Wikipedia article of the day for July 31, 2019

The Wikipedia article of the day for July 31, 2019 is Henry W. Sawyer.
Henry W. Sawyer (1918–1999) was an American lawyer, civil rights activist, and Democratic politician. Born in Philadelphia, he served in World War II and attended the University of Pennsylvania Law School. After graduating, he joined the law firm of Drinker Biddle & Reath and remained with them for his entire career. Sawyer worked as a corporate lawyer but is best known for his advocacy of civil liberties, especially in First Amendment cases. In Abington School District v. Schempp and Lemon v. Kurtzman, he successfully argued cases before the Supreme Court of the United States (building pictured) that became the basis for all modern Establishment Clause jurisprudence. He pursued civil rights causes in Philadelphia and in the South during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. He also served a four-year term on the Philadelphia City Council, where he worked on civil service reform and the acquisition of public art for the city.

Gilroy garlic festival shooting: Gunman shot dead after killing at least three at California event

A six-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl were among those killed by a gunman who opened fire at a popular food festival in California on Sunday.  Santino William Legan, 19, appeared to target people randomly as he began shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival after cutting through a fence to gain entry, according to the police.  He killed three people and injured another 12 with an assault-style rifle before being fatally shot by police officers who responded to the incident in less than a minute.  Six-year-old Stephen Romero, the 13-year-old girl and a man in his 20s were killed, officials and authorities said. The motive for the attack is unclear.  Alberto Romero, Stephen's father, told the San Francisco Bay Area news station KNTV: "My son had his whole life to live and he was only 6. That's all I can say." The attack came at the end of the three-day festival in Gilroy, a city in north California known as the "Garlic Capital of the World”. The event is attended by more than 100,000 people.  Festival attendees have to pass through metal detectors and have their bags searched, but the shooter is believed to have gained access through a fence near a car park. Details of the attack are still emerging.  BREAKING UPDATE: Ambulance crews were told 11 people down in a reported shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival. https://t.co/ufzR4VllULpic.twitter.com/giApm5t2bX— Stephen Ellison (@sj_ellison) July 29, 2019 Jack van Breen, a musician playing at the festival, said he saw a man wearing a green shirt and grayish handkerchief around his neck fire into the food area with what looked like an assault rifle. He and other members of the band dove under the stage. Mr Van Breen said he heard someone shout: "Why are you doing this?" The reply was: "Because I'm really angry." Donna Carlson of Reno, Nevada, told reporters she was helping a friend at a jewellery booth when "all of a sudden it was pop, pop, pop.” She hid behind a table until police said it was safe to leave.  Donald Trump, the US president, condemned the "wicked murderer” during an event at the White House on Monday morning.  He said: "We express our deepest sadness and sorrow for the families who lost a precious loved one in the horrific shooting last night in Gilroy, California.” Police Chief Scot Smithee said police officers in the area confronted the suspect less than a minute after he opened fire, and the suspect was shot and killed. "He had some sort of a rifle," Mr Smithee said, adding they were investigating the possibility there was a second shooter. Witnesses reported confusion and panic as shots rang out at the event in the city of 50,000 located about 80 miles southeast of San Francisco.  People leave the Gilroy Garlic Festival following a deadly shooting Credit: AP Videos posted on social media appeared to show festival attendees scattering in confusion as at least one loud popping sound could be heard in the background. "What's going on?" a woman can be heard asking on one video. "Who'd shoot up a garlic festival?" Herman Solis, of Hollister, said he and his girlfriend dropped to the ground when he heard shots fired. “You could hear the bullets whizzing by,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle. “It was unreal. We ran and ducked for cover. It was chaos. At first I thought it was fireworks. Then I realised it wasn’t.” Another witness, Julissa Contreras, told NBC a white man in his 30s armed with a rifle opened fire indiscriminately. "I could see him shooting in just every direction. He wasn't aiming at anyone specifically. It was just left to right, right to left," Ms Contreras told the network. Emergency personnel stand outside Gilroy High School Credit: AP Tim Cook, the Apple CEO, shared his condolences on Twitter, saying he was "deeply saddened" by the targeting of the "beloved community tradition". Earlier Gilroy police said: “The hearts of the Gilroy Police Department and the entire community go out to the victims of today's shooting at the Garlic Festival.”

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2OpKHDq

Trump’s Racist Tweets Don't Break Any Rules, Twitter Says

Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero/The Daily BeastPresident Donald Trump’s spree of tweets attacking black political figures over the weekend do not violate Twitter’s rules prohibiting dehumanizing language, the company said. Trump wrote that Rep. Elijah Cummings’ (D-MD) congressional district, a majority-black area that includes part of Baltimore, was a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” and that “no human being” would want to live there. He further retweeted a British conservative commentator who called Baltimore “a proper shithole.” A day later, the president said there was “nothing racist” about his tweets, turning his criticism toward longtime Democratic political operative Rev. Al Sharpton, who he called a conman.In early July, Twitter announced new rules disallowing tweets that deny the humanity of religious groups after nearly a year of deliberation and public comment. The company considered banning all dehumanizing speech, including attacks on geographic origin, reportedly using the president’s “shithole countries” remark as an example, but narrowed the policy to encompass religion and groups explicitly protected by civil rights laws.Cummings, chair of the House Oversight Committee, has been investigating Trump and recently decried detention conditions at the Southern U.S. border. Last week the president made similar attacks against four newly minted Representatives, all women of color, telling them to go back to their countries. Three of four were born in the U.S. The comments also did not run afoul of Twitter’s rules.Whether Trump’s racist tweets violate Twitter’s rules has long been a subject of debate, and Twitter has often fallen back on the defense that, as the U.S. president, his remarks are newsworthy and should remain visible. Under a policy announced in late June, however, Twitter said it will label tweets by prominent figures that break the social network’s abusive behavior rules when it's “in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain available.” Twitter opted not to give Trump’s latest set of tweets that label. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2YDO79y

US senator helps pregnant migrant with life-threatening condition apply for asylum at US-Mexico border

A pregnant Mexican woman suffering complications was told by immigration officers that they couldn’t process her family’s asylum claim at the US border on Saturday before a US senator intervened to persuade the officers to take the woman to a Texas hospital.While visiting a migrant shelter on Saturday, Ron Wyden grew concerned about a woman who was 38 weeks pregnant and suffering from pre-eclampsia and other complications.The senator and his staff decided to take the woman, her husband and 3-year-old son to a port of entry to make their asylum claim.At the Paso del Norte Bridge linking Juárez and El Paso, the family approached two US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers, presented their identification and said they wanted to request asylum.They then heard the words that tens of thousands of asylum seekers have been told for more than a year at the US-Mexico border: “We’re full,” a CBP officer told them.Mr Wyden, who had followed behind the family along with an entourage of staff members and friends from Oregon, then stepped forward and identified himself.He told the officers that Mexicans are exempt from the “metering” programme CBP has used to strictly control the number of people allowed to request asylum at ports of entry.He also told the officers the woman was late term in her pregnancy and suffering complications.The officers called a supervisor, who arrived minutes later, and allowed the family to go to the port of entry to make their asylum claim.Mr Wyden was clearly shaken by his two-day visit to the border, which included a tour of CBP holding cells and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility.At the Juárez shelter, he met a 3-year-old boy who had stopped speaking after being held with his father by the US Border Patrol and then sent back to Mexico.Mr Wyden spoke with families who were required to stay in Mexico for six months before their first US immigration court hearing.“These policies that I’ve seen are not what America is about. And in fact what we saw with respect to the woman who is here today is just a blatant violation of US law,” Mr Wyden said, referring to the pregnant woman.He said he believed the CBP agents would have turned away the family if he had not intervened, a sentiment echoed by Taylor Levy, an El Paso immigration attorney who took Mr Wyden and his staff to Juárez.“I feel very confident that if the family had tried to present alone, they would not have been allowed in,” Ms Levy said.A CBP spokesman said the officer would not have told the family that asylum processing was at capacity if they had explained that they were Mexican and that the mother was pregnant.However, the family gave the officer, whose uniform identified his last name as Loya, a folder that contained their Mexican birth certificates and identification.Shaw Drake, the policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Border Rights Centre in El Paso, Texas, said he asked the officer afterward if the family had identified themselves as Mexican asylum seekers, and the officer said they had.Mr Wyden was also critical of a CBP officer who told the senator’s staff they were not allowed to take photos or video on the bridge.The ACLU’s Mr Drake said the officer, whose name tag identified him as Castro, was wrong, and he told the staff they could continue to record.“Certainly it looked like it had the potential for not going well. The ACLU folks talked about their legal rights to be able to record the [processing], and one of the officers said, ‘We have a situation’,” Mr Wyden said.“So having done this for a while, those are the kinds of things that concern you and might suggest it’s not going well.”Metering is used as a way to cap the number of people allowed to apply for asylum at ports of entry.Mexicans are supposed to be exempt from metering under US asylum laws, Mr Drake said. He said he had seen CBP agents turning back Mexican asylum seekers before.“If someone arrives on our border and expresses a fear of return to their home country, the government is barred from returning that person to their home country until a process has been followed to determine whether they have the right to remain in the United States as an asylee or a refugee,” he said.“And so turning a Mexican away at the border, back into Mexico, is directly returning an asylum seeker to the country from which they’re fleeing persecution with no process to determine whether they have a fear of returning to that country.”Mr Wyden met the family, who asked not to be identified, at a shelter that houses about 250 migrants in Juárez. They were sharing a small room with 11 other migrants.They said they were from the Mexican state of Guerrero and wanted to seek asylum because they feared violence from drug cartels and their government allies.“There’s a lot of insecurity, and the government is involved and corrupted with the cartels. There’s just no way to survive,” the father told Mr Wyden.The family showed Mr Wyden their number for the metering list, which is kept by the Chihuahua State Population Council in Juárez.The number 17,647 was handwritten on a slip of paper. More than 5,000 people were ahead of them on the list, meaning they faced a four- or five-month wait before being allowed to come to a US port of entry and seek asylum.The family said they had not previously gone to a port of entry because they thought they had to get on the metering list.Lauren Herbert, an Oregon paediatrician who accompanied Mr Wyden on the border tour, said she became concerned when talking to the mother.“She had a previous diagnosis of preeclampsia, which already places her at high risk,” Herbert said after the family crossed the border.“And then she described two days of leaking fluid,” which could indicate a ruptured membrane that threatened the life of mother and unborn child. “This is a high-risk pregnancy, and she needs to be seen by a doctor. Now.”After Mr Wyden met the woman and her family, Ms Levy, the immigration attorney, and Mr Drake urged the senator to push CBP to get the woman to a hospital as soon as possible.“The US government keeps saying that they don’t put Mexicans on the metering list and that Mexicans will always be accepted because they’re fleeing Mexico,” Ms Levy said. She suggested Mr Wyden approach the border officers along with an ACLU representative and lawyers.“That’s what we’re going to do,” Mr Wyden said.About an hour later, the family was undergoing initial processing by CBP to begin their asylum claim. CBP officials told Mr Wyden that the mother would quickly be taken to a hospital for evaluation. Their status was not clear on Saturday night.Ian Philabaum, programme director for the legal group Innovation Law Lab who accompanied the senator on his two-day border tour, said the family’s plight would have been much different without Mr Wyden’s assistance.“If not for the presence of a US senator, another asylum-seeker would have been sent back to dangerous conditions in Mexico, the same country she is fleeing, and despite the fact that she is pregnant and in dire need of medical attention,” he said..Washington Post

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2MnrbVl

Michelle Obama issues veiled rebuke of Trump after Baltimore insults

Michelle Obama appeared to issue a veiled rebuke of Donald Trump after he lashed out at a Democratic congressman and called his district “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess”. The former US first lady tweeted a video of a group of dancers from Elijah Cummings' Baltimore district, hours after Trump launched an attack on the congressman.“On NationalDanceDay, I’m shouting out the Lethal Ladies, a Baltimore STEP team who I saw perform back in 2017. I’m so proud of you all – and everyone who’s dancing today!” Ms Obama wrote.The video that Ms Obama shared shows a group of young women performing a routine to her slogan “when they go low, we go high”.While Ms Obama, who was the world’s most admired woman in 2019 according to a YouGov poll, did not directly reference Mr Trump, her tweet was widely regarded as a rebuke to his recent remarks. The US president attacked Mr Cummings in a series of vicious tweets on Saturday morning, which appeared to have been inspired by a Fox & Friends report that aired minutes before his outburst.Mr Trump described the Baltimore district as a “filthy” and “rat and rodent infested mess” where “no human being would want to live”.He later doubled down on his attack and shared a tweet from the far-right commentator Katie Hopkins, describing the city as a “s***hole”.> On NationalDanceDay, I'm shouting out the Lethal Ladies, a Baltimore STEP team who I saw perform back in 2017. I’m so proud of you all—and everyone who’s dancing today! pic.twitter.com/U15Be9wSMs> > — Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) > > July 27, 2019The US president added that there was “nothing racist” about his tweets after he was widely criticised by a number of prominent Democrats including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.However, political commentators have noted that Mr Trump has used the word "infested" six times on his Twitter account – and each time it has been in reference to areas populated predominantly by people of colour. Mr Trump’s attacks on Mr Cummings are just the latest in a weeks-long series of insulting tweets against minority members of Congress. Last week, he told four Democratic congresswomen of colour - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar \- to “go back” to their countries.However, all four congresswomen are US citizens and only Ms Omar was born outside of the country.Ms Obama appeared to weigh in on Mr Trump’s attack on the four lawmakers, tweeting that diversity is “what truly makes our country great".“Whether we are born here or seek refuge here, there’s a place for us all," she added. “We must remember it’s not my America or your America. It’s our America.”While Ms Obama did not directly reference the US president, her words appeared to echo Mr Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America great again”.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2Mk7EFn

CORRECTED-UPDATE 2-Britain tells Iran: release ship to 'come out of the dark'

Britain told Iran on Monday that if it wants to "come out of the dark" it must follow international rules and release a British-flagged oil tanker seized by its forces in the Gulf. Iranian commandos seized the Stena Impero near the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important waterway for oil shipments, on July 19. "If the Iranians want to come of the dark and be accepted as a responsible member of the intentional community they need to adhere to rules-based system of the international community," Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told Sky News.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2ZiXxUS

'Stay inside and lock your doors': Tiny Canadian village on lockdown as teenage murder spree suspects spotted scavenging for food

A massive police manhunt has been launched in a remote part of northern Canada for a pair of teenager double murder suspects.The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has been chasing Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, for weeks since the pair were connected to two separate killings in British Columbia earlier this month.The teenagers have been tracked in a series of stolen cars as they have travelled thousands of miles across Canada, from its Pacific coast in the west all to the way east to rural Manitoba.Police helicopters, a plane, drones, dog units and armed officers have flooded the area around York Landing, a small village in remote northern Manitoba, where a local indigenous neighbourhood watch group had spotted the duo.Officers tweeted residents in York Landing should stay inside and lock all their doors and windows while the heavy police presence searched their community.James Favel from the Bear Clan Patrol, the First Nations group which reported the sighting, said some of his volunteers spotted two young men who matched the description of Mr McLeod and Mr Schmegelsky.The pair immediately stood out in the small, close-knit village while scavenging for food near a dump and ran away as soon as they realised they had been seen, he added.RCMP units had already been searching the nearby town of Gillam and believe the pair have been cornered in this region of rural Manitoba.But the intense police presence was leaving its mark on the locals. “Up here, all the towns and communities, they look like ghost towns,” said Wade Taylor, another volunteer with the Bear Clan Patrol.“Like, everyone’s inside. There’s a high level of stress, anxiety and fearfulness because they’re being kept in their houses.“Some of the people, you can tell by their voice that they’re almost at the point of breaking down crying. You could say it’s traumatic.”The manhunt saga began on 12 July when Mr McLeod and Mr Schmegelsky, childhood friends, left their home in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island and travelled 1,500 miles north to Whitehorse, in the Yukon, to look for work.But on 15 July police discovered the bodies of a young couple near Liard Hot Springs, back in British Columbia and the RCMP has said the teenagers are suspects in the case and wanted for questioning.A few days later a burnt-out truck driven by the pair was discovered, along with the body of Leonard Dyck. Mr McLeod and Mr Schmegelsky have been charged with his murder and chased across Canada by the RCMP ever since.The duo are believed to be armed and the public has been warned not to approach them.The father of Mr Schmegelsky has told reporters he believes his son is on a “suicide mission” and expects him to eventually die in a confrontation with the police. “A normal child doesn’t travel across the country killing people,” he said. “A child in some very serious pain does.”

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2JZskAT

Harrowing photos show Guatemalan mother begging Mexican soldiers to let her cross into U.S.

Last Monday, photographer Jose Luis Gonzalez shot photos of the moment LedyPerez begged a Mexican National Guard soldier to let her and her 6-year-oldson Anthony Diaz cross into the United States

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2OpSeSD

China to weigh in on deepening Hong Kong crisis

After weeks of increasingly violent protests, China's top policy body on Hong Kong affairs was set to hold an extremely rare press briefing Monday on the crisis engulfing the financial hub, where dozens of protesters were arrested in weekend clashes with police. What began as a mass display of opposition to an extradition bill two months ago has morphed into a wider pro-democracy movement that has thrown down the most significant challenge to Beijing's authority since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997. While China has issued increasingly shrill condemnations of the protests in the last two weeks, it has largely left the city's pro-Beijing administration to deal with the situation.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2Oxoaoi

Baltimore paper blasts Trump after his attacks on city: 'Better to have a few rats than to be one'

The Baltimore Sun editorial board lit up President Trump Saturday night for his Twitter tirade against its city and Rep. Elijah Cummings, the powerful Democrat who represents Maryland’s Seventh District.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/30VfyJc