Americans remember George Floyd on fifth anniversary of death
The murder of Floyd, a black man, in Minneapolis by police officer Derek Chauvin led to nationwide protests against racism and police brutality. On Sunday, Floyd's family gathered in their hometown of Houston near Floyd's gravesite for an event led by the Rev Al Sharpton, while Minneapolis held several commemorations.
What many hailed as a national 'reckoning' with racism after Floyd's death, though, seems to be fading as President Donald Trump starts to roll back police reforms in Minneapolis and other cities.
In Minneapolis, community members planned a morning church service, a candlelight vigil and an evening gospel concert on Sunday to remember Floyd. The events were a part of the annual Rise and Remember Festival taking place in George Floyd Square, the intersection where Floyd was murdered and which has since been named to honour him.
'Now is the time for the people to rise up and continue the good work we started,' Angela Harrelson, Floyd's aunt and co-chair of the Rise and Remember nonprofit, said in a statement about the festival.
In Houston, where Floyd grew up and where he is buried, local organisations planned poetry sessions, musical performances and speeches by local pastors.
Floyd was murdered in 2020 during a police arrest in Minneapolis when Chauvin, a white police officer, stood on his neck for more than nine minutes. The killing - captured on a bystander's phone camera - sparked global outrage and a wave of demonstrations against racial injustice and police use of force. (Agencies)
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Qatar Tribune
11-08-2025
- Qatar Tribune
Big tech's power needs strain grids, raise rates
Agencies Amid rising electric bills, states are under pressure to insulate regular household and business ratepayers from the costs of feeding Big Tech's energy-hungry data centers. It's not clear that any state has a solution and the actual effect of data centers on electricity bills is difficult to pin down. Some critics question whether states have the spine to take a hard line against tech behemoths like Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta. But more than a dozen states have begun taking steps as data centers drive a rapid build-out of power plants and transmission lines. That has meant pressuring the nation's biggest power grid operator to clamp down on price increases, studying the effect of data centers on electricity bills or pushing data center owners to pay a larger share of local transmission costs. Rising power bills are 'something legislators have been hearing a lot about. It's something we've been hearing a lot about. More people are speaking out at the public utility commission in the past year than I've ever seen before,' said Charlotte Shuff of the Oregon Citizens' Utility Board, a consumer advocacy group. 'There's a massive outcry.' Some data centers could require more electricity than cities the size of Pittsburgh, Cleveland or New Orleans, and make huge factories look tiny by comparison. That's pushing policymakers to rethink a system that, historically, has spread transmission costs among classes of consumers that are proportional to electricity use. 'A lot of this infrastructure, billions of dollars of it, is being built just for a few customers and a few facilities and these happen to be the wealthiest companies in the world,' said Ari Peskoe, who directs the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard University. 'I think some of the fundamental assumptions behind all this just kind of breaks down.' A fix, Peskoe said, is a 'can of worms' that pits ratepayer classes against one another. Some officials downplay the role of data centers in pushing up electric bills. Tricia Pridemore, who sits on Georgia's Public Service Commission and is president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, pointed to an already tightened electricity supply and increasing costs for power lines, utility poles, transformers and generators as utilities replace aging equipment or harden it against extreme weather. The data centers needed to accommodate the artificial intelligence boom are still in the regulatory planning stages, Pridemore said, and the Data Center Coalition, which represents Big Tech firms and data center developers, has said its members are committed to paying their fair share. But growing evidence suggests that the electricity bills of some Americans are rising to subsidize the massive energy needs of Big Tech as the U.S. competes in a race against China for artificial intelligence superiority. Data and analytics firm Wood Mackenzie published a report in recent weeks that suggested 20 proposed or effective specialized rates for data centers in 16 states it studied aren't nearly enough to cover the cost of a new natural gas power plant.
Qatar Tribune
06-08-2025
- Qatar Tribune
Brazil's economy ready to ride out Donald Trump's 50% tariff
Agencies Brazilian goods imported by the United States will soon carry one of the highest tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, but that will not likely derail Latin America's largest economy, due to ample exemptions and stronger trade ties with China. The lower stakes for the Brazilian economy give President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva more room to stand his ground against Trump than most Western leaders, after calling him an unwanted global 'emperor' and comparing his tariff threats to blackmail. Lula has said he is open to negotiating a trade deal, but dismissed Trump's complaints about the trial of right-wing ally Jair Bolsonaro as a threat to Brazilian sovereignty and judicial independence. Brazil's Supreme Court is trying the ex-president for allegedly plotting to overturn the 2022 election he lost to Lula. Those tensions, stoked by Bolsonaro's house arrest on Monday, are likely to make negotiations about the 50 percent US tariff on Brazilian goods between Washington and Brasilia thorny and drawn out, even as the fallout for Brazil's economy looks limited. Unlike Mexico and Canada, which sell about three-quarters of their exports to the United States, Americans buy just 12 percent of Brazilian exports. By comparison, Brazil's exports to China have doubled in value over the past decade, now accounting for 28 percent of the country's total exemptions laid out in Trump's executive order last week, including on aircraft, energy, and orange juice, the tariff taking effect on Wednesday will apply to just under 36 percent of Brazilian exports to the US by value, according to estimates in Brasilia. Many of the affected exports are commodities such as beef and coffee, which should find alternative markets at modest discounts, according to economists. 'We were already expecting a limited impact, but it dropped further with the exemptions,' said Luiza Pinese, an economist at XP, who halved her forecast for the tariff impact on Brazil's gross domestic product this year to 0.15 percentage points. Goldman Sachs maintained its projection for Brazil's economy to grow 2.3 percent this year in light of the 'notable' exemptions, adding that government support for affected sectors, expected in the coming days, should further soften the economic blow. 'Brazil depends on the United States, that's true, but also on BRICS countries, on Europe, on Mercosur,' Planning Minister Simone Tebet said at a public event last week, referring to major developing nations such as China, India, and Russia and a South American trade bloc. She said almost half of Brazil's agribusiness trade, an engine for Brazil's economy in recent years, is concentrated in Asia, compared to just 10 percent with the United States. 'When it comes to industry, the ratio is four to one - four times more to Asia than to the United States,' she added. Brazil is far less open to trade than most major global economies, limiting fallout from trade disruptions. Exports and imports amounted to 36 percent of its GDP last year, less than half the share in Mexico and nearby Paraguay, and just a quarter of the level in trade-focused Asian economies such as Thailand and Malaysia, according to World Bank data. Much of Brazil's exports are commodities easily redirected to different markets over time, said Thiago Carlos, a PIMCO portfolio manager for emerging markets. In the short term, more domestic food supply may even help to bring down inflation, he added. 'With inflation likely to trend lower, the central bank may find room to begin easing monetary policy sooner than expected,' said Carlos, noting the benchmark rate at the current level of 15 percent keeps monetary policy extremely tight, dragging on growth. Analysts polled by Reuters estimated that even without a US trade deal and before exemptions, Brazil's growth outlook for 2026 would remain virtually unchanged from their consensus of 1.6 percent-1.7 Luis Otavio Leal, chief economist at asset manager G5 Partners, warned of potential knock-on effects if government aid is not well targeted to protect vulnerable sectors and jobs. 'Exemptions applied to nearly 700 products - and Brazil exports about 4,000 different goods to the US,' said Leal. 'A large number of firms that sell to the US were not covered.' Brazil's central bank said on Monday that US levies on Brazilian goods could have 'significant' effects on specific sectors, but broader macroeconomic effects are uncertain and will depend on negotiations and market risk perceptions. Flavio Ataliba, a researcher at Brazilian university FGV, noted that the vast country's regional variety will result in uneven impacts. The Northeast region, in particular, could be hit harder due to its export base of low-value-added, labor-intensive goods such as fresh fruit, seafood, textiles, and footwear - all now subject to the full 50 percent tariff, he added.
Qatar Tribune
06-08-2025
- Qatar Tribune
US sanctions Mexico cartel members, including rapper El Makabelico
Agencies Washington The US Department of the Treasury has announced sanctions on assets of four individuals that it linked to Mexico-based Cartel del Noreste, including the popular hip-hop artist El Makabelico. The sanctions target three 'high-ranking members' of Cartel del Noreste (Northeast Cartel), which splintered off from Los Zetas, as well as an alleged 'prominent associate' of the group, Ricardo Hernandez, a 34-year-old musician known as El Makabelico who has millions of followers on social media. The Treasury said El Makabelico's concerts and events are used to launder money on behalf of the organisation, 'with 50 percent of his royalties from streaming platforms going directly to the group.' The Treasury identified the three other individuals as Abdon Rodriguez, Antonio Romero, and Francisco Esqueda. Washington said the sanctioned individuals have played a critical role in the cartel's activities, including drug trafficking, extortion, and money laundering. The Treasury said it had previously sanctioned two 'high-ranking members' of the cartel in May. The cartel was among those that President Donald Trump's administration in February designated as 'global terrorist organisations'. 'The Treasury Department will continue to be relentless in its effort to put America First by targeting terrorist drug cartels. These cartels poison Americans with fentanyl and conduct human smuggling operations along our southwest border,' said US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in a statement by the Treasury Department. 'Treasury, in close coordination with our law enforcement partners, is committed to a full-frontal assault on the cartels, targeting the leadership and revenue streams that enable their horrific crimes.' The Cartel del Noreste is considered one of Mexico's most violent drug trafficking organisations and wields significant influence along the US-Mexico border, particularly in Laredo, Texas, the Treasury said. DEL Records, which Hernandez lists as his label on social media, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
