New violence hits Charlotte
A second night of unrest has spread across Charlotte, North Carolina, following the fatal police shooting of Keith Scott, a 43-year-old black man. A man was critically wounded during last night’s unrest in what authorities called a “civilian on civilian” confrontation. As the violence spread, Governor Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency, and called for help from the national guard. Protesters held signs that read “release the tape”, referring to police video of the shooting that started the protests. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police chief Kerr Putney said on Wednesday his officers had given Scott numerous warnings to drop the gun he was said to be holding before shooting him.
Charlotte protests: governor of North Carolina declares state of emergency
US and UK spar with Russia over Syrian aid convoy attack
US secretary of state John Kerry likened Russian accounts of the aid convoy attack to a “parallel universe” as he called for the grounding of Syrian planes over zones where humanitarian aid is delivered. UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson backed up his counterpart, saying there was “strong” evidence that Russian warplanes carried out the airstrike on Monday, which killed at least 20 people, and has been blamed for the breakdown of a week-long ceasefire. Russia, meanwhile, accused rebels of violating the truce.
Boris Johnson: ‘strong’ evidence Russia carried out strike on UN convoy in Syria
Trump’s African-American outreach project hits new bump
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called for the national introduction of “stop and frisk”, the controversial police tactic ruled unconstitutional, during a town hall meant to appeal to black voters on Wednesday. On Thursday morning, Trump claimed he was only talking about Chicago, telling Fox News: “I think Chicago needs stop and frisk ... good, strong law and order.” Earlier controversial boxing promoter Don King used the N-word while introducing him. Meanwhile, a Trump campaign chair in Ohio claimed there was “no racism” before Obama and called Black Lives Matter “a waste of time”. In the first in a series of election videos, Paul Lewis and Tom Silverstone discover the racial consequences of a divisive election.
Donald Trump calls for nationwide ‘stop and frisk’ in pitch for black voters
Academics claim Dakota pipeline disturbs Native American artifacts
More than 1,200 archaeologists, museum directors and historians have denounced the “destruction” of Native American artifacts during the construction of the $3.8bn Dakota Access pipeline. The pipeline, which will funnel oil from the Bakken oil fields in the Great Plains to Illinois, will run next to the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. The tribe has mounted a legal challenge to stop the project and claimed that several sacred sites were bulldozed by Energy Transfer, the company behind the pipeline.
Archeologists denounce Dakota Access pipeline for destroying artifacts
UN calls superbugs ‘fundamental threat’
All 193 UN member states are presenting a united front against the spread of drug-resistant infections that are estimated to kill more than 700,000 people each year. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said antimicrobial resistance was a “fundamental threat” to global health. Without containment, the economic impact of the crisis makes it unlikely for the UN to reach its sustainable development goals for 2030, says the World Bank, while the World Health Organization director general, Margaret Chan, said that common diseases like gonorrhea may become untreatable. “Doctors facing patients will have to say, ‘I’m sorry – there’s nothing I can do for you.’”
UN meeting tackles the ‘fundamental threat’ of antibiotic-resistant superbugs
Wells Fargo CEO endures tough questions
One after another, members of the Senate banking committee peppered Wells Fargo chairman and CEO John Stumpf with questions on Wednesday, demanding explanations for Wall Street’s latest banking scandal. Just why had thousands of Wells Fargo employees fraudulently opened credit and deposit accounts in customers’ names, without the knowledge of those customers? Stump largely failed to craft the kind of articulate and convincing responses that legislators, bank customers and Americans as whole have demanded.
Wells Fargo’s toxic culture reveals big banks’ eight deadly sins
Grapes from space
In its bid to produce a world-beating wine, China has looked to the lush foothills of the Tibetan plateau, the sun-scorched Gobi desert, and the rocky slopes of Ningxia province. Now, Chinese researchers have sent a selection of cabernet sauvignon, merlot and pinot noir vines into orbit with the country’s newest space lab, Tiangong-2. DecanterChina.com, a bilingual website about the Chinese wine industry, said researchers hoped exposure to “space radiation” might trigger genetic changes in the vines that would help them “evolve new resistance to coldness, drought and viruses”.
The red planet: China sends vines into space in quest for perfect wine
Indigenous Australians ‘most ancient’ people
Claims that Indigenous Australians are the most ancient continuous civilization on Earth have been backed by the first extensive study of their DNA, which dates their origins to more than 50,000 years ago. Sifting through clues left in the DNA of modern populations in Australia and Papua New Guinea, analysis showed that their ancestors were probably the first humans to cross an ocean, and reveals evidence of prehistoric liaisons with an unknown hominin cousin. The findings appear in one of four major human origins papers published in Nature this week
Indigenous Australians most ancient civilization on Earth, DNA study confirms
Women on big-screen sports – how have they fared?
The new primetime drama Pitch follows a female player joining the male-dominated Major League. The gender reversal could start to overturn a societal phobia of the idea that, yes, women can actually do sports as well. Pitch also recalls films such as Million Dollar Baby, Hang Time, Bend It Like Beckham and A League of Their Own.
She got game: a brief history of the fiercest women in sports on screen
In case you missed it ...
In the fourth installment of Brain Waves, Dr Kevin Fong and Nathalie Nahai explore the power that music has to trigger our emotions, and ask if there’s an evolutionary function behind it all. Plus, why do sad songs say so much? What role did music played in our evolutionary biology and ask how we use it to flex our emotional muscles?
