading on Saturday, the U.S. ambassador to Britain confirmed Monday, without naming the individual. Ambassador Woody Johnson tweeted that he offered his “deepest condolences to the families of those killed in the attack on June 20”, adding that one of the victims was an American citizen.   “Our thoughts are with all those affected,” Johnson wrote. “We condemn the attack absolutely and have offered our assistance to British law enforcement.” British police said a 25-year-old local man was arrested at the scene and was believed to be the lone attacker and the incident is being treated as a terrorism-related, now under investigating by the counter-terrorism police. Three other people were seriously wounded in the stabbing attack in Forbury Gardens park in Reading, a town with a population of 200,000 people, located about 65 kilometers west of London. The Philadelphia Inquirer has named the American killed as Joe Ritchie-Bennett, 39, who had moved to Britain about 15 years ago.   The paper has quoted his father, Robert Ritchie, as saying that his son initially worked for a London law firm and in the past 10 years worked for a Dutch pharmaceutical company with its British headquarters in Reading. 
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Black Roman Catholics are hearing their church’s leaders calling for racial justice once again after the killing of George Floyd, but this time they’re demanding not just words but action.  As protests against racism and police brutality continue nationwide, there are rising calls for huge new investment in Catholic schools serving Black communities; a commitment to teach the complex history of Black Catholics; and a mobilization to combat racism with the same zeal the church shows in opposing abortion.  “As a church, we’re very good with words. The church has made clear it stands against racism,” said the Rev. Mario Powell, a Black priest who heads a Jesuit middle school in Brooklyn.  “What’s profoundly different this time is folks aren’t looking for more words — they’re looking for actual change,” he said. Noting that hundreds of Catholic inner-city schools have closed in recent decades, he’s among those urging church leaders to make the necessary spending to reverse that. He also said all Catholic schools should teach the history of Black Catholics in America.         “It’s a history of discrimination and oppression,” said Powell, 38. “It’s also a very rich history that should be celebrated, of a population that has overcome a lot.” In 2018, after what it called an accumulation of “episodes of violence and animosity with racial and xenophobic overtones,” the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a pastoral letter condemning racism and vowing to combat it. Numerous bishops issued similar statements following Floyd’s death under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer.  Professor Shannen Dee Williams, a Black Catholic who teaches history at Villanova University, argued in a June 15 article in the National Catholic Reporter that such responses are insufficient.  The recent statements “fall way short when it comes to acknowledging the church’s role in the contemporary crisis and direct complicity in the sins of anti-Black racism, slavery and segregation,” she wrote, noting that the church was a major slaveholder in several states and engaged in segregation of parishes, schools, hospitals, convents and seminaries for decades after emancipation.  In an interview, Williams said the U.S. church hierarchy should formally apologize.  “We want them to own up to that history, and then atone for it,” she said.  The same day her article appeared, Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Washington, D.C., the highest-ranking Black leader in the U.S. church, joined eight fellow bishops from his region in acknowledging the church’s “sins and failings” on racial justice. “Prayer and dialogue, alone, are not enough. We must act to bring about true change,” their statement said, calling for greater equality in health care, education, housing and criminal justice.  Black Catholics’ somewhat marginal place in the U.S. church is illustrated by statistics compiled by the national bishops’ conference.  According to the conference, there are about 3 million African American Catholics, roughly 4% of the nation’s 69 million Catholics. But there are just 250 Black priests, or less than 1% of the total of 36,500, along with eight active Black bishops out of more than 250, or about 3.2%.          Some are calling on church leaders to engage more energetically with youth at the forefront of the protest movement.     Earlier this month scores of young Black Catholics staged a march in Louisville, Kentucky, to protest racial injustice and also signaling they want their local church leadership to do more.         One of the speakers, retired priest John Judie, included the church in a list of institutions that have favored white people over Black people.      In an interview, Judie said some young people in the archdiocese are uncertain about their place.          “When is the leadership going to sit down with the young adults who organized that protest and listen to what drove them to do this?” Judie said. “So far, I’m not seeing it happen.”       That’s a notion shared by Ansel Augustine, who as a young priest in New Orleans in 2005 worked in the youth ministry of his parish on rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina.       “We see our youth and young adults leading these movements, putting their faith into action,” said Augustine, now executive director of cultural diversity for the Washington archdiocese. “Now is the time to empower them, to listen to what these young prophets are saying.”       Ralph McCloud, who directs the anti-poverty program of the national bishops’ conference, said such steps are under way.  “We’ve begun with the listening sessions, hearing the very painful stories of people who’ve been victims of racism within the church and without,” McCloud said.          “We need to broaden the conversation and see who’s missing at the table,” he added. “With African American Catholics, our numbers are so low that we get overlooked, sometimes inadvertently, sometimes intentionally.”         Back in 2014, Augustine wrote an article for the Catholic media outlet Busted Halo asking why the fight against racism seemed to be a lesser priority for the U.S. Catholic leadership than the anti-abortion cause. Augustine took note when those remarks were echoed by Pope Francis earlier this month.     “We cannot close our eyes to any form of racism or exclusion, while pretending to defend the sacredness of every human life,” the pontiff said.          Gregory, the Washington archbishop, echoed the idea that racial justice should be part of pro-life advocacy.        “Birth is only the first moment of a person’s human dignity, which is never lost throughout the journey of life,” he said via email. That message heartens people like Loralean Jordan, a parishioner of the predominantly Black congregation of the Church of Saint Peter Claver in St. Paul, Minnesota.  “Black Lives Matter should be a pro-life issue, getting the same amount of resources and same amount of zeal as the pro-life movement,” she said. She would like to see the church help coordinate a national anti-racism march and direct all U.S. priests to mark the feast day of Peter Claver, the 17th-century patron saint of enslaved people, by preaching about racial injustice. 
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The popular U.S. race car series NASCAR is investigating what it called Sunday a “heinous act” after a noose was found in the team garage of Bubba Wallace, its only top-level Black driver. Wallace said he was “incredibly saddened” and added that the act is “a painful reminder of how much further we have to go as a society and how persistent we must be in the fight against racism.” He stressed the need to advocate for a community that is welcoming to everyone, and said those involved in the sport “will not be deterred by the reprehensible actions of those who seek to spread hate.” Wallace drew widespread support from other drivers for his push two weeks ago to get NASCAR to ban the presence of the confederate flag at its races. NASCAR said in a statement it will do everything it can to identify who was responsible for the noose “and eliminate them from our sport.” The incident happened at Talladega Superspeedway in the southern state of Alabama, which was scheduled to host a race Sunday before it was interrupted by rain. Protesters on Saturday and Sunday drove cars and trucks flying the confederate flag on roads near the track. 
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As protests against racial discrimination continue in many American cities, President Donald Trump returned to the campaign trail in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  As VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, the desire to get back to a sense of normalcy across the country is tempered by a spike of COVID-19 cases in many U.S. states.
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President Donald Trump held off on imposing tougher sanctions on Chinese officials blamed for a crackdown on China’s Uighur Muslim minority because of concern such measures would have interfered with trade negotiations with Beijing, he said in an interview published on Sunday.
 
“Well, we were in the middle of a major trade deal. And I made a great deal, $250 billion potentially worth of purchases,” Trump was quoted as telling Axios Friday when asked why he had not enacted Treasury sanctions against Communist Party officials linked to repression in the Xinjiang region.
 
The United Nations estimates that more than a million Muslims have been detained in camps there. The State Department has accused China of subjecting Muslims to torture and abuse.
 
China has denied mistreatment and says the camps provide vocational training and help fight extremism.
 
U.S. officials previously told Reuters that since late 2018 they had weighed sanctions against Chinese officials over Xinjiang but refrained because of trade and diplomatic considerations.
 
Under a Phase 1 trade deal negotiated in 2019 that took effect in February, China agreed to buy at least $200 billion in additional U.S. goods and services over two years.
Former national security adviser John Bolton alleges in a new book that Trump sought Chinese President Xi Jinping’s help to win reelection during a 2019 meeting by making agricultural purchases, and Trump also encouraged Xi to go ahead with building camps in Xinjiang. Trump has denied the accusations. The United States since last year has placed import restrictions on some Chinese companies and visa bans on unnamed Chinese officials linked to Xinjiang but has not imposed harsher Treasury sanctions.
 
Trump signed legislation last Wednesday calling for sanctions over Xinjiang, drawing threats of retaliation from China. He insisted, however, he had discretion to decide any application of the measures.  
 
Elsewhere in the interview, Trump said he would consider meeting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and also suggested he has had second thoughts about his decision to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s legitimate leader.
 
“I would maybe think about that. … Maduro would like to meet. And I’m never opposed to meetings,” Trump told online news site Axios on Friday, a move that would upend his “maximum pressure” campaign aimed at ousting the Socialist president. He added, however, “but at this moment, I’ve turned them down.” 
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The family of late rock musician Tom Petty has filed a cease and desist motion after President Trump’s campaign played a song by Petty at a campaign rally.
 
Trump played the song “I won’t back down” at his campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday. Hours later, Petty’s family posted a statement condemning the use of the song on social media.
 
“Trump was in no way authorized to use this song to further a campaign that leaves too many Americans and common sense behind,” the statement said.
 
The family said Petty wrote the 1989 song “for the underdog, for the common man and for EVERYONE.”
 
“We want to make it clear that we believe everyone is free to vote as they like, think as they like, but the Petty family doesn’t stand for this,” the statement went on.
 
The statement, signed by Petty’s daughters, ex-wife, and wife, said they had issued an official cease and desist notice to what they called a “campaign of hate”.pic.twitter.com/mxToRoHWNn— Tom Petty (@tompetty) June 21, 2020Neil Young, R.E.M., and Rihanna are among a growing list of musicians who have objected to Trump’s use of their music in his political campaigns.
 
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Father’s Day, a holiday typically celebrated with neighborhood barbecues, fun and family, could be limited this year as states hesitantly ease COVID-19 lockdown orders and cities cautiously reopen.  
 
The United States has been combatting the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 since March, bringing everyday life to a halt for most Americans. But cities and states have begun to reopen restaurants and stores over the past few weeks as well as allow larger social gatherings to occur.  
 
The progression of these phases, however, has not allowed normality to resume entirely as many find their Father’s Day traditions, much like Mother’s Day, limited.
 
Jennifer Smith, 51, spoke with VOA about celebrating Father’s Day away from her family in her hometown of Long Island, New York, for the first time since her move to Ooltewah, Tennessee.  
 
“I mean, we’re down here by ourselves,” Smith said about herself and her husband of 25 years, Mike. “In New York, it would have been my sister, my father, my nieces and nephews, Mike and the kids. Anyone who’s home in New York.”
 
Not being able to visit their family is the Smiths’ biggest disappointment about trying to celebrate this weekend. Similarly, lockdown measures got in the way when Jennifer Smith’s father flew to Tennessee to visit for an early Father’s Day.
 
“He got a flight, but it was not as easily available as normal,” she said. “Restaurants were open, and we had no trouble getting reservations, but most of the tourist attractions [in Chattanooga, Tennessee] that we would have liked to have taken him to were closed.”  
 
Luckily the Smiths’ plans for their first Tennessee Father’s Day weekend include outings that social-distancing regulations won’t impede.
 
“We’ll probably go out for lunch or dinner, depending on what Mike wants to do. Maybe take a ride, do something outside. Or Mike would like to just sit at home,” Smith said, laughing.  
 
There are some pandemic regulations still in place in her area, she said.  
 
Most establishments may fill their dining areas to half capacity and ensure social distancing by taping off every other barstool, using fewer tables and enforcing wearing mask for employees. Some restaurants even go so far as to limit the waitstaff coming in contact with food, and using disposable, paper menus.
 
Tennessee is split, with multiple counties seeing COVID-19 cases rising and other counties seeing case numbers falling. A few have no cases, according to an interactive map published by The New York Times.  
 
California appears similar to Tennessee in this respect, but the Ray family of Seal Beach, California, is celebrating differently from the Smith family.  
 
“We’re not big on Mother’s and Father’s Day celebrations. It’s not a tradition we celebrate; it’s more a whatever’s going on that weekend,” Pauline Ray told VOA about past Father’s Days with her husband, Adam.  
 
California’s initial statewide shutdown in response to COVID-19 went into effect mid-March. But Ray, 42, described counties around her and throughout the state as taking it upon themselves to decide when to lift stay-at-home orders.  
 
“The state is open. So we can pretty much do whatever we want to do,” she said. “So this year it’s just going to be my family, the Rays, with my mom and dad in their Mexico house in Baja California, south of the border.”  
 
The Rays’ plans for the holiday weekend did not change because of any COVID-19 regulations or fears, but traveling out of the country is something many are either not allowed to do or are too fearful to do.  
 
The Gilbert family’s Father’s Day plans have remained intact and most likely would have even if their Midwestern state of Wisconsin had not started reopening.
 
“Usually we do some outdoor activity, so we’ll go hiking at a park or go down to the lakefront. Just enjoy the outdoors,” Sophie Gilbert, 20, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, said, reflecting on a typical Father’s Day weekend. “And usually for dinner, we’ll do a cookout. My dad likes to cook meats on his smoker, so we all enjoy the fruits of his labor. Or my mom will cook him his favorite dinner.  
 
“I think we’re planning on going for a hike, which we’re still allowed to do,” Gilbert said about Sunday’s plans. “And then we’ll probably grill out, which we always do.”
 
The Gilberts have begun inviting over close family friends since their city began to ease restrictions, but they have yet to eat at a dine-in restaurant. They also have not attended any large social events.
 
But none of these safety precautions affect their annual Father’s Day weekend, because they traditionally celebrate as a family.
 
“It’ll just be the four of us,” Gilbert said, “doing what we usually do for Father’s Day.”
 
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A report posted on the website of The Minneapolis Star Tribune early Sunday says all Ramsey County correction officers of color were instructed to go to another floor when former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was brought to the county jail for booking on third-degree murder and manslaughter charges in connection with the death of George Floyd.The eight officers have filed discrimination charges with Minnesota’s Department of Human Rights.  They told the newspaper that the action taken against them is the “most overtly discriminatory act” they have ever experienced while working for Ramsey County.The Star Tribune said it obtained a copy of the discrimination complaint which said a supervisor told the officers that they would likely be a “liability” around Chauvin because of their race.One officer said in the charges that the officers felt “deeply humiliated, distressed, and negatively impacted by the segregation order.”One sergeant had already started a “routine pat down” of Chauvin but was replaced by white officers. Jail Superintendent Steve Lydon said he was trying to “protect and support” the minority officers and has denied that he is a racist. He reversed his decision 45 minutes later.One officer told The Star Tribune that female officers are not ordered to avoid men booked on domestic violence charges, no matter how the female officers may feel about what the men have done.The newspaper account says the corrections department initially denied that Chauvin had received special treatment, saying there was “no truth” to the report. One officer told the newspaper, “They were calling us all liars.” Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes.  Floyd, an African American, died after his encounter with Chauvin.  Floyd’s death, the latest in a long string of deaths of African Americans after their encounters with white police officers, touched off protests and riots against racism in Minneapolis and around the world.  
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TikTok users and Korean pop music fans are being partly credited for inflating attendance expectations at a less-than-full arena at President Donald Trump’s first political rally in months, held in Tulsa on Saturday. Social media users on different platforms, including the popular video-sharing app TikTok, have claimed in posts and videos that they registered for free tickets to the rally as a prank, with no intention of going. President Donald Trump supporters listen to Trump speak during a campaign rally at the BOK Center, June 20, 2020, in Tulsa, Okla.Prior to the event, Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale said there had been more than one million ticket requests for the event. However, the 19,000-seat BOK Center arena had many empty seats and Trump and Vice President Mike Pence canceled speeches to an expected “overflow” crowd. The Trump campaign said that the entry was “first-come-first-served” and that no one was issued an actual ticket. “Leftists always fool themselves into thinking they’re being clever. Registering for a rally only means you’ve RSVPed with a cell phone number,” said Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh in a statement to Reuters. “But we thank them for their contact information.” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, responded to a tweet by Parscale blaming the media for discouraging attendees and cited bad behavior by demonstrators outside. “Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID,” she tweeted on Saturday. “KPop allies, we see and appreciate your contributions in the fight for justice too,” she added. “My 16 year old daughter and her friends in Park City Utah have hundreds of tickets. You have been rolled by America’s teens,” tweeted former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt. CNN reported on Tuesday that a TikTok video posted by Mary Jo Laupp, a user who uses the hashtag #TikTokGrandma, was helping lead the charge. The video now has more than 700,000 likes. Demonstrators marching near the BOK Center where President Trump was holding a campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla., June 20, 2020.There were some shouting matches and scuffles outside the event between around 30 Black Lives Matter demonstrators and some Trump supporters waiting to enter. A Reuters reporter saw no sign any Trump supporters were prevented from entering the arena or overflow area. Trump had brushed aside criticism for his decision to hold the in Tulsa, the site of the country’s bloodiest outbreaks of racist violence against Black Americans some 100 years ago.  
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One man died and 11 people were wounded in a Minneapolis shooting, police said Sunday.  Photographs and live video of the aftermath of the shooting posted on Facebook showed the victims on the ground with people attending to them. Buildings with shot out windows were also seen. The motive for the shootings is unknown and no one is in custody in connection with the incident. Earlier, the police tweeted: “10 people at area hospitals suffering from gunshot wounds. All are alive with various severity levels of injuries.” The public was warned to avoid the Uptown Minneapolis area. Minneapolis has been in the news in recent days because it is the site where George Floyd, an African American man, died after a white police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck. Minneapolis erupted in demonstrations and rioting after Floyd’s death, sparking demonstrations against racism around the world.    
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Washington, D.C., is gradually easing out of its COVID lockdown as non-essential businesses start opening for locals and tourists. Keida Kostreci talked to D.C. residents and tourists to see how they feel about the cautious reopening. 
Camera: Keida Kostreci
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More than 2,000 firefighters on Saturday battled three major wildfires burning in forested mountains and desert hills in national forests across Arizona.Crews fought fires in the Santa Catalina Mountains in the Coronado National Forest overlooking Tucson, in the Tonto National Forest northeast of metro Phoenix and in the Kaibab National Forest north of the Grand Canyon.A new wildfire that started Saturday about 6 kilometers northeast of New River on the northern outskirts of metro Phoenix was being fought by ground crews and aircraft to prevent it from reaching structures, state and federal officials said in statements.The new fire had burned about 1.2 square kilometers after starting on state land and spreading into the Tonto National Forest, officials said.The other fires, which each started at least a week ago, have forced scattered evacuations of rural communities and caused full or partial closures of multiple highways, including part of State Route 87 that is normally heavily traveled on summer weekends.Crews battling the fire burning in grass and brush in the Tonto National Forest were conducting burnout operations and clearing buffers to protect previously evacuated communities, communications sites and power lines.The fire covered 706 square kilometers with containment around 7 percent of its perimeter. Smoke from the fire and burnouts conducted by firefighters to deprive the fire of fuel was expected to blanket a wide area along east-central Arizona’s Mogollon Rim, a destination for many desert dwellers seeking to escape the summer heat.The 173-square-kilometer fire burning in canyons and on ridges in the Santa Catalina Mountains was 21 percent contained. Crews supported by aircraft worked on multiple flanks of the mountains to keep the fire from approaching Oracle and other communities, the interagency fire team said in a statement.Firefighters planned to assess areas in the fire’s potential paths to develop contingency plans, the statement said.Crews battling the fire north of the Grand Canyon were helped Friday by favorable weather conditions as they worked to secure preliminary containment lines, the inter-agency fire team said in a statement.However, the fire might spread Saturday due to anticipated winds, hotter temperatures and lower humidity, the statement said.That fire covered 261 square kilometers and was 4 percent contained as of Saturday. 
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A federal judge ruled Saturday that former national security adviser John Bolton can move forward in publishing his tell-all book despite efforts by the Trump administration to block the release because of concerns that classified information could be exposed.The decision from U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth is a victory for Bolton in a court case that involved core First Amendment and national security concerns. But the judge also made clear his concerns that Bolton had “gambled with the national security of the United States” by opting out of a prepublication review process meant to prevent government officials from spilling classified secrets in memoirs they publish.Trump Unleashes Attacks on Bolton BookUS leader says former national security adviser John Bolton’s account of his 17 months in the White House is ‘a compilation of lies and made up stories’The ruling clears the path for a broader election-year readership and distribution of a memoir, due out Tuesday, that paints an unflattering portrait of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy decision-making during the turbulent year-and-a-half that Bolton spent in the White House.Nonethless, Lamberth frowned upon the way Bolton went about publishing the book. Bolton took it “upon himself to publish his book without securing final approval from national intelligence authorities” and perhaps caused irreparable harm to national security, Lamberth said.Trump Engaged World Leaders for His Own Gains, Bolton Says Former national security adviser shares damning allegations against the US president But with 200,000 copies already distributed to booksellers across the country, attempting to block its release would be futile, the judge wrote.”A single dedicated individual with a book in hand could publish its contents far and wide from his local coffee shop,” Lamberth wrote. “With hundreds of thousands of copies around the globe — many in newsrooms — the damage is done. There is no restoring the status quo.’ 
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U.N. officials, on the occasion of World Refugee Day, are warning the COVID-19 pandemic poses an additional threat to millions of refugees and displaced people, among the most vulnerable in the world. More people live in forced exile than ever before.  The U.N. refugee agency says refugees account for nearly 30 million of the record-breaking 79.5 million uprooted by conflict and persecution.  An overwhelming majority live in poor countries with fragile economies and health systems.Pandemic Pushes World Refugee Day Observances OnlineThis year’s theme is ‘Every Action Counts’ to highlight the contributions of refugees to the COVID-19 response as essential workersWorld Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, says refugees’ living conditions put them at particular risk of coronavirus infection.“They often have limited access to adequate shelter, water, nutrition, sanitation and health services …,” said Tedros. “WHO is deeply concerned about the very real and present danger of widespread transmission of COVID-19 in refugee camps.”U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi agrees with this assessment.  However, he notes most refugees are not in camps but in communities with local people.   In some places, he says, those communities have been devastated by the pandemic.“I am thinking of Latin America where 17 to18 countries host more than 4 million Venezuelans on the move,” said Grandi. “I am thinking of many urban centers in Africa that are host to large refugee populations.  I am thinking of Afghans in Pakistan and Iran that share… facilities and accommodation with communities that have been impacted very severely by COVID.” Grandi says he also is extremely concerned about the impact of COVID-19 on livelihoods.  He says most refugees have lost their jobs because of lockdowns and other measures.He says refugees who have lost their incomes cannot pay for health care.  It is of utmost importance, he says for governments to include refugees, displaced people and other people on the move in their national health responses to the pandemic.  He says this is key to stopping the pandemic, noting the coronavirus makes no distinction between citizens of a country and those who have been forcibly uprooted from their homes and live within their midst. 
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Activists and religious leaders are holding a virtual march Saturday to highlight the plight of poor people in the United States.The Poor People’s Mass Assembly and Moral March on Washington was to be held in front of the White House, but the coronavirus pandemic forced organizers to instead mount a digital gathering.Organizers began making plans for the event two years ago, seeking to focus attention not only on the poor, but also on the systemic racism in the U.S., a theme that has been highlighted in recent demonstrations across the U.S. and around the world. following the death of George Floyd, who died after a police officer in Minneapolis held his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes.Poor people will talk about their lives in the online campaign that will be streamed on various media outlets, including MSNBC and Radio One.Organizers of the event are also looking to focus attention on the country’s systemic ecological devastation that disproportionately affects poor communities.Dr. William J.  Barber and the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis are the co-chairs of the virtual event. Hosts of the event will include former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Danny Glover, Jane Fonda, David Oyelowo, Wanda Sykes, and Debra Messing. 
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Protesters toppled the only statue of a Confederate general in the nation’s capital and set it on fire on Juneteenth, the day marking the end of slavery in the United States, amid continuing anti-racism demonstrations following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.       Cheering demonstrators jumped up and down as the 3.4-meter statue of Albert Pike – wrapped with chains – wobbled on its high granite pedestal before falling backward, landing in a pile of dust. Protesters then set a bonfire and stood around it in a circle as the statue burned, chanting, “No justice, no peace!” and “No racist police!”       Eyewitness accounts and videos posted on social media indicated that police were on the scene but didn’t intervene. President Donald Trump quickly tweeted about the toppling, calling out D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and writing: “The DC police are not doing their job as they watched a statue be ripped down and burn. These people should be immediately arrested. A disgrace to our Country!”       Latest Battles in US Culture War Take Aim at Southern HistoryDebate over statues, military bases honoring Confederate leaders emerges as protests over death of a black man in police custody force nation to reckon with systemic racismJubilant protesters read out Trump’s tweet over a bullhorn and cheered. After the statue fell, most protesters returned peacefully to Lafayette Park near the White House.       The Pike statue has been a source of controversy over the years. The former Confederate general was also a longtime influential leader of the Freemasons, who revere Pike and who paid for the statue. Pike’s body is interred at the D.C. headquarters of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, which also contains a small museum in his honor.         The statue, dedicated in 1901, was located in Judiciary Square about half a mile from the U.S. Capitol. It was built at the request of Masons who successfully lobbied Congress to grant them land for the statue as long as Pike would be depicted in civilian, not military, clothing.       Racial tensions in the country hit a boiling point and spilled into the streets after Floyd’s killing late last month. Video showed a white police officer pressing his knee against Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes as the handcuffed Black man said, “I can’t breathe.” The officer, Derek Chauvin, has been charged with murder.       Civil rights activists and some local government officials in D.C. had campaigned for years to get the statue taken down but needed the federal government’s approval to do so.       “Ever since 1992, members of the DC Council have been calling on the federal gov’t to remove the statue of Confederate Albert Pike (a federal memorial on federal land). We unanimously renewed our call to Congress to remove it in 2017,” the D.C. Council tweeted Friday.       A proposed resolution calling for the removal of the statue referred to Pike as a “chief founder of the post-Civil War Ku Klux Klan.” The Klan connection is a frequent accusation from Pike’s critics and one which the Masons dispute.           
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The Justice Department moved abruptly Friday to oust Geoffrey S. Berman, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan overseeing key prosecutions of President Donald Trump’s allies and an investigation of his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. But Berman said he was refusing to leave his post and said his ongoing investigations would continue.“I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning, my position,” Berman said. His statement came hours Attorney General Bill Barr said Berman was stepping down from his position.The standoff set off an extraordinary clash between the Justice Department and one of the nation’s top districts, which has tried major mob and terror cases over the years. It is also likely to deepen tensions between the Justice Department and congressional Democrats who have pointedly accused Barr of politicizing the agency and acting more like Trump’s personal lawyer than the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.The move to oust Berman came days after allegations surfaced from former Trump national security adviser John Bolton that the president sought to interfere in an Southern District investigation into the state-owned Turkish bank in an effort to cut deals with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.Barr offered no explanation for the move in the statement he issued late Friday. The White House quickly announced that Trump was nominating the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission to the job, a lawyer with virtually no experience as a federal prosecutor.Hours later, Berman issued his own statement saying he had learned that he was being pushed out through Barr’s news release. He vowed to stay on the job until a Trump nominee is confirmed by the Senate. The investigations he oversees will continue, he said.pic.twitter.com/hFNvQs5orV— US Attorney SDNY (@SDNYnews) June 20, 2020Federal prosecutors in New York are investigating Giuliani’s business dealings, including whether he failed to register as a foreign agent, according to people familiar with the probe. The people were not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.The office has also prosecuted a number of Trump associates, including Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who served a prison sentence for lying to Congress and campaign finance crimes.Berman has also overseen the prosecution of two Florida businessmen, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who were associates of Giuliani and tied to the Ukraine impeachment investigation. The men were charged in October with federal campaign finance violations, including hiding the origin of a $325,000 donation to a group supporting Trump’s reelection.Bolton’s tell-all, excerpts of which were posted by the news media this week, included details on how Trump sought to cut a deal to halt SDNY’s investigation into whether Halkbank violated U.S. sanctions against Iran in order to free an American pastor imprisoned in Turkey. Six weeks after the pastor’s release, Bolton writes that on a call with Erdogan, “Trump then told Erdogan he would take care of things, explaining that the Southern District prosecutors were not his people, but were Obama people, a problem that would be fixed when they were replaced by his people.” The episode occurred months after Berman assumed the role of U.S. attorney.A Republican who contributed to the president’s election campaign, Berman worked for the same law firm as Giuliani and was put in his job by the Trump administration. But as U.S. attorney, he won over some skeptics after he went after Trump allies.Berman was appointed by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in January 2018, months after Preet Bharara was fired after refusing to resign along with dozens of other federal prosecutors appointed by President Barack Obama.Three months later, FBI agents raided Cohen’s offices, an act the president decried as a politically motivated witch hunt.The following April, in the absence of a formal nomination by Trump, the judges in Manhattan federal court voted to appoint Berman to the position permanently. He has taken a direct hand in other investigations that have angered Trump.His office subpoenaed Trump’s inaugural committee for a wide range of documents as part of an investigation into various potential crimes, including possible illegal contributions from foreigners to inaugural events.And weeks before the 2018 midterm election, Berman announced insider trading charges against an ardent Trump supporter, Republican Rep. Chris Collins. Collins, who represented western New York, has since resigned.Under Berman’s tenure, his office also brought charges against Michael Avenatti, the combative lawyer who gained fame by representing porn actress Stormy Daniels in lawsuits involving Trump. Avenatti was convicted in February of trying to extort Nike after prosecutors said he threatened to use his media access to hurt Nike’s reputation and stock price unless the sportswear giant paid him up to $25 million. 
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The United States Supreme Court this week delivered legal setbacks to the Trump administration with rulings on immigration and LGBTQ rights — two issues important to the president’s supporters. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report on the president’s reaction to these decisions and how they may impact him politically ahead of the November election.
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The Oklahoma Supreme Court rejected a request to require everyone attending President Donald Trump’s campaign rally Saturday in Tulsa to wear face masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The state court ruled Friday that several local residents who made the request for all rally attendees to wear face masks could not establish they a had clear legal right to seek such a mandate. The Trump campaign said organizers would be providing masks and hand sanitizer to all who want them. Organizers will be checking the temperature of all attendees to guard against the spread of the virus. The campaign said it is taking “safety seriously” as some health experts have warned that the large gathering could promote the spread of the coronavirus.  Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump camp near the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 19, 2020.The managers of the Bank of Oklahoma Center, the indoor multipurpose arena in Tulsa where the rally will take place, have asked the president’s campaign for a written health and safety plan. BOK Center officials said they requested the plan because Tulsa has experienced a recent increase in coronavirus cases.   The arena has seats for 19,000 people, and the Trump campaign says more than a million people have sought tickets. Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum says crowds of 100,000 or more people are expected in the area around the rally.  Bynum declared a civil emergency and set an overnight curfew for the area around the arena, citing the unrest that followed some of the recent protests across the country against police brutality. However, Trump tweeted Friday that he spoke to Bynum and there would not be a curfew.I just spoke to the highly respected Mayor of Tulsa, G.T. Bynum, who informed me there will be no curfew tonight or tomorrow for our many supporters attending the #MAGA Rally. Enjoy yourselves – thank you to Mayor Bynum! @gtbynum— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 19, 2020The mayor’s office originally said the curfew would remain in effect from 10 p.m. Friday until 6 a.m. Saturday and would again be in force on Saturday night.  Bynum said in his order, “I have received information from the Tulsa Police Department and other law enforcement agencies that shows that individuals from organized groups who have been involved in destructive and violent behavior in other states are planning to travel to the City of Tulsa for purposes of causing unrest in and around the rally.” Bynum did not identify the groups to which he was referring.  Trump tweeted on Friday, “Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene!”Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 19, 2020A White House spokeswoman, Kayleigh McEnany, said Trump was referring to violent protesters, not peaceful ones.  The Tulsa rally was originally scheduled for Friday but was pushed back a day after criticism that it fell on Juneteenth, which marks the end of slavery in the United States, and takes place in a city where racial killings occurred in 1921 that left several hundred African Americans dead. It is Trump’s first major reelection event since a coronavirus shutdown across much of the country and recent nationwide protests sparked by the death of African American George Floyd while in the custody of white police officers in Minneapolis last month.
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In a stunning reversal, the Navy has upheld the firing of the aircraft carrier captain who urged faster action to protect his crew from a coronavirus outbreak, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report. The official said the Navy also extended the blame for the ship’s pandemic crisis, delaying the promotion of the one-star admiral who was also onboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt — concluding that both men made serious errors in judgment. The spread of the coronavirus aboard the carrier while on deployment in the Pacific in March exploded into one of the biggest military leadership crises of recent years. More than 1,000 members of the crew eventually became infected, and one sailor died. The ship was sidelined for weeks at Guam but recently returned to duty. Navy Adm. Michael Gilday, Chief of Naval Operations, speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, April 1, 2020, in Washington.The decision by Adm. Mike Gilday, the chief of naval operations, to hold both Capt. Brett Crozier and his boss, Rear Adm. Stuart Baker, accountable is a confirmation of concerns expressed by top Pentagon officials who demanded a deeper investigation last month when the initial probe recommended Crozier’s reinstatement as the ship’s captain. The official described the findings on condition of anonymity to discuss a report not yet made public. The investigation, done by Adm. Robert Burke and endorsed Friday by Gilday, defends the abrupt turnaround on Crozier saying that the more detailed probe uncovered poor decisions he made that failed to stem the outbreak or properly communicate the escalating crisis to senior commanders. It also concludes that the ship’s slow response to the virus was not just his fault, and that Baker also failed to take decisive actions to address the problem. Gilday’s recommendations cap a drama that has engulfed the Navy for nearly three months, sidelining the carrier for 10 weeks in Guam, and setting off a dramatic series of events that led to Crozier’s dismissal, the abrupt resignation of the acting Navy secretary who fired him, and the push for a broader review of the Pacific fleet’s top commanders and how they handled the virus outbreak. Based on the findings, Crozier and Baker would be able to remain in the Navy and move on to other jobs at their current rank, but the admonishments are likely career-enders for both men. Crozier’s firing upset the carrier’s crew, and he received an ovation as he walked off the ship. The recommendations reflect concerns expressed by Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite who told a Senate committee in early May that the service was in “rough waters” and suffering from leadership failures. Braithwaite, who the official said endorsed Gilday’s report, pledged to the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing that he would restore a culture of good order and discipline to the service. In this June 4, 2020, photo provided by the U.S. Navy, the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt departs Apra Harbor in Guam.In late April, after a preliminary review, Gilday recommended that Crozier be returned to command the Roosevelt. But Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pressed for a delay and a wider investigation of the coronavirus crisis on the ship, suggesting the need for deeper scrutiny of actions and decisions by senior admirals in the Pacific, a region critical to America’s national security interests.  The COVID-19 outbreak on the Roosevelt was the most extensive and concentrated spread of the virus across the U.S. military. It eventually sent all of the 4,800 crew members ashore for weeks of quarantine, in a systematic progression that kept enough sailors on the ship to keep it secure and running.  More broadly, it put out of commission a massive warship vital to the Navy’s mission of countering China’s power in the Asia-Pacific region. When the coronavirus outbreak was discovered on the Roosevelt, Crozier sent an email to several commanders pleading for more urgent Navy action, including the removal of nearly all sailors from the ship to protect their health. That email was leaked to media, and the acting Navy secretary at the time, Thomas Modly, accused Crozier of bad judgment and directed that he be relieved of command April 2. Days later, amid an uproar of his handling of the matter, Modly resigned and was replaced by James McPherson. Braithwaite’s nomination to be secretary was still pending at the time. He took over earlier this month after he was confirmed by the Senate. In the report Friday, Gilday concluded that Crozier did not intentionally leak the email. The Roosevelt, meanwhile, spent weeks in port in Guam, as crew members rotated ashore for quarantine and isolation at the military base and in hotels around the island. After about two weeks of training at sea, the carrier returned to operations at sea with a reduced crew on June 4. Sailors have continued to fly back to the ship from Guam after they have recovered from the virus or completed two-weeks of quarantine. On Thursday, two of the ship’s aviators ejected from their F/A-18 fighter jet while conducting a training flight and were rescued in the Philippine Sea and found to be in good condition. The incident is under investigation and it’s not clear whether the crew’s long layoff in Guam or rapid return to sea played any role in the crash. The Roosevelt’s experience with the virus, however, spurred the development of widespread cleaning and health precautions across the military. And it also gave federal health authorities a population of sailors to test, providing greater insight into the science and the spread of the virus. 
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Ahead of the Juneteenth holiday weekend’s demonstrations against systemic racism and police brutality, a majority of Americans say they approve of recent protests around the country. Many think they’ll bring positive change.
And despite the headline-making standoffs between law enforcement and protesters in cities nationwide, the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research also finds a majority of Americans think law enforcement officers have generally responded to the protests appropriately. Somewhat fewer say the officers used excessive force.
The findings follow weeks of peaceful protests and unrest in response to the death of George Floyd, a black man who died pleading for air on May 25 after a white Minneapolis police officer held his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes. A dramatic change in public opinion on race and policing has followed, with more Americans today than five years ago calling police violence a very serious problem that unequally targets black Americans.
Bill Ardren, a 75-year-old retired resident of Maple Grove, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis, said he supports the protests. He blames protesters and law enforcement equally for why some Floyd demonstrations turned into ugly clashes that were scarred by looting and arson.
“People finally got fed up because of this last incident,” said Ardren, referring to Floyd’s death, “and it spread all over the country.”
The new AP-NORC poll finds 54% of Americans say they approve of the protests, while 32% disapprove. Another 14% say they hold neither opinion.
More Americans think the protests will mostly change the country for the better than bring about negative change, 44% to 21%, while a third say the protests won’t make much difference.
An Associated Press tally of known arrests through June 4 found that more than 10,000 people were arrested at demonstrations in the U.S., many of which defied citywide curfews and some daytime orders to disperse. The count grew by the hundreds each day, as protesters were met with overwhelming shows of force by local officers, state police and National Guard members. Los Angeles had more than a quarter of the nation’s arrests, according to the AP’s tally, followed by New York, Dallas and Philadelphia.
One of the nation’s largest demonstrations took place in Philadelphia on June 6, when tens of thousands of people met near the Philadelphia Museum of Art and peacefully marched through Center City. Kipp Gilmore-Clough, a resident of the city and associate pastor at Chestnut Hill United Church, joined that day’s protest and said that kind of response to police abuse was “long overdue.”
“I’ve been fairly heartened by the ongoing presence in the streets, because the systemic racism that has generated these protests is longstanding and deeply embedded,” said Gillmore-Clough, who’s among those who believe the protests will have a positive impact. “My hope is that this persistence leads to results, changes of laws, changes of institutions and changes to our patterns that have normalized white supremacy.”
Seven percent of Americans say they’ve participated in a protest  in the past few weeks. While black Americans were significantly more likely to say so than white Americans, the poll found about half of all those who said they protested were white. The demonstrations have been noted as remarkably diverse compared with those seen as affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement that emerged nearly seven years ago.
About 8 in 10 black Americans say they approve of the protests. About half of white Americans approve, while about a third disapprove.
Overall, Americans are somewhat more likely to say the protests have been peaceful than violent, 27% vs. 22%, but another 51% think there has been a mix of both. White Americans are more likely than black Americans to call protests violent, 20% to 7%, though 54% of white Americans say there has been a mix.
Gillmore-Clough said he was disappointed by law enforcement’s use of excessive force at the protests. At times, police officers across the country were caught on video indiscriminately swinging batons, firing rubber bullets, deploying tear gas and pepper spray — even shoving people to the ground. Officers in many other places joined protesters, including some symbolically kneeling alongside demonstrators.
A majority of Americans, 55%, say law enforcement responded to recent protests appropriately, while fewer, 44%, say they used excessive force. And 54% say President Donald Trump’s response to the recent unrest — he suggested sending the U.S. military into cities where local officials struggled to quell unrest, before later backing off of the idea — made things worse.
Just 12% say Trump made things better, while 33% say his response had no impact.
Anne Oredeko, a supervising attorney in the racial justice unit of the Legal Aid Society of New York, one of the nation’s largest public defender agencies, said the New York Police Department’s response to peaceful protests undermined civil rights. Mass arrests also threatened public health during the coronavirus pandemic, making the idea that anyone believes the law enforcement response was appropriate troubling, she said.
“There’s something deeply bankrupt about our inability to see the value of life, across color and ethnicity,” Oredeko said. “There’s something missing in this country. If you understand the point that protesters are making, saying that there is a deep distrust of police and a need for systemic reforms, your response shouldn’t be to maim them.”
While 7 in 10 black Americans said law enforcement officers responded to the protests with excessive force, about half as many white Americans said that. Roughly 6 in 10 white Americans said law enforcement officers responded to protests appropriately.
Destiny Merrell, a 20-year-old black college student from Unadilla, Georgia, said she has not participated in the protests out of fear she could be harmed by police or other demonstrators.
“We matter, but we don’t matter to certain people,” she said.
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With hundreds of people watching as midnight approached, a crane moved in and took down a Confederate monument that stood in the town square of an Atlanta suburb since 1908.
The stone obelisk was lifted from its base with straps amid jeers and chants of “Just drop it!” from onlookers in Decatur, Georgia, who were kept a safe distance by sheriff’s deputies.
Mawuli Davis, a driving force behind the lobbying effort to remove the monument, watched with others as the obelisk was slowly lowered onto its side and slid to a waiting flatbed truck. Davis’ organization,  day earlier, pleading for its removal.  
“This feels great. This is a people’s victory. All of our young people from Decatur High School that made this happen. All of these organizers, everybody came together,” Davis told The Associated Press. “This is it. This is a victory for this country. This is an example of what can happen when people work together.”
Groups like Davis’ and Hate Free Decatur had been pushing for the monument to be removed since the deadly 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.  
The monument was among those around the country that became flashpoints for protests over police brutality and racial injustice in recent weeks, following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis. The city asked a Georgia judge last week to order the removal of the monument, which was often vandalized and marked by graffiti, saying it had become a threat to public safety.  
DeKalb County Judge Clarence Seeliger agreed, and ordered the 30-foot (9-meter) obelisk in Decatur Square to be removed by midnight June 26 and placed in storage indefinitely. His order came hours before a white Atlanta police officer fatally shot another black man, 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks,  in the back, sparking renewed protests in Georgia’s capital region.  
Instead, the monument came down on the eve of Juneteenth — the holiday celebrating the day in 1865 that all enslaved black people learned they had been freed from bondage — as workers chipped it loose and the crowd cheered.
“It’s always been troubling to see that monument over there on the square. We spend a lot of time up here and it’s troubling that our friends and our loved ones and other people of color have to look at that monument to slavery and to the Confederacy,” said Megan Beezley, who hustled to the square with her daughter after hearing about the removal from a Facebook post.
DeKalb County spent several years trying to rid itself of the Lost Cause monument erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1908. A marker added last September says the monument was erected to “glorify the ‘lost cause’ of the Confederacy” and has “bolstered white supremacy and faulty history.”
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“I remember my dad bringing home NASA stickers for me when I was a little kid and thinking they were the greatest thing in the world,” says Erin Easley, who is now a senior studying industrial engineering at Louisiana State University.  
 
Stickers adorned Erin’s childhood schoolbooks – and other objects.
 
“Oh yeah, my sister and I would stick them on the furniture in our house, too,” she laughs, “and I’d give extras to kids in my class. I told them dad worked for NASA and had the coolest job.”
 
Erin’s father, Kelley Easley, was hired in 1983 to work in the Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) – a NASA site on the outskirts of New Orleans, Louisiana. NASA calls MAF its “rocket factory” and considers it the nation’s premiere site for manufacturing and assembling large-scale structures for the space program.
 
In its 60-year history, the facility has been integral in sending Apollo astronauts to the moon and powering the Space Shuttle missions that helped build the International Space Station. Today, Kelley and others at MAF are focused on spacecraft designed carry a new generation of astronauts to the Moon and eventually to Mars. They’ve also built the largest segment of the most powerful rocket in the history of spaceflight, the SLS, that will launch astronauts at the start of those missions.
 
“We get to do some pretty awesome stuff here,” Kelley says, “and who doesn’t want his daughter to think he’s the ‘cool dad?’ That’s an added benefit.”
 Ready for launchKelley remembers bringing Erin to her first “Bring Your Child to Work Day” when she was 12 years old. MAF is large enough to hold 31 professional football stadiums and Kelley says he’ll never forget the look of awe on her face when she walked through the factory and stood in front of the 47-meter external rocket tanks – slightly taller than the Statue of Liberty.
 
“I remember, specifically, that she loved how people had to ride bicycles indoors to get around the facility,” he says. “She said anywhere that people got to ride a bicycle for work must be pretty great.”  
 
Despite her childhood love for NASA, the first profession Erin remembers wanting to pursue was teaching.
 
“Kids love playing Mom and Dad,” she says, “and I really wanted to be a teacher like my mom.”
 
But signs emerged that Erin might follow in her dad’s engineering footsteps instead.  
 
For example, Erin’s earliest memories include a love for puzzles. When she was five years old, Hurricane Katrina destroyed her family’s home. She, her dad and the rest of the family moved in with her grandfather, and Erin remembers her grandpa playing all sorts of puzzle games with her.
 
“I loved all his puzzles,” she says. “Especially the mental ones he did with me. When I got to high school and realized physics and calculus are a lot like mental puzzles, too, that’s when I decided engineering might be right for me.”
 Erin and Kelly with interns at the Marshall Space Flight Center’s Payloads Operations Integration Center (POIC) in Huntsville, Alabama in the summer of 2019 during Erin’s internship.CountdownErin’s interests were unique in her peer group, especially among her female friends. But it wasn’t until she began her engineering courses at LSU that she realized how unique.
 
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports fewer than one in five American engineers are women. Erin says she was often the only female in her classes.
 
“It can be intimidating,” she admits. “Sometimes it feels like the guys don’t take me seriously, and I have to prove myself over and over.”
 
Erin refuses to be discouraged, though, and when a classmate mentioned a 10-week summer internship at the Michoud Assembly Facility, an opportunity her father also had mentioned, she decided to apply.
 
“She applied on her own,” Kelley says. “That’s one of the many things I admire about my daughter. She’s eager to try things without help. It was the same thing when she was learning to ride a bicycle or to roller skate. She never wanted my wife or me to tell her how to do something.”
 
When Erin was announced as one of only four interns accepted into the program, no one was prouder than her dad.
 
“I was so excited for her,” he remembers. “She got to work on real NASA projects with real implementation plans.”
 
During her 10 weeks at MAF, Erin worked on the replacement of a cooling tower and the rehabilitation of a storage building. She also had the opportunity to attend meetings, visit other NASA sites and interact with employees she had admired since she was a young girl.
 
Erin says one of the things that impressed her most, though, was how many incredible women she got to interact with at MAF.
 
“I was never the only female in any of my meetings,” she says. “NASA is full of talented women engineers, and that was so encouraging for me to see.”
 Erin and Kelley at “Artemis Day at the Michoud Assembly Facility” on December 9, 2019. The machinery in the background is the core stage of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that will help power the first Artemis mission to the Moon.Lift-OffHer internship ended last August, but Erin returned to MAF in December to watch the 65-meter SLS core stage depart the factory to be assembled with the remaining pieces of the rocket. While she’s still open to different career paths at this point in her life, she says working at NASA would be her dream job.
 
“This is the design for the rocket that will launch the first woman to the moon and the first humans to Mars,” she says, “and to watch how passionate everyone is about their work — I want to be part of a place where people are proud of what they do and excited to explore the unknown.”
 
Excitement about NASA’s mission is infectious, and often extends to strangers.
 
Kelley says if he goes to the grocery store while wearing a NASA shirt, he’s often stopped by another customer who wants to talk about NASA’s next big project, sometimes resulting in a 20-minute conversation.
 
“Everyone wants to do something that matters and everyone wants to feel pride in what they do,” he says. “It reminds me how fortunate I am, and I would love that same thing for my daughter.”
 
Erin says she’s treasured having a passion in common with her father. She remembers watching space movies with him when she was growing up and going for walks around the Michoud facility with him when she was an awestruck child, and again as an enterprising intern. She calls him when she sees a video about space that excites her, and when she learns something new in her engineering program.
 
Maybe one day they’ll walk across the vast floors of America’s rocket factory together again — this time as coworkers.
 
For now, Erin opens her computer to research next semester’s classes. Two NASA stickers decorate her laptop.Editor’s note: This is the fifth story in a VOA series highlighting the accomplishments of father-daughter duos across America – and celebrating cross-generational ties and common purpose between fathers and daughters ahead of Father’s Day, June 21. 
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European governments are working with the United States on plans to overhaul the World Health Organization, a top health official for a European country said, signaling that Europe shares some of the concerns that led Washington to say it would quit.The European health official, who spoke on condition of anonymity while discussing initiatives that are not public, said Britain, France, Germany and Italy were discussing WHO reforms with the United States at the technical level.The aim, the official said, was to ensure WHO’s independence, an apparent reference to allegations that the body was too close to China during its initial response to the coronavirus crisis early this year.”We are discussing ways to separate WHO’s emergency management mechanism from any single country influence,” said the official.Reforms would involve changing the WHO’s funding system to make it more long-term, the official said. The WHO now operates on a two-year budget, which “could hurt WHO’s independence” if it has to raise funds from donor countries in the middle of an emergency, the official said.U.S. President Donald Trump has accused the WHO of being too close to China and announced plans to quit and withdraw funding.European countries have occasionally called for reform of the WHO but have generally shielded the organization from the most intense criticism by Washington. In public the European position has usually been that any reform should come only after an evaluation of the response to the coronavirus crisis.Evaluation and reformBut minutes of a videoconference of EU health ministers last week suggested European countries were taking a stronger line and also seeking more European influence at the WHO in future.The German and French ministers told their colleagues “an evaluation and reform of the WHO was needed,” the minutes said.That was stronger wording than in a resolution last month which the EU drafted, and which was adopted by all 192 WHO member countries. That resolution called for an evaluation of the response to the coronavirus crisis, but it stopped short of calling for reforms.The German and French ministers also told their colleagues, “The EU and its MS (member states) should play a bigger role at the global level,” the minutes showed.A spokesperson for the German health ministry said Berlin sought stronger engagement with the WHO ahead of Germany taking over the EU presidency on July 1.A German government source told Reuters the aim of the intervention at the health ministers’ meeting was to encourage debate among EU member states about how to reform the WHO. Asked whether Germany was now pushing for quicker changes, instead of waiting until after the crisis, the official said: “Reforms of international organizations normally take years, not months.”A French health ministry spokesman also said the WHO would be on the agenda of Germany’s presidency of the EU, and Paris would work on it with Berlin. France backed WHO reform, but changes should follow the evaluation of the organization’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis, he said.A British government spokesperson said Britain worked with organizations including the WHO “to encourage and support transparency, efficiency and good management.”The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the WHO did not respond to requests for comment.The WHO drew criticism for public praise of China’s efforts to combat the new coronavirus in the early days of the crisis, even as evidence emerged that Chinese officials had silenced whistleblowers.The EU and its governments funded around 11 percent of the WHO’s $5.6 billion budget in the 2018-19 period, and the United States provided more than 15 percent. China covered just 0.2 percent. 
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