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Lois Beckett in Oakland (now) and Joan E Greve in Washington and Martin Belam (earlier)

Trump says 'concept of chokeholds sounds innocent' as states move to ban practice – as it happened

Protesters near the White House in Washington DC on Thursday.
Protesters near the White House in Washington DC on Thursday. Photograph: Amy Katz/Zuma Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

Live reporting continues in Saturday’s blog:

Evening summary

We’re wrapping up our live coverage for tonight. An updated recap of some of today’s political news:

  • Trump said he was “generally” in favor of banning police chokeholds but said they may be appropriate in some circumstances. “I think the concept of chokeholds sounds so innocent and so perfect,” Trump said in a Fox News interview, before addressing how they have been unfairly used against people like George Floyd, who was killed in police custody last month. “It would be, I think, a very good thing that, generally speaking, it should be ended,” Trump said.
  • The Trump administration has finalized a rule rolling back Obama-era protections for transgender Americans. The new policy could allow healthcare providers and insurance companies that receive federal funding to refuse to provide or cover transition-related care for transgender patients. Human Rights Campaign, among others, have pledged to file a lawsuit challenging the rule change.
  • Seattle’s mayor defended the city against Trump’s fear mongering over the activists who are currently occupying a few city blocks as a police-free zone they have dubbed the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. “Seattle is fine,” she said.
  • The Minneapolis city council unanimously passed a resolution to replace the city’s police department with a community-led public safety system in response to the killing of Floyd. The resolution, which comes days after a veto-proof majority of the council voted to disband the police department, will kick off a year-long process to devise a new public safety system.
  • New York governor Andrew Cuomo signed police reform bills passed by the state legislature this week. The bills will criminalize police chokeholds and repeal 50-A, which shielded police misconduct records from the public. Cuomo also announced an executive order requiring local officials to enact plans to modernize policing strategies in order to be eligible for state funding.
  • A leading prison abolitionist pushed back against attempts to respond to protests by passing police reforms. “We can’t reform the police,” Mariame Kaba argued in the New York Times. “The only way to diminish police violence is to reduce contact between the public and the police.
  • A growing number of American companies say they will observe Juneteenth as an official holiday this year, giving employees a paid day off in honor of the abolition of slavery in the United States.
  • Pop star Taylor Swift demanded Tennessee remove monuments to white supremacy, as police in Georgia jailed a 55-year-old woman who wrote “tear down” on a Confederate statue in chalk.

Leading prison abolitionist: ‘Yes, we mean literally abolish the police’

As Democratic politicians and media pundits discuss how to interpret the furious demand from protesters across the country to “defund the police,” longtime prison industrial complex abolitionist Mariame Kaba has a response in the New York Times:

Congressional Democrats want to make it easier to identify and prosecute police misconduct; Joe Biden wants to give police departments $300 million. But efforts to solve police violence through liberal reforms like these have failed for nearly a century.

Enough. We can’t reform the police. The only way to diminish police violence is to reduce contact between the public and the police...

When people, especially white people, consider a world without the police, they envision a society as violent as our current one, merely without law enforcement — and they shudder. As a society, we have been so indoctrinated with the idea that we solve problems by policing and caging people that many cannot imagine anything other than prisons and the police as solutions to violence and harm.

People like me who want to abolish prisons and police, however, have a vision of a different society, built on cooperation instead of individualism, on mutual aid instead of self-preservation. What would the country look like if it had billions of extra dollars to spend on housing, food and education for all? This change in society wouldn’t happen immediately, but the protests show that many people are ready to embrace a different vision of safety and justice.

Suicide help line calls up 20% in Mississippi during pandemic

Officials in Mississippi say calls from people in the state to the national Suicide Prevention Lifeline have increased 20% since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the Associated Press reports.

“There is fear, there is pain and there is anxiety in this country and in our state and those cannot be overstated,” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said at a press conference.

• In the US the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255.

• In the UK and Irish Republic contact Samaritans on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org.

• In Australia the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14.

• Other international suicide helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.

Woman held on $1,500 bail for writing on Confederate statue with chalk

A 55-year-old woman was arrested in Georgia yesterday for writing “tear down” in yellow chalk on a confederate statue, the Associated Press reports.

Georgia state troopers have charged the woman “with interference with government property, a felony, and criminal trespass, a misdemeanor,” and jail records indicated that she was still in jail Friday after being arrested on Thursday, according to the Associated Press. Her bail was set at $1,500.

“Dude, it’s chalk,” protest organizer JJ Nicole told the Associated Press. “Take a wet rag and wipe it off.... Surely there’s better things to do with our resources. Per usual, the police response was 10 times more than what it needed to be.”

Jamie Loughner, the woman who was arrested for writing on a statue with chalk, uses a walker, Nicole said, and about 10 officers came out of the statecapitol to arrest her.

Seattle mayor to Trump: ‘Don’t be so afraid of democracy’

A federal judge has ordered Seattle police to temporarily stop using tear gas, pepper spray and flash-bang devices to break up largely peaceful protests, the Associated Press reported.

Meanwhile, as Trump continues to fearmonger over Twitter about the hundreds of protesters who have occupied several city blocks in Seattle and dubbed them a police-free “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,” Seattle’s mayor has responded that “Seattle is fine.”

The autonomous zone “has both a protest and street fair vibe, with a small garden, medic station, smoking area, and a “No Cop Co-op”, where people can get supplies and food at no cost,” Hallie Golden reported for The Guardian yesterday. One activist said the takeover was reminiscent of the Occupy movement.

Daily Beast reporter Kelly Weill also noted that claims that local businesses were being harmed by the takeover had been walked back, and that many local business owners were quite supportive of “CHAZ,” although one feared that it might distract attention from the key demands of the Black Lives Matter movement.

North Carolina man arrested for threatening to burn black church

A 63-year-old white man in North Carolina was arrested today after allegedly threatening to set fire to an African-American church in Virginia, according to federal officials.

John Malcolm Bareswill made a phone call to an African American church on June 7, saying “you [racial slur] need to shut up,” the Justice Department said in a press release.

The call was placed “several days after one of the church’s leaders took part in a public prayer vigil and peaceful demonstration for George Floyd,” the Justice Department said.

The call, made late in the morning to the church’s land line telephone, “was placed on speakerphone and overheard by two adult members of the church and also several children,” officials said.

Bareswill was charged with making a telephonic threat, and faces a maximum penalty of ten years in prison.

Taylor Swift calls for removal of racist monuments in Tennessee

White pop star Taylor Swift is calling for Tennessee to remove statues commemorating “racist historical figures” like Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest.

“Villains don’t deserve statues,” the singer-songwriter argued in a long Twitter thread explaining why the statues must be removed, and why Americans like black investigative journalist activist Ida B. Wells should be honored instead.

“When you fight to honor racists, you show black Tennesseans and all of their allies where you stand, and you continue this cycle of hurt,” Swift advised fellow white Americans. “You can’t change history, but you can change this.”

In an interview with The Guardian last August, responding to a question about what critics called a narrative of “white victimhood” throughout her music career, Swift said that she was trying to recognize her own “white privilege” and that “it’s something that I’m still trying to educate myself on every day.”

Swift’s tweets have garnered some positive reactions. As one progressive organizer on Twitter quipped:

Updated

Human Rights Campaign will sue Trump administration over erasing healthcare discrimination protection for trans people

The Human Rights Campaign announced it will file a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s decision to end healthcare discrimination protections for Americans based on their gender identity.

By rewriting an Obama-administration interpretation of a federal healthcare law, the Trump administration “will eliminate explicit protections from discrimination based on sex stereotyping and gender identity... thereby sanctioning discrimination against LGBTQ people in health care programs and activities,” the Human Rights Campaign said in a statement.

Vox journalist Katelyn Burns highlighted the immediate, seriously effects of the Trump administration’s new rule:

More companies recognizing Juneteenth as a holiday this year

This is Lois Beckett, picking up our live politics coverage from our West Coast office in Oakland.

The Washington Post and the New York Times will both observe Juneteenth as a holiday this year, and give employees a paid day off, reporters at the two major newspapers tweeted this afternoon.

The announcement comes as both newspapers, and the American media industry more broadly, has been pushed to reckon with the decades of discrimination that black employees have faced within majority-white newsrooms.

Current and former black journalists have been speaking out about about the hostile newsroom environments they have faced, and about how widespread racism within the media has pushed some black journalists out of the business, while continuing to undermine accurate coverage of issues crucial to black Americans, including police violence.

Washington Post publisher Fred Ryan said the holiday “was an appropriate and symbolic moment to provide time for reflection on all that has happened.”

Juneteenth, the oldest nationally celebrated day commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, was created by black Texans in the 1860s. It celebrates June 19, 1865, when formerly enslaved people in Texas were finally told by Union troops that they were free. Widely celebrated by black Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the holiday was revived in the Civil Rights era, and first became an official state holiday in Texas in 1979.

Other companies, including Vox Media, Twitter and Square had already announced that they would be observing Juneteenth as a holiday this year.

Update: since this post was first published, Guardian US informed staff that we, too will be observing Juneteenth as a holiday this year, and that “We will be marking Juneteenth in this way annually.”

Updated

Today so far

That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Lois Beckett, will be taking over the blog for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • Trump said he was “generally” in favor of banning police chokeholds but said they may be appropriate in some circumstances. “I think the concept of chokeholds sounds so innocent and so perfect,” Trump said in a Fox News interview, before addressing how they have been unfairly used against people like George Floyd, who was killed in police custody last month. “It would be, I think, a very good thing that, generally speaking, it should be ended,” Trump said.
  • The Trump administration has finalized a rule rolling back Obama-era protections for transgender Americans. The new policy could allow healthcare providers and insurance companies that receive federal funding to refuse to provide or cover transition-related care for transgender patients.
  • The Minneapolis city council unanimously passed a resolution to replace the city’s police department with a community-led public safety system in response to the killing of Floyd. The resolution, which comes days after a veto-proof majority of the council voted to disband the police department, will kick off a year-long process to devise a new public safety system.
  • New York governor Andrew Cuomo signed police reform bills passed by the state legislature this week. The bills will criminalize police chokeholds and repeal 50-A, which shielded police misconduct records from the public. Cuomo also announced an executive order requiring local officials to enact plans to modernize policing strategies in order to be eligible for state funding.
  • John Bolton’s upcoming book will detail “Ukraine-like transgressions” by Trump, according to a new press release. In the book, which will be released June 23, the former national security adviser “argues that the House committed impeachment malpractice by keeping their prosecution focused narrowly on Ukraine when Trump’s Ukraine-like transgressions existed across the full range of his foreign policy.”

Lois will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Trump administration finalizes rollback of transgender protections

The Trump administration has finalized a rule rolling back Obama-era protections for transgender Americans under the Affordable Care Act’s non-discrimination policy.

According to the new version of the policy, the department of health and human services will be “returning to the government’s interpretation of sex discrimination according to the plain meaning of the word ‘sex’ as male or female and as determined by biology.”

This would allow healthcare providers and insurance companies that receive federal funding to refuse to provide or cover transition-related care for transgender Americans.

The announcement came on the fourth anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting, when a shooter killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

House majority whip Jim Clyburn said Democrats already have enough votes to pass their Justice in Policing Act, which includes a series of police reforms in response to the killing of George Floyd.

House minority leader Kevin McCarthy has complained Republicans were excluded from the drafting process of the bill, but he also said there are a number of provisions in the bill that his caucus could support.

McCarthy specifically said he would be in favor of a national ban on police chokeholds, which is part of the Democrats’ legislation.

However, even if the House approves the bill, it will still need to pass the Republican-controlled Senate, and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell will not likely be eager to take up the Democratic bill in its current form.

McConnell has tapped senator Tim Scott, the only black Republican in the Senate, to lead a group of several senators working to develop their own police reform proposal.

As Trump prepares to resume his campaign rallies and George Floyd protests continue across the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “strongly encouraged” attendees of large gatherings to wear cloth face coverings in newly issued guidance.

According to the guidance, “Cloth face coverings are strongly encouraged in settings where individuals might raise their voice (e.g., shouting, chanting, singing).”

Speaking to reporters about the new guidance, Jay Butler, the CDC’s deputy director for Infectious Diseases, dodged questions about what specific events the agency was referring to.

“They are not regulations. They are not commands,” Butler said. “But they are recommendations or even suggestions … how you can have a gathering that will keep people as safe as possible.”

The guidance comes as the Trump campaign asks attendees of the president’s rally in Tulsa next Friday to sign waivers saying they “voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to Covid-19.”

The list of Joe Biden’s potential running mates has dwindled to a handful of Democratic women, according to the Associated Press.

The AP reports:

Democrats with knowledge of the process said Biden’s search committee has narrowed the choices to as few as six serious contenders after initial interviews. Those still in contention include Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kamala Harris of California, as well as Susan Rice, who served as President Barack Obama’s national security adviser.

The process remains somewhat fluid, according to those with knowledge, and additional candidates may still be asked to submit to the extensive document review process now underway for top contenders. ...

The campaign’s short list includes several black women, including Harris and Rice. Advisers have also looked closely at Florida Rep. Val Demings and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, both of whom are black, and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Latina.

Biden said at a fundraiser late last month that he hopes to announce his choice of running mate by August 1.

Since the police killing of George Floyd, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has also faced increased pressure to ask a black woman to join his ticket.

Updated

Minneapolis city council unanimously passes resolution to replace police with community-led model

The Minneapolis city council has unanimously passed a resolution to replace the city’s police department with a community-led public safety system in response to the police killing of George Floyd.

The adoption of the resolution will begin a year-long process to devise a new public safety system, and it comes days after a veto-proof majority of the council voted to disband the Minneapolis police department.

The resolution creates a “Future of Community Safety Work Group,” which will have until July 24 to craft preliminary recommendations on engaging with community members and experts on what the new system should look like.

“The City Council will engage with every willing community member in Minneapolis, centering the voices of Black people, American Indian people, people of color, immigrants, victims of harm, and other stakeholders who have been historically marginalized or underserved by our present system,” the resolution states. “Together, we will identify what safety looks like for everyone.”

Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey has said he is not in favor of disbanding the police department but he supports “massive structural reform to revise a structurally racist system.”

Census data indicates levels of depression and anxiety have surged among African Americans since the police killing of George Floyd, according to the Washington Post.

The Post reports:

Within a week, anxiety and depression among African Americans shot to higher rates than experienced by any other racial or ethnic group, with 41 percent screening positive for at least one of those symptoms, data from the Census Bureau shows.

The findings — from a survey launched by the federal government originally intended to study the effects of the novel coronavirus — indicate that the recent unrest, demonstrations and debate have exacted a disproportionate emotional and mental toll on black and Asian Americans, even as rates of anxiety and depression remain relatively flat among white Americans and decreased among Latino Americans.

The rate of black Americans showing clinically significant signs of anxiety or depressive disorders jumped from 36 percent to 41 percent in the week after the video of Floyd’s death became public. That represents roughly 1.4 million more people.

Among Asian Americans, those symptoms increased from 28 percent to 34 percent, a change that represents an increase of about 800,000 people.

The American Psychiatric Association said in a 2018 statement, “Constant depictions of these incidences have had a profound impact on the emotional and psychological well-being of black families and communities, contributing to fear and uncertainty.”

The organization recommended “research that explores the mental health impact of police brutality and the use of excessive/deadly force on black males and black communities.”

Two-thirds of Americans express support for the Black Lives Matter movement, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center.

The Pew survey found that 67% of Americans say they support the BLM movement, with 38% saying they strongly support it.

The figure is slightly higher among black Americans, 86% of whom say they support it. However, the movement also attracts support from majorities of white Americans (60%), Hispanic Americans (77%) and Asian Americans (75%).

Those numbers have increased dramatically from just a few years ago. A 2016 Pew poll found that a minority of American (43%) supported the BLM movement.

Updated

Democratic senator Michael Bennet is calling for the Russell Senate Office Building to be renamed, as calls intensify to remove the names of Confederate generals from Army bases and replace Confederate statues in the Capitol.

“Everyone who works in the Russell Senate Office Building—senators and our staff—has to walk through the doors each morning of a building named after a staunch segregationist,” Bennet said in a tweet. “We can do a lot better. It’s time to #RenameRussell.”

The Russell building is named for longtime Georgia senator Richard Russell Jr, an avowed segregationist who led the opposition to the civil rights movement in the Senate.

There have been previous calls to rename the building, particularly after the 2018 death of Republican senator John McCain, with many suggesting his name should replace Russell’s.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer previously introduced legislation to name the building after McCain, but majority leader Mitch McConnell sidelined the proposal, saying a bipartisan group would review ways in which the chamber could honor McCain’s memory. It’s unclear whether that group was ever appointed.

Richard Luscombe sends this report from Miami on the rising number of coronavirus cases in Florida:

New coronavirus cases in Florida have set a daily record for the second day in a row. State figures released Friday morning show 1,902 more cases of Covid-19, up another 204 on Thursday’s previous record tally.

Florida, one of the first US states to reopen, is among those to have seen cases rising again significantly in recent days. According to the Florida Department of Health, new cases have topped 1,000 every day since 2 June, compared to only three of the previous 19 days from 13 May until the end of the month.

An increase in testing accounts for some of the spike, but fears remain that Florida opened up too soon. Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor, has touted what he calls a “safe, smart” recovery plan, which saw 64 of Florida’s 67 counties moving to Phase Two - including partial reopening of bars, theaters, gyms and vacation rentals - on 5 June. (The three counties most affected by coronavirus, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, remain under tighter restrictions.)

On Friday, the Miami Herald published a withering analysis, based on public and non-public data, of how Florida at first flattened the curve from its April peak, then began to reverse that progress as DeSantis pressed ahead with reopening despite federal guidelines not being met.

The newspaper also pointed out that in the 64 counties already at Phase Two, new cases of Covid-19 were up almost 42 per cent, with only an eight per cent increase in testing over the same period.

“The governor’s first priority in reopening Florida continues to be maintaining the health and safety of all residents,” Alberto Moscoso, spokesperson for the state’s health department, told the Herald. Experts from the Johns Hopkins school of public medicine, however, said on Monday that Florida’s seven-day average was “approximately equal to its peak in early April and is still increasing.”

Before Thursday, Florida’s previous record high of new daily cases was 1,419, set on 4 June. Overall, the state now has 70,391 confirmed cases of Covid-19, according to its department of health database, and has recorded 2,877 deaths.

Trump repeated his highly controversial claim that he has done more for the black community than any other US president, although he allowed a potential exception for Abraham Lincoln, who ended slavery.

“I think I’ve done more for the black community than any other president, and let’s take a pass on Abraham Lincoln because he did good, although it’s always questionable, you know, in other words, the end result,” Trump told Fox News’ Harris Faulkner.

Faulkner, who is black, then interjected, “Well, we are free, Mr President, so he did pretty well.”

Trump has previously claimed that “nobody has ever done for the black community what President Trump has done,” but fact-checkers have rated that audacious claim as false.

Trump: 'The concept of chokeholds sounds so innocent'

During his Fox News interview, Trump seemed to indicate he believed there were situations where police chokeholds might be necessary.

“I don’t like chokeholds,” Trump told Harris Faulker. But he went on to say that the specific circumstances should dictate whether a chokehold is used.

The president laid out an example of a “really bad person” confronting a police officer and said that situation had played out in recent weeks amid the George Floyd protests.

“You saw some very good people protesting, but you saw some bad people also,” Trump said. “And you get somebody in a chokehold. What are you going to do now? Let go and say, ‘Oh, let’s start all over again’?”

Trump later said be believed chokeholds to be theoretically acceptable, but he acknowledged they are often used inappropriately by police.

“I think the concept of chokeholds sounds so innocent and so perfect,” Trump said, before addressing how they have been unfairly used against people like Floyd.

“So you have to be careful. With that being said, it would be, I think, a very good thing that, generally speaking, it should be ended,” Trump said.

A number of cities and states have pushed to ban police chokeholds since the killing of Floyd, and New York governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation today that would criminalize chokeholds in the state.

Updated

Trump on Juneteenth rally criticism: 'Think of it as a celebration'

Trump responded to criticism of his decision to hold a campaign rally on Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating the end of slavery in America, by decribing the event as a “celebration.”

In a Fox News interview with Harris Faulker, Trump was asked whether he had specifically chosen the date of June 19 for its historical significance.

“No, but I know exactly what you’re going to say,” Trump said. “Think about it as a celebration. My rally is a celebration.”

The president insisted the rally should not be seen as an “inconvenience” and should instead be thought of “very positively as a celebration.”

“It wasn’t done for that reason, but it’s an interesting date, but it’s a celebration,” Trump said.

The president and his campaign have received widespread criticism for hosting his first rally in more than three months on Juneteenth in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the site of a deadly 1921 race massacre that targeted African Americans and their businesses.

Trump: Some protesters were just 'following the crowd'

In a pre-taped interview with Fox News, Trump suggested some of the people protesting the police killing of George Floyd did not understand the purpose of the demonstrations.

The president had been emphasizing the “riots” seen in some cities, but Fox News’ Harris Faulker specifically asked Trump what he would say to the many peaceful protesters who took to the streets in recent weeks.

“I think you had protesters for different reasons, and then you had protesting also because, you know, they just didn’t know,” Trump said.

The president claimed (without evidence) that many protesters could not give a reason for why they chose to join the demonstrations.

“They were there for a reason perhaps, but a lot of them really were there because they’re following the crowd,” Trump said.

But the president then interestingly added that many of the protesters were there “because what we witnessed was a terrible thing,” which would seem to be at odds with his claim that many were just “following the crowd.”

Today so far

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • New York governor Andrew Cuomo signed police reform bills passed by the state legislature this week. The bills will criminalize police chokeholds and repeal 50-A, which shielded police misconduct records from the public. Cuomo also announced an executive order requiring local officials to enact plans to modernize policing strategies in order to be eligible for state funding.
  • British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Black Lives Matter protests in the UK have been “hijacked by extremists intent on violence”. In a series of tweets, Johnson described the “legitimate feelings of outrage” about the police killing of George Floyd, but he said attacks on UK police have been “intolerable” and “abhorrent”.
  • John Bolton’s book will detail “Ukraine-like transgressions” by Trump, according to a new press release. In the book, which will be released June 23, the former national security adviser “argues that the House committed impeachment malpractice by keeping their prosecution focused narrowly on Ukraine when Trump’s Ukraine-like transgressions existed across the full range of his foreign policy.”

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Updated

Hillary Clinton has critcized Trump for planning a campaign rally for next Friday, despite ongoing concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.

The former Democratic presidential nominee specifically chastized Trump for asking rally attendees to sign a liability waiver regarding the risks around potentially contracting the virus.

“If your rallies come with a liability waiver, you shouldn’t be holding them,” Clinton said in a tweet.

The president intends to hold his first campaign rally in more than three months at the 19,000-seat BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 19.

Oklahoma is in the process of reopening, but the state is still advising residents to “minimize time spent in crowded environments”.

In response to that recommendation, the Trump campaign is making rally attendees sign a waiver saying they understand “that an inherent risk of exposure to Covid-19 exists in any public place where people are present” and they “voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to Covid-19.”

The Rev Al Sharpton applauded New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s efforts to crack down on police brutality in response to the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The longtime civil rights activist said Cuomo had “raised the bar” for how governors should address police reform. “He has gone even beyond my expectations,” Sharpton said.

Shaprton specifically praised Cuomo’s executive order, which would withhold state funding from localities that do not enact a plan to reinvent and modernize policing strategies. “To hold funds means he means it,” Sharpton said.

The activist joked that Cuomo, with whom he has previously clashed, should “enjoy these few minutes” of his support.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo has signed the police reform bills, which will criminalize police chokeholds and repeal a state law that shielded police misconduct records from the public.

After signing the bills, the Democratic governor handed out pens to the legislative leaders and activists present for the signing.

Updated

New York governor Andrew Cuomo said he would also sign an executive order requiring local governments and police agencies to develop plans to reinvent and modernize policing strategies.

Cuomo emphasized local officials needed to lay out a plan to address the use of force among officers, as well as implicit bias training and community-based outreach, in order to “restore trust” among their constituents.

The Democratic governor said the plans must be enacted through local legislation by April 1 in order for localities to be eligible for state funding.

Updated

Cuomo to sign police reform bills

New York governor Andrew Cuomo is holding his daily coronavirus briefing, where he said he will soon sign the police reform bills passed by the state legislature.

The bills will criminalize police chokeholds and repeal 50-A, which has allowed New York to shield police misconduct reports from the public.

Cuomo was joined at the briefing by New York’s legislative leaders, state Assembly speaker Carl Heastie and state Senate majority leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, whom he thanked for ensuring the bills’ passage.

The Rev Al Sharpton and the mothers of Eric Garner and Sean Bell were also present for the briefing. Like George Floyd, Garner was killed by a police chokehold in 2014, and Bell was fatally shot by NYPD officers in 2006.

Updated

Vice President Mike Pence is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, today, where he will participate in a listening session with faith and community leaders. The visit in the latest in a series of trips Pence has made to swing states that will ultimately determine the outcome of the presidential election.

Joe Biden’s campaign released a statement criticizing Pence for the trip, accusing the vice president of using the Pennsylvania city as a “prop” to push Trump’s claim that the US economy is making a “great comeback.”

“It’s an insult to Pennsylvanians that Vice President Pence is using Pittsburgh as a prop on the cynically-titled ‘Great American Comeback Tour’ -- because had the Trump-Pence Administration not bungled the response to the coronavirus pandemic so dramatically, there wouldn’t be a need for such an enormous ‘comeback,’” said deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield.

“I hope that Vice President Pence sees today in Pennsylvania the extent of the damage he’s helped cause, and is swayed to finally give real, much-needed relief to the Commonwealth.”

Starbucks will allow employees to wear Black Lives Matter attire, marking a reversal after some customers threatened to boycott the coffee company over the issue.

Starbucks had previously said employees could not wear BLM attire because it violated the company’s dress code policy, which also prohibits any type of political, religious, or personal accessories or clothing.

But the company is now walking back that stance after many customers threatened to boycott the company if they did not allow employees to express support for the George Floyd protests.

The company announced the policy change in a new letter to employees, which was signed by chief operating officer Roz Brewer, executive vice president Rossann Williams and diversity officer Zing Shaw.

“We see you. We hear you. Black Lives Matter. That is a fact and will never change,” the letter says.

“As we talked about earlier this week, we’re designing new t-shirts with the graphic below to demonstrate our allyship and show we stand together in unity. Until these arrive, we’ve heard you want to show your support, so just be you.

“Wear your BLM pin or t-shirt. We are so proud of your passionate support of our common humanity. We trust you to do what’s right while never forgetting Starbucks is a welcoming third place where all are treated with dignity and respect.”

Behind-the-scenes books like John Bolton’s are often used to draw a flattering picture of that official’s contributions to the White House, and “The Room Where It Happened” seems to be no exception.

According to the press release for the book, the former national security adviser will describe Trump’s Ukraine-like transgressions “and attempts by [Bolton] and others in the Administration to raise alarms about them.”

However, critics will likely pounce on Bolton for not publicly raising concerns about these “trangressions” while they were occurring -- and for later refusing to testify to the House about them.

In his new book, John Bolton argues that the House committed “impeachment malpractice” by focusing solely on Ukraine in its inquiry against Trump, suggesting the president had committed other “Ukraine-like transgressions.”

However, Bolton’s argument struck some reporters as hypocritical, considering the former national security adviser refused to provide a deposition during the House’s impeachment inquiry.

Bolton signaled he would comply with a Senate subpoena if one were issued during Trump’s impeachment trial, but the Republican-controlled chamber voted against calling additional witnesses for the trial.

Bolton's book to detail 'Ukraine-like transgressions' by Trump

In his new book, former national security adviser John Bolton criticizes the House for focusing on Ukraine in its impeachment inquiry against Trump and details other “Ukraine-like” transgressions by the persident.

This combination of pictures created shows John Bolton and Donald Trump.
This combination of pictures created shows John Bolton and Donald Trump. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

According to a press release for Bolton’s upcoming book, “The Room Where It Happened,” the former administration official “argues that the House committed impeachment malpractice by keeping their prosecution focused narrowly on Ukraine when Trump’s Ukraine-like transgressions existed across the full range of his foreign policy — and Bolton documents exactly what those were, and attempts by him and others in the Administration to raise alarms about them.”

Bolton also criticizes the president for focusing solely on his chances of reelection as he made major policy decisions. “I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn’t driven by reelection calculations,” he writes.

The book will be released June 23, and if precedent is any indication, it’s likely that Trump will work on discrediting Bolton using the bully pulpit of Twitter in the days leading up to its release.

Microsoft won’t sell its facial recognition technology to police departments until federal legislation is passed to regulate its use, the company says.

The moratorium is a concession to campaigners, who have called on all the major tech companies to stop selling the technology to law enforcement. It follows IBM declaring a total cessation of sales of “general purpose” facial recognition technology, and Amazon declaring that it would stop selling its own tech to police departments for the next year, in the hope that the pause provides time for a societal conversation.

“We will not sell facial-recognition technology to police departments in the United States until we have a national law in place, grounded in human rights, that will govern this technology,” Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, said on Thursday night.

“The bottom line for us is to protect the human rights of people as this technology is deployed.”

Some campaigners have expressed concern about the potential form such legislation could take, however. Microsoft has endorsed privacy laws that activists say are weaker than is necessary, and some worry that the hiatus could lead to a rushed-through law that ultimately harms rights.

Trump is once again attacking Democratic lawmakers in Washington state, bemoaning the “anarchists takeover” of Seattle, where demonstrators have taken over several city blocks to protest police brutality.

The president specifically called out Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan, saying in a tweet, “These Liberal Dems don’t have a clue. The terrorists burn and pillage our cities, and they think it is just wonderful, even the death. Must end this Seattle takeover now!”

Durkan said during a press conference yesterday that the story Trump is trying to tell about the city, focused on alleged domestic terrorists, is “simply not true.”

Hallie Golden has more on the situation in Seattle:

Hundreds of protesters have taken over several blocks of Seattle and transformed it into the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or ‘Chaz’, helping to amplify nationwide protests while offering a real-world example of what a community can look like without police.

For three days, protesters have filled several blocks and at least part of a park in the artsy Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, after police abandoned their east precinct, following dangerous clashes between protesters and law enforcement. ...

The space has both a protest and street fair vibe, with a small garden, medic station, smoking area, and a ‘No Cop Co-op’, where people can get supplies and food at no cost. There’s also a trio of shrine-like areas filled with candles, flowers and images of George Floyd and many others who have been killed by police.

John Bolton expressed support for General Mark Milley after the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff apologized for participating in Trump’s photo op at St John’s Church last week.

“Gen. Mark Milley is a dedicated public servant who made a courageous choice to admit a mistake,” Bolton said in a tweet. “His actions are a powerful example of courage, leadership and patriotism.”

The tweet comes one day after Milley said in a prerecorded commencement address that he should not have been at the photo op moments after peaceful protesters nearby were forcibly removed using tear gas.

“My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics,” Milley told the graduates of National Defense University. “As a commissioned uniformed officer, it was a mistake that I have learned from, and I sincerely hope we all can learn from it.”

Milley’s statement could create tension with the president, which is a matter that Bolton has some experience in. The former national security adviser resigned (or was fired, depending on who you ask) after reports emerged that he pushed back against the president’s later-scrapped plan to meet with the Taliban at Camp David.

This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Martin Belam.

A new poll shows a majority of Americans oppose the movement to defund the police, which has gained steam since the police killing of George Floyd last month.

According to the new ABC News/Ipsos poll, 64% of Americans oppose the defund movement, compared to 34% who support it.

When respondents were specifically asked if police departments’ budgets should be reduced to reallocate the funds to public health and social programs, 60% opposed the idea, and 39% supported it.

However, a majority of black Americans (57%) support the defund movement, and 64% are in favor of reducing and reallocating police departments’ budgets. Only 26% of white Americans support the defund movement, indicating a racial split on the issue.

Nelson Mandela statue in London boarded up over right-wing fears

Nelson Mandela’s statue in London has been boarded up amid fears of attacks by the Far Right as concerns about street violence in England this weekend shifted to other cities and towns where extremists and some football supporters are planning to confront Black Lives Matter (BLM) protestors.

BLM organisers called off a planned protest at Hyde Park at 1pm on Saturday, warning that “many hate groups” were threatening the safety of those planning to come.

However, while some Far Right groups are still expected to be present on Saturday in London, discussions on their online forums among football gangs has turned to mobilising in other cities and towns including Leeds, Bristol and Sunderland, against perceived threats to contested historical monuments. In Poole, locals have prevented the authorities removing a statue of the founder of the Boy Scout movement, Robert Baden-Powell.

Chatter among Far Right activists has also turned to targeting statues such as Nelson Mandela, perceived to be associated with their opponents, according to researchers at the campaign group Hope not Hate (HnH).

HnH warned of a particular potential flashpoint on Saturday in Leeds, where football groups and the Far Right have more traditionally been more interwined than elsewhere, as well as in towns such as Shrewsbury, which is home to a Clive of India statue as well as the English Border Front, a football hooligan firm of the League One club Shrewsbury Town

“One of our concerns is that, generally, the Metropolitan Police are quite experienced in managing big demonstrations now, but forces in some of the smaller towns are not as experienced,” said Nick Lowles, Chief Executive of HnH.

“Many on the far-right who tried to pretend they didn’t care about race, only culture and identity, let the mask slip and openly started talking about whiteness and race again and threatened to pull down the statue of Nelson Mandela in Parliament Square,” said Lowles.

Earlier today British prime minister Boris Johnson said in an intervention that removing statues is “to lie about our history” and claimed the Black Lives Matters protests “have been sadly hijacked by extremists intent on violence”.

A statue of war-time leader Winston Churchill has also been boarded up for protection, after it had “Churchill is a racist” daubed on it last weekend.

The Churchill Statue following Black Lives Matter protests in London
The Churchill Statue following Black Lives Matter protests in London Photograph: Guy Bell/REX/Shutterstock

My colleagues on the photo desk have put together a brilliant picture essay of what it has been like as a black photographer covering the Black Lives Matter demonstrations.

Brandon Bell in Minneapolis, Flo Ngala in New York, Sylvia Jarrus in Detroit and Jonathan Cherry in Louisville talk about their experiences, and what it has meant to them to cover such an outpouring of anger and grief.

Cherry spoke in particular about Breonna Taylor, shot dead in Louisville in her apartment on 13 March this year.

Through our anger, we also celebrate the life of Breonna Taylor just a few days later on what should have been her 27th birthday. We shout through tears of sorrow mixed with the sweat of long marches. We dance in commemoration of these lives lost. We aim to show a system that no longer serves us that we only need each other. The involuntary sacrifice of Breonna Taylor sparked a movement that will change the world as we know it.

There are some amazing photos in the essay, which you can find here: Capturing the cry for change: photographers on the BLM protests

The wave of global protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd has led to a re-appraisal of monuments around the world. Slave-traders in England, monarchs in Belgium, and Christopher Columbus in Virginia have all had their statues removed - some more violently than others.

In New Zealand, a statue of the British naval captain that gives the city of Hamilton its name was removed after a local Māori elder threatened to take it down by force.

Associated Press are reporting on new pressure over two statues of Spanish conqueror Juan de Oñate in New Mexico.

A petition drive with more than 1,500 signatures is calling for the removal of an Oñate statue on the outskirts of Española in northern New Mexico, while activists are calling on Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller to remove another Oñate likeness from a caravan of Spanish colonists set in bronze outside a city museum.

The Cuarto Centenario sculpture in Albuquerque featuring Spanish conqueror Juan de Oñate
The Cuarto Centenario sculpture in Albuquerque featuring Spanish conqueror Juan de Oñate Photograph: Blaine Harrington III/Alamy Stock Photo

“If NASCAR can do away with Confederate flags at their events, surely our cities can do this,” Moises Gonzales told AP. He is a professor of urban planning at the University of New Mexico, who has long protested the Albuquerque statue as a glorification of white supremacy. Oñate arrived in present-day New Mexico in 1598. The statue in his honour was erected in the late 1990s.

To Native Americans, Onate is known for having ordered the right feet cut off of 24 captive tribal warriors after his soldiers stormed Acoma Pueblo’s mesa-top “sky city.” That attack was precipitated by the killing of Onate’s nephew. In 1998, someone sawed the right foot off the statue of Oñate near Española.

An online signature petition to remove the stand-alone statue of Oñate north of Española describes the conquistador’s inhumane treatment of indigenous people and invokes solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. There are public protests planned for Monday.

Updated

To choose the date, to come to Tulsa, is totally disrespectful and a slap in the face to even happen

That’s Sherry Gamble Smith, the president of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street Chamber of Commerce, on Donald Trump’s decision to kick-start his re-election campaign with a rally in the Oklahoma city on 19 June. It was the scene of one of the worst ever racial atrocities in US history, and Trump will hold his rally on the Juneteenth anniversary of the final emancipation of enslaved people in the country.

Critics accused the president of “racially motivated trolling” and timing akin to “blasphemy”.

Mt. Zion Baptist Church burns after being torched by white mobs during the 1921 Tulsa massacre
Mt. Zion Baptist Church burns after being torched by white mobs during the 1921 Tulsa massacre Photograph: Anonymous/AP

You can read a full report here: Critics decry Trump election rally in city of Tulsa race massacre on Juneteenth

Updated

British PM says George Floyd protests 'hijacked by extremists'

In London, Boris Johnson the British prime minister has sent a series of tweets this morning saying that Black Lives Matter protests in the UK have been “hijacked by extremists intent on violence”.

Johnson said “We all understand the legitimate feelings of outrage at what happened in Minnesota and the legitimate desire to protest against discrimination” but added that attacks on police in the UK last weekend during protests had been “intolerable” and “abhorrent”.

He also condemned the removal of statues, saying:

We cannot now try to edit or censor our past. We cannot pretend to have a different history. The statues in our cities and towns were put up by previous generations. They had different perspectives, different understandings of right and wrong. But those statues teach us about our past, with all its faults. To tear them down would be to lie about our history, and impoverish the education of generations to come.

One of the statues of a slave-owner removed in London had only been placed in its present location in 1997.

Demonstrations planned for central London on Saturday have been cancelled for fear that there will be clashes with far-right activists.

Read it in full: Boris Johnson says removing statues is ‘to lie about our history’

Getting Republicans on board for widespread police reform is going to be crucial for turning the energy of the Black Lives Matter movement into real change.

This morning CNN have a profile piece on one of the Republicans who could be a key part of that fight - South Carolina senator Tim Scott.

It felt like sometimes the good Lord puts you where you need to be before you knew you had to be there. This is an opportunity for me to do what it is I am called to do. I have said it several times before. God made me black on purpose. Perhaps a part of the purpose is where I am right now.

Scott is expected to unveil his policing proposal next week, building on legislation he started working on in 2015 after the murder of Walter Scott. The act in his would create a national database of police use-of-force incidents that resulted in death.

Read it here: CNN - Tim Scott has for years highlighted racial tension with police. Now he’s leading the GOP’s effort to fix it

Axios are being a little bit coy about just what is in it, but a source has given them advance access to the long-awaited book by former national security adviser John Bolton.

They say it will “offer multiple revelations about President Trump’s conduct in office, with direct quotes by the president and senior officials”.

There is the suggestion that the book will contain more details of Donald Trump’s words over Ukraine, and that Bolton will contend there was “Trump misconduct with other countries”.

It seems difficult to believe, with the way the world has changed with coronavirus and the global outpouring of anger and grief over the killing of George Floyd, but it is only 14 weeks since president Trump was acquitted over his behaviour towards Ukraine.

Bolton’s book - The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir - will be published on 23 June.

LeBron James, arguably America’s most prominent athlete, has stepped up by backing a new campaign group More Than a Vote.

James commented earlier in the week about the long voting line that were seen in the Georgia primary on Tuesday.

Joining James in the new venture are his business partner Maverick Carter. Atlanta Hawks’ Trae Young, Phoenix Mercury’s Skylar Diggins-Smith and former NBA player Jalen Rose. James has cited Muhammad Ali as an inspiration for his involvement in politics.

Gabriel Baumgaertner looks at just what LeBron is planning: ‘How do we fix this?’ - LeBron James takes fight to black voter suppression

While Florida Rep Val Demings and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms have had their names touted as a possible VP pick from Joe Biden, Kamala Harris is in a strong position to take the spot.

Bloomberg have a piece from Jennifer Epstein this morning running the rule over Biden’s options. It includes this quote from Democratic strategist Karen Finney:

If it isn’t all the more obvious in this moment why selecting a black woman isn’t historically the right thing to do, morally the right thing to do, something that our country needs, I don’t know what other sign you need. It seems very obvious and so important in this moment.

Biden has already committed to choosing a woman for VP.

Read it here: Bloomberg - Harris is on strong footing in Biden’s vice presidential search

Hi, welcome to our US politics and protests live blog today. Here’s a reminder of some of the key points from yesterday and overnight, and a look at what we can expect later today

  • General Mark Milley apologized for participating in Trump’s church and bible photo op after the forcible removal of peaceful protesters. “I should not have been there,” he told the National Defense University
  • Republicans confirmed that Donald Trump will become their nominee for the election in a convention rescheduled to Jacksonville, Florida. The party were unhappy that the original venue in North Carolina would have to be down-sized due to coronavirus restrictions
  • Black community and political leaders are calling on Trump to at least change the date of his Tulsa rally, saying that holding the event on Juneteenth is a “slap in the face”
  • Seattle’s mayor has continued to defend protesters in the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone”
  • The Senate voted 65-19 early Friday morning to advance a bipartisan conservation bill, the Great American Outdoors Act
  • Arizona has seen an alarming surge of more than 1,000 new coronavirus cases daily

What can we expect from today? Well, there are no public events scheduled for Donald Trump, but vice president Mike Pence will be having a morning roundtable with faith and community leaders in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He’s giving a talk later on at Oberg Industries. Joe Biden will be doing a teletown hall with the AFSCME union.

The White House sent out an email yesterday titled “The corporate media is now controlled by the radical left”. I don’t know whether that includes me, but you can get in touch at martin.belam@theguardian.com - I’ll be looking after our coverage for the next couple of hours.

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