Amazon removes T-shirt showing George Floyd death

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Amazon removes T-shirt showing George Floyd death

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The t-shirt featured a photo of former Minneapolis Police Department officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on the neck of George Floyd

Amazon has removed a children’s T-shirt which used an image of a policeman kneeling on the neck of George Floyd from its US store.

The garment, available on the US Amazon store for $14.99 (£11.70), was listed by a third-party reseller.

In a statement to the BBC, Amazon said that the account was being “investigated”.

The online retailer’s guidelines prohibit products that depict crime scene photos.

The item was on sale alongside other clothing promoted by the same vendor that was targeted at supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement.

It was flagged to the BBC by an Amazon employee who questioned how tasteful such an item of clothing was.

While the original listing is now offline, other examples of t-shirts and baseball caps featuring the same photo above the slogan “against violent law enforcement” can still be found on Amazon’s US site. They are however marked as being out of stock.

In a statement to the BBC, Amazon said: “All sellers must follow our selling guidelines and those who do not will be subject to action including potential removal of their account.”

“The product in question is no longer available.”

The death of George Floyd – the African American killed in police custody in Minneapolis last month – has sparked protests around the world. Four police officers involved have been sacked and charged over his death.

More on George Floyd’s death

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‘Vanderpump Rules’ stars Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute fired after racist claims

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‘Vanderpump Rules’ stars Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute fired after racist claims

Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute have been fired from Vanderpump Rules following a racist incident with a former cast member. Schroeder, 31, and Doute, 37, have starred on the hit Bravo show since it premiered in 2013. The network also confirmed on Tuesday new cast members Max Boyens and Brett Caprioni won’t return after past racist tweets were uncovered earlier this year, shortly after the new season debuted.

“Bravo and Evolution Media confirmed today that Stassi Schroeder, Kristen Doute, Max Boyens and Brett Caprioni will not be returning to Vanderpump Rules,” a spokesperson for the network told Yahoo Entertainment. Vanderpump Rules recently wrapped its eighth season.

Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute have been fired from Vanderpump Rules ahead of Season 9. (Photo: Getty Images for MTV)

Last week, Schroeder and Doute were accused of racist actions against former co-star, Faith Stowers. Stowers, 31, who appeared in Season 6, revealed during an Instagram Live with Candace Renee Rice that she was asked to return to the show, but declined because Schroeder and Doute called the police on her.

“There was this article on… Daily Mail where there was an African American lady. It was like a weird photo, so she looked very light-skinned and had these different, weird tattoos or whatever. They showcased her, and I guess this woman was robbing people,” Stowers shared. “The woman was at large… and they called the cops and said it was me. This is, like, a true story.”

Schroeder even told the story herself during a podcast interview in 2018. Doute tweeted a link to an article at the time about the woman, writing, “hey tweeties, doesn’t this ex #pumprules thief look familiar? someone put her on mtv & gave her a platform for press. I didn’t wanna go there but I’m going there.”

“It was just funny, because they thought it was me because it was a Black woman with a weave. So, they just assumed it would be me, and they called the cops on me,” Stowers continued. “It didn’t work, so they were upset about that.”

Over the weekend, Schroeder and Doute publicly apologized; however, neither reportedly apologized privately to Stowers.

“Racially insensitive comments from my past have resurfaced. It is important that I continue to take accountability for what I have said and done, while pushing myself to do better,” Schroeder wrote. “I have grown significantly from the person I was then, and I am still filled with remorse and regret for the hurt I caused… I did not recognize then the serious ramifications that could have transpired because of my actions. What I did to Faith was wrong. I apologize and I do not expect forgiveness.”

Repercussions for Schroeder — arguably the most successful star outside of the reality show — were swift. She was dropped by her publicist and agency, along with several brands she works with.

A source tells Yahoo Entertainment the headache isn’t over for Bravo and Evolution Media. Discussions are currently taking place about what to do with another original cast member: Jax Taylor.

Taylor, 40, accused Stowers of committing crimes in a newly resurfaced tweet from December 2017. After a fan asked him if Stowers would appear permanently on the Bravo show, he wrote, “She’s wanted by the police for grand theft auto and ‘awol’ from military, bad idea to be on a reality show dude. … Someone’s going to jail.”

An insider tells Yahoo Entertainment that Taylor’s status for Season 9 “is unclear right now.” Filming typically gets underway in early summer, but the source notes they are still “a bit out from starting production.”

Taylor cheated on then-girlfriend Brittany Cartwright with Stowers years ago, a storyline which was followed during Season 6. He went on to marry Cartwright last year. Both Schroeder and Doute said their actions against Stowers were not racially driven, but that their emotions had to do with what happened between Taylor and Stowers. They vowed to learn from their white privilege.

Stowers found her own happy ending: She recently welcomed her first child, a baby boy, with her boyfriend.

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Recent Commercial Real Estate Transactions

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Recent Commercial Real Estate Transactions

$12.5 MILLION

161-165 East 179th Street (between Grand Concourse and Creston Avenue)

The Bronx

This 93,400-square-foot building in the Mount Hope neighborhood was built in 1939. It has 84 apartments: 10 studios and 54 one-bedroom, 18 two-bedroom and two three-bedroom units.

Buyer: V&S 179

Seller: The Morgan Group

Broker: Aaron Jungreis of Rosewood Realty Group

$2.94 MILLION

30-90 14th Street (between 30th Drive and 31st Avenue)

Queens

This 11,830-square-foot, four-story building in Astoria has 18 rent-stabilized, two-bedroom apartments, including a basement apartment. The property was built in 1907 and was last sold in February 2016.

Buyer: Dom Casamento

Seller: Freddy Torres

Brokers: Max Belinsky, Dimitri Kapelonis, Constantinos Kapelonis, Austin Roche of BKR Real Estate Group

$62/SQ. FT.

$130,200 approximate annual rent

530 Seventh Avenue (at West 39th Street)

Manhattan

Hickory Lane, a capital management firm, signed a three-year lease for a 2,100-square-foot space on the seventh floor of this 30-story building in the garment district. The space will be the firm’s headquarters. The building was built in 1930.

Tenant: Hickory Lane Capital Management

Tenant’s Broker: Christina Combias of Voro Real Estate

Landlord: Savitt Partners

Landlord’s Brokers: Brian Neugeboren, Nicole Goetz and Alicia Parente of Savitt Partners

$1.3 MILLION

476 Utica Avenue (at Maple Street)

Brooklyn

This single-story industrial building in East Flatbush has 2,930 square feet of space and 17-foot ceilings. The owner’s auto repair shop previously occupied the building, which last changed hands in May 1990.

Seller: Ernest Pierre-Louis

Brokers: Dan Marks and Robert Finnerty of TerraCRG

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Watch: Google incorporates AI noise cancellation feature for G Suite users [video]

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Watch: Google incorporates AI noise cancellation feature for G Suite users [video]

Google are looking to improve its Google Meet service to help it compete with many new competitors in the space. The team at Google will be rolling out an AI solution to try and decrease the noise picked up during calls.

VentureBeat showcased Google’s background noise cancellation in a video which shows how good the app is at filtering out unwanted noise.

In the video G Suite’s director of product management Serge Lachapelle show how the AI noise cancellation is able to remove the sound of a crackling chip packet, a clinking glass and a clicking pen.

How does the noise cancellation feature work?

The feature has been in the works for more than a year now and was initially announced back in April this year just as the workers of the world were retreating to their homes.

Google used thousands of hours of internal meetings and YouTube videos of lots of people talking to train the AI model. The noise cancellation software will also be able to filter out one of the most obvious types of unwanted noise, typing on a keyboard.

The feature is rolling out to G Suite Enterprise and G Suite Enterprise for Education customers at the moment and will be available on web with Android and iOS coming at some point in the future.

Watch: Google Meet’s noise cancellation feature in action

Google’s AI noise cancellation happens in the cloud, which should rightfully raise red flags around security. However, Google has stressed that meeting streams will remain encrypted in transit.

Additionally, Google will not be using user meetings to train AI models. It will instead monitor support channels to assess where the software is encountering challenges.

As much as this still sounds a bit problematic, it’s still likely orders of magnitude more secure than some of the free alternatives out there.

AI to the rescue

The cloud-based solution has the advantage of easily being deployed on various devices and applications as there’s no need for specific hardware or performance specs.

Once the feature has rolled out to users, it will be on by default. Users will be able to switch it off from within the audio options in the Google Meet app.

The initial release is going out to Enterprise users, but it’s believed that this will be rolled out to more users over time. The online meeting space has become somewhat settled with Zoom the big winner so far.

Google, however, are rallying having integrated Meet into Gmail and now looking to make use of it’s AI prowess to improve customer user experience.



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London slavery statue removed from outside museum

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London slavery statue removed from outside museum

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Reuters

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The Canal and River Trust said the statue was removed to “recognise the wishes of the community”

A statue of noted slaveholder Robert Milligan has been removed from outside the Museum of London Docklands.

Sadiq Khan earlier announced a review of all of London’s statues and street names, saying any with links to slavery “should be taken down”.

On Sunday, anti-racism protesters in Bristol tore down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston.

Milligan’s monument was removed to “recognise the wishes of the community” said the Canal and River Trust.

There were cheers and clapping as the monument was lifted from its plinth using a crane.

The Museum of London Docklands said the statue of the prominent British Slave trader, who owned two sugar plantations and 526 slaves in Jamaica, had “stood uncomfortably” outside its premises “for a long time”.

“The Museum of London recognises that the monument is part of the ongoing problematic regime of white-washing history, which disregards the pain of those who are still wrestling with the remnants of the crimes Milligan committed against humanity,” they added.

The Canal and River Trust said it had worked with the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, the museum and partners in Canary Wharf to have it removed.

As the Milligan statue was lowered from its plinth, thousands of people gathered outside an Oxford college to demand the removal of a statue of imperialist Cecil Rhodes.

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Getty Images

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Milligan was a noted slaveholder and founder of London’s global trade hub, West India Docks

Mr Khan said London had to face “an uncomfortable truth” with its historical links to slavery.

The Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm will review the city’s landmarks – including murals, street art, street names, statues and other memorials – and consider which legacies should be celebrated before making recommendations.

Mr Khan said London was “one of the most diverse cities in the world”, but said recent Black Lives Matter protests had highlighted that the city’s statues, plaques and street names largely reflect Victorian Britain.

“It is an uncomfortable truth that our nation and city owes a large part of its wealth to its role in the slave trade,” he said.

“While this is reflected in our public realm, the contribution of many of our communities to life in our capital has been wilfully ignored.”

During a Black Lives Matter protest in central London on Sunday, a statue of Sir Winston Churchill in Parliament Square was sprayed with graffiti.

But Mr Khan said he did not consider statues of the likes of Churchill to be included in the review.

He said pupils needed to be educated about famous figures “warts and all” and that “nobody was perfect”, including the likes of Churchill, Gandhi and Malcolm X.

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The statue of Robert Milligan was covered with a blanket and Black Lives Matter sign before being removed

Mr Khan told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he did not have ownership of the statues and the land they are on.

He also said it would be “inappropriate” to single out which statues and street names he thinks should go.

Instead a number of new memorials in the capital have been pledged by Mr Khan, including ones for Stephen Lawrence, the Windrush generation, a National Slavery Museum or memorial and a National Sikh War Memorial.

Image copyright
Reuters

Image caption

A statue of Sir Winston Churchill was sprayed with graffiti during a Black Lives Matter protest

The Local Government Association’s (LGA) Labour group has also announced that Labour councils across England and Wales are to review “the appropriateness” of monuments and statues in their towns and cities.

Campaigns calling for the removal or amendment of monuments celebrating controversial figures have increased in volume around the UK in recent days.

In Oxford, 26 councillors and an MP have called for a statue of imperialist Cecil Rhodes to be removed from an Oxford University college.

A plaque is to be added to a Henry Dundas monument in Edinburgh to “reflect” the city’s links with slavery, while the leader of Cardiff Council said he would support the removal of a statue of slave-owner Sir Thomas Picton from the city’s civic building.

London statues with links to slavery

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Getty Images

  • Sir Thomas Guy (pictured) made his fortune through ownership of a very large number of shares in the South Sea Company, whose main purpose was to sell slaves to the Spanish Colonies
  • Robert Milligan was a noted West Indian merchant, slaveholder and founder of London’s global trade hub, West India Docks.
  • Aside from founding an educational charity, Sir John Cass was a major figure in the early development of the slave trade and the Atlantic slave economy, directly dealing with slave agents in the African forts and in the Caribbean

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UN General Assembly Session will have no attendees this year since inception – ARY NEWS

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UN General Assembly Session will have no attendees this year since inception – ARY NEWS

For the first time in the 75-year history of the United Nations world leaders will not be coming to New York for their annual gathering in late September.

The president of the U.N. General Assembly in an address confirmed the news saying that the step was taken because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the world.

Read More: UN Adviser on Genocide Prevention raises serious concerns against India

Tijjani Muhammad-Bande said that he hopes to announce in the next two weeks how the 193 heads of state and government will give their speeches on pressing local and world issues during the assembly’s so-called General Debate.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recommended last month that the gathering of world leaders, which was supposed to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, be dramatically scaled back because of the pandemic.

Guterres suggested in a letter to the General Assembly president that heads of state and government deliver prerecorded messages instead, with only one New York-based diplomat from each of the 193 U.N. member nations present in the assembly hall.

Read More: WHO says situation ‘worsening’ worldwide

Muhammad-Bande said that by late September “maybe a hundred or so” people might be allowed in the General Assembly chamber.

The meeting of world leaders usually brings thousands of government officials, diplomats and civil society representatives to New York for over a week of speeches, dinners, receptions, one-on-one meetings and hundreds of side events.

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It’s a lifestyle: Why everyone is rocking around the TikTok clock

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It’s a lifestyle: Why everyone is rocking around the TikTok clock

TikTok has become home to many former Vine users, content creators and teenagers who view it as a safe space and way to express their love for one another. The application has also had a hand in promoting artists and making ordinary people household names.

What makes TikTok so addictive?

What makes TikTok special is its 15-second videos filled with edits, special effects, dancing and comedy. Many people started “advertising” their music on TikTok and have been signed to record labels and gotten recognition from brands, such as Fenty Beauty.

Musical.ly was a popular app where users had the opportunity to lip-sync and sing to music, as well as collaborate with other users to sing a duet. Musical.ly was acquired by a Chinese company known as ByteDance in 2018, which merged the app with its own lip-syncing app known as Douyin. The product of these two applications was the global sensation, TikTok.

TikTok fame: Charli D’Amelio and that ‘Renegade Dance’

Charli D’Amelio took over TikTok as its biggest content creator known for the Renegade Dance which had everyone – even celebrities – doing the crazy arm movements and fast-paced hip thrusts. It was later found out that the dance had belonged to Jalaiah Harmon, a 14-year-old teen from Atlanta.

Nevertheless, Jalaiah received her flowers with various sponsors and public apologies and even appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where she was asked to do her international dance sensation.

But with Charli sitting at more than 50 million followers on TikTok, it just goes to show that we really are in the social media age where people can shoot to international stardom literally overnight.

From TikTok to Fenty Beauty House

TikTok isn’t just home to dancers and teens, but also to makeup artists, such as user Challan Trishann and Neko Chann, who became among the few creators who were invited to stay in the Fenty Beauty House designed by Rihanna for makeup artists and content creators to live in and promote her brand.

Billy Ray Cyrus goes down ‘Old Town Road’

The app has also become a platform for artists to promote their music through dance videos.

One of the biggest successes of the app was when Lil Nas X promoted his worldwide hit Old Town Road and it garnered the attention of country music legend Billy Ray Cyrus, who appeared on the remix and spent 17 weeks as No 1 on Billboard, making it the longest running single in Billboard history.

Other established artists have had their songs promoted and played through dance challenges, such as Megan Thee Stallion’s Savage, Doja Cat’s Say So and K Camp’s Lottery/Renegade.

TikTok isn’t just an app for Gen Z, a replacement for Vine or a way to pass time. It is a way of getting yourself out there and has encouraged many people to come out of their shells and use their insecurities to create content. It is a lifestyle.



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Yosemite National Park To Reopen This Week

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Yosemite National Park To Reopen This Week

Yosemite National Park is reopening to the public on Thursday after being closed for nearly three months during the coronavirus pandemic, but visitors should expect limited access.

The Northern California park known for its sky-scraping waterfalls, deep canyons and towering rock formations has been closed since March 20 and is one of the last of the country’s 419 national parks to reopen to visitors. 

“There is no place like Yosemite, and we can’t wait to welcome visitors back,” the park’s acting superintendent Cicely Muldoon said in a statement. “It’s going to be a different kind of summer, and we will continue to work hand in hand with our gateway communities to protect community health and restore access to Yosemite National Park.”

Yosemite, one of the busiest national parks, will allow just 1,700 vehicles to enter the park each day. That’s about half the typical number that enter in June, park officials say, and everyone entering will need to have made a reservation.

Several facilities, including some trails, viewpoints and shuttles, will remain closed. 

Yosemite’s wildlife has thrived during its closure, park rangers have said over the last few months. With visitors away, the visible bear population has quadrupled, while coyotes, deer, bobcats and other creatures are freely roaming areas typically packed with throngs of tourists. 

While Yosemite has a plan in place, the Department of the Interior has come under fire in recent weeks for being too hands-off in helping parks open safely while COVID-19 remains a threat. It wasn’t until just days before the busy Memorial Day weekend, that managers at parks that had already opened received guidance from the Interior department on resuming operations, controlling crowds and encouraging social distancing, according to internal documents HuffPost obtained last month. 

A HuffPost Guide To Coronavirus



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Army Chief Gen Bajwa discusses peace process with Afghan leadership during Kabul trip

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Army Chief Gen Bajwa discusses peace process with Afghan leadership during Kabul trip

‘Both sides discussed current developments in Afghan Peace Process and necessary steps to be undertaken to facilitate an Afghan led and Afghan owned peace process,’ DG ISPR said in a statement. ISPR/Handout via The News

RAWALPINDI/KABUL: Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa discussed the Afghan peace process with Kabul’s leadership during a visit to the neighbouring country, the military’s media wing said Tuesday.

In the statement, Director-General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Babar Iftikhar said the army chief held one-on-one meetings with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and High Council for National Reconciliation Chairperson Dr Abdullah Abdullah.

Gen Bajwa was accompanied by Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Special Representative for Afghanistan Affairs, Ambassador Mohammad Sadiq, Maj Gen Iftikhar added.

“Both sides discussed current developments in Afghan Peace Process and necessary steps to be undertaken to facilitate an Afghan led and Afghan owned peace process.

“Issues related to facilitation of trade and connectivity also came under discussion. Both sides agreed that a dignified and time-bound return of Afghan Refugees from Pakistan is key towards normalcy,” the statement added.

The Afghan president expressed his appreciation for PM Imran for opening the Torkham and Chaman borders and “allowing Afghan transit goods and facilitating stranded Afghans to return to Afghanistan by land and air routes.”

“The President was also appreciative of the role being played by Pakistan for Afghan Peace Process,” the statement noted.

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Brazil Must Be Open With Its Coronavirus Data, Supreme Court Justice Rules

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Brazil Must Be Open With Its Coronavirus Data, Supreme Court Justice Rules

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, seen greeting supporters late last month in Brasilia, has argued that the economic fallout from stay-at-home orders is worse than the virus itself.

Evaristo Sa/AFP via Getty Images


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Evaristo Sa/AFP via Getty Images

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, seen greeting supporters late last month in Brasilia, has argued that the economic fallout from stay-at-home orders is worse than the virus itself.

Evaristo Sa/AFP via Getty Images

A justice on Brazil’s top court has ordered the president’s administration to make its coronavirus data publicly available.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes said in an order dated Monday that Brazil’s Health Ministry must resume publishing the running totals for confirmed deaths and infections — a practice the department recently halted to widespread criticism.

Brazil’s government, caught in the throes of South America’s worst coronavirus outbreak, abruptly ended public access to much of its past data earlier this month, instead sharing only the number of new confirmed cases each day.

But de Moraes said that concealing such information may hobble efforts to understand the virus, interfere with the public interest and, in general, have “disastrous consequences” for the country’s response to the pandemic. Plus, it violates the government’s “constitutional duty” to seek to protect “the life and health of all Brazilians.”

So he is telling the Health Ministry to resume its coronavirus updates as they were delivered until last Thursday with regularity and make past data again available.

The legal drama is unfolding against a backdrop of increasing urgency in Brazil, which has suffered the world’s third-highest confirmed COVID-19 death toll, behind the United States and United Kingdom.

Its more than 700,000 confirmed cases are surpassed only by the U.S., and none of its neighbors in South America has suffered devastation from the disease on the scale that Brazil has.

A gravedigger stands at a cemetery in Manaus, Brazil, where COVID-19 victims have been buried in recent weeks. The pandemic has killed more people in Brazil than nearly any other country in the world.

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Michael Dantas/AFP via Getty Images

A gravedigger stands at a cemetery in Manaus, Brazil, where COVID-19 victims have been buried in recent weeks. The pandemic has killed more people in Brazil than nearly any other country in the world.

Michael Dantas/AFP via Getty Images

With rampant deficiencies in testing and questions about the country’s overall response, Brazil’s toll also is likely far higher than the official numbers reflect.

Despite recent spikes — including a record number of new daily cases shortly before the public data was pulled — President Jair Bolsonaro, a close political ally of U.S. President Trump, has continued to push local leaders to ease their coronavirus restrictions and reopen their economies. He has encouraged large rallies of his supporters and repeatedly questioned the measures implemented across the country.

In the midst of this controversy, the Health Ministry’s decision to remove older numbers from its publicly available data was met over the weekend with protests from demonstrators and condemnations from medical experts who called the decision dangerous.

As Brazil's COVID-19 Cases Continue To Climb, Some Areas Prepare To Ease Restrictions

Others, including another Supreme Court justice, Gilmar Mendes, likened it to authoritarianism. “Manipulation of statistics,” he tweeted, “is a maneuver of totalitarian regimes.”

In a statement posted last weekend to Bolsonaro’s Facebook account explaining the Health Ministry’s decision to yank archival data from its official website, the president said the older information was simply “not representative” of the situation in the country.

“The dissemination of 24-hour data,” the statement explained, “allows you to monitor the reality of the country at this time and determine appropriate strategies for public service.”

The Health Ministry appeared partly to walk back its decision by Sunday, publishing cumulative tallies again, albeit with a different presentation. The main dashboard still presents only new confirmed cases, new deaths and new recovered cases.

In his court order, de Moraes gave the ministry 48 hours to resume providing public access to its data on the coronavirus as it had before.

NPR’s Philip Reeves contributed to this report.



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