The nation's top infectious disease expert remains concerned that large-scale gatherings like President Trump's campaign rallies will lead to more coronavirus outbreaks.
Amy Cooper, the white woman who called police on a Black man after he asked her to leash her dog in Central Park, called 911 twice during the Memorial Day incident, falsely stating in a previously unreported call that he “tried to assault her,” prosecutors revealed Wednesday.Cooper, 41, was charged in July with a misdemeanor count of falsely reporting an incident in the third degree, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office said. In a 911 call captured in a viral video, she allegedly falsely reported that Christian Cooper, 57, was threatening her life. The charge is punishable by up to a year in jail.However, Cyrus R. Vance, the Manhattan district attorney, said in a statement Wednesday that Cooper allegedly “engaged in racist criminal conduct” when she made a second 911 call in which she “falsely accused a Black man of trying to assault her.” “Fortunately, no one was injured or killed in the police response to Ms. Cooper’s hoax,” the statement said.Black Birdwatcher Declines to Cooperate With Police in Case Against White Woman Who Called the Police on HimDuring a brief court hearing on Wednesday, Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi stressed that at no time during the May 25 encounter did Christian Cooper try to assault the 41-year-old woman, stating that “using the police in a way that is both racially offensive and designed to intimidate is something that can’t be ignored.”Cooper is negotiating a plea deal with Manhattan prosecutors that would spare her jail time. Illuzzi said Cooper was prepared to “take responsibility for her actions” and will be working with her defense team to explore a rehabilitative program that would “educate her and the community on the harm caused by such actions.”“We hope this process will both enlighten, heal and prevent similar harm to our community in the future,” the prosecutor added. “This process can be an opportunity for introspection and education.”Authorities say that, on May 25, Cooper was walking her dog through the Ramble in Central Park, a woodsy area of the New York City sanctuary where dogs must be leashed, when Christian Cooper approached her. Christian Cooper, an avid bird watcher and PR professional, asked the 41-year-old to leash her dog but she refused. The two individuals are not related.In the video taken by Christian Cooper, Amy Cooper gets increasingly upset by his request and states she is going to call the police and tell them, “There’s an African American man threatening my life.”“I’m in the Ramble, there is a man, African-American, he has a bicycle helmet and he is recording me and threatening me and my dog,” Amy Cooper is then heard yelling to a 911 operator while gripping her dog’s collar. Before hanging up, she adds: “I am being threatened by a man in the Ramble, please send the cops immediately!”Before the video ends, Christian Cooper calmly thanks her when she finally puts her dog on a leash. His sister, Melody, later posted the video on social media, where it went viral—igniting worldwide outrage over Amy Cooper’s white privilege.In the second, previously unreported 911 call, the 41-year-old repeated the accusation to another NYPD dispatcher before adding that the birder “tried to assault her,” according to the DA’s office. “When responding officers arrived, Ms. Cooper admitted that the male had not ‘tried to assault’ or come into contact with her,” the DA’s office said Wednesday.A day after the incident, Cooper was fired from her job as the head of insurance portfolio management at Franklin Templeton. The company said it doesn’t “tolerate racism of any kind.” The 41-year-old also surrendered her dog, Henry, to the shelter he was adopted from—though she was later reunited with the cocker spaniel.In a public apology issued on May 26, Cooper said she “reacted emotionally and made false assumptions about his intentions when, in fact, I was the one who was acting inappropriately by not having my dog on a leash.”“He had every right to request that I leash my dog in an area where it was required. I am well aware of the pain that misassumptions and insensitive statements about race cause and would never have imagined that I would be involved in the type of incident that occurred with Chris,” Cooper said in the statement.“I hope that a few mortifying seconds in a lifetime of forty years will not define me in his eyes and that he will accept my sincere apology.”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.
John Blade is accused of using self checkout and not scanning items
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday singled out the "religious practices" of Orthodox Jews as the cause of renewed spread of the coronavirus in New York City."We're now having issues in the Orthodox Jewish community in New York, where because of their religious practices, etc., we're seeing a spread," Cuomo said.Last week, Orthodox Jewish leaders vehemently criticized Cuomo and took to the streets of Brooklyn to protest the governor's new coronavirus restrictions on schools, businesses, and houses of worship. The restrictions would shutter schools, non-essential businesses, and strictly limit the number of congregants allowed in houses of worship, in some areas allowing only ten worshippers at a time. Many of the Brooklyn and Queens "red zones" designated for the new restrictions are Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods.“We are appalled by Governor Cuomo’s words and actions today,” read a letter from four Orthodox Jewish lawmakers who represent the neighborhoods affected by the new restrictions. “He has chosen to pursue a scientifically and constitutionally questionable shutdown of our communities.”During a protest in Borough Park, demonstrators lit at least one fire in the street, and activist Harold "Heshy" Tischler was charged in an alleged attack on an Orthodox Jewish reporter who was targeted by the crowd during the protest.Cuomo blamed the growing frustration on the failure of communities to follow the state's previous restrictions, allowing the virus to spread.“To the extent there are communities that are upset, that’s because they haven’t been following the original rules,” Cuomo said. “That’s why the infection spread, because they weren’t following the rules and the rules weren’t being enforced.”Coronavirus hospitalizations spiked Wednesday from 705 to 748 patients, Cuomo said.The coronavirus outbreak in New York is entering a "new phase," the governor said, specifically "mini clusters" across the state that spring from a single event, such as a party or bar that did not observe social distancing rules."This is not going away anytime soon," Cuomo said. "Best case scenario, we're looking at another year … even if everything works out well."
Footprints left by a prehistoric mother and her toddler dodging sabre-toothed cats and wolves have been unearthed in the US. The trackway, the longest set of fossil human prints ever found, stretches for almost a mile - and dates back 13,000 years. It tells the remarkable story of the pair's journey as they made their way across treacherous mudflats with hungry giant predators on their tail. An analysis found the woman was moving at a rapid pace - intermittently carrying and putting down a two-year-old child. British and US scientists say the toddler was "tired and probably cranky" and describe the scene as "the stuff of every parent's nightmare."
MARTUNI, Nagorno-Karabakh (AP) — As the fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces rages on in the separatist territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, its residents are joining volunteer squads to defend their towns. The Ovanisyan family and their neighbors were called Wednesday to receive their Kalashnikov rifles to help protect Martuni, a town close to the front line in the eastern part of the region. The recent fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh erupted on Sept. 27 and has since killed hundreds.
White South African farmers and rival Black protesters hurled abuse and threats at each other on Friday ahead of a court hearing in a murder case that has exposed still simmering racial tensions 26 years after the end of apartheid. The killing of Brendan Horner, a white man whose body was found tied to a pole at his farm in Free State province, sparked riots at the start of this month, and prompted President Cyril Ramaphosa to make a statement urging South Africans to "resist attempts... to mobilise communities along racial lines". The farmers, who accuse the government of failing to protect them from violent crime, arrived in pick-up trucks ahead of the court hearing in the central town of Senekal for Horner's two suspected killers.
The Broward County Sheriff’s office fired two top administrators after a woman who went into labor in her jail cell was not given medical care despite screams of pain.
One group started an online petition calling for Feinstein to step down from her leadership role on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The U.S. Postal Service agreed Wednesday to reverse changes that slowed mail service nationwide, settling a lawsuit filed by Montana Gov. Steve Bullock during a pandemic that is expected to force many more people to vote by mail.