LAST AUGUST, several months into lockdown, Raven Sutton posted a short clip on TikTok. In it, Sutton, a 25-year-old Black Deaf dancer living in Washington D.C., covers Cardi B ’s song “ WAP ” in American Sign Language, or A.S.L., which she’s used, alongside English, her entire life. Wearing a tan crop top and hoop earrings, Sutton signs Megan Thee Stallion ’s verse, maintaining coy eye contact with her camera as she reimagines lines like “Gobble me, swallow me, drip down the side of me” for a Deaf audience. Sutton, of course, can’t “hear” the music in a conventional sense. But having danced since childhood, she’s found ways to channel her intuitive feel for rhythm through the vast, lexically complex language of sign, paying close attention to the vibrations of the bass pounding through her speakers or holding an eight-count so she knows when the words begin. Sutton posted the 35-second video and then closed the app for a few hours to get on with her day. She returned to … [Read more...]

6 LAKE OROVILLE, Calif. - The work had to be done quickly as water vanished to vapor in the early summer heat. Hauling giant houseboats, some 50 to 60 feet long, from this lake became urgent just a few weeks ago. In all, the Oroville Lake Marinas company removed 130 houseboats; floating recreation palaces such as the Monte-Carol and La Bella Vita now sit in a parking lot on stacks of pasteboard props. The lot stands where the lake's high water mark would usually be - 900 feet. It is now 700 feet and falling fast. The man-made lake, which helps to irrigate thousands of acres of crops through the elaborate State Water Project, is now so low that it is impossible for the marina to remove more of the large boats even as dun-colored islands begin to pop up. The launch ramp no longer reaches the water, which will keep disappearing amid a summer of record heat, including the "mega-heat wave" currently scorching much of the West. "I've … [Read more...]

The judge in San Francisco’s first criminal trial since the coronavirus outbreak said Thursday that witnesses and prospective jurors must wear transparent masks, which the court will provide. The trial of David Brown, charged with an August 2019 burglary at a South-of-Market condominium, begins Monday with jury selection. As jury trials start to resume statewide after a four-month suspension, judges and opposing lawyers are trying to balance safety needs against procedural and constitutional rights, like a defendant’s right to confront prosecution witnesses and counsel’s ability to effectively question prospective jurors. “Looking at someone’s expression when you question them is critical to picking a fair and impartial jury,” Brown’s lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Sierra Villaran, said at a Superior Court hearing Thursday in arguing against face masks for jurors. Likewise, she said in written arguments before the hearing, requiring witnesses to wear masks “inhibits jurors’ … [Read more...]

The observance of Juneteenth for the first time as a federal holiday is being hailed by lawmakers and activists who for years have sought national recognition for the oldest celebration of slavery's abolishment in the U.S. But racial justice advocates and members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) say much more needs to be done on issues like police reform and voting rights -- legislative priorities that have failed to attract anywhere near the kind of bipartisan support garnered by the Juneteenth bill that sailed through Congress earlier this week. “Let us not forget how much further we must go,” CBC Chairwoman Joyce Beatty Joyce Birdson Beatty Usher attends Juneteenth bill signing at White House Advocates warn against complacency after Chauvin verdict Democrats demand Biden administration reopen probe into Tamir Rice's death MORE (D-Ohio) said in a statement Thursday. ADVERTISEMENT “Voting rights, the racial wealth gap, justice in … [Read more...]

BERLIN — Germans will be forced into a strict lockdown over Christmas, after weeks of milder restrictions on public life failed to slow the spread of the coronavirus, leading to record numbers of new infections and deaths, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced on Sunday. Starting on Wednesday, nonessential stores, schools and hairdressers will be required to close, and companies will be encouraged to offer employees an extended holiday break or allow them to work from home. The number of people allowed to meet privately — including over Christmas — will also be further tightened. New Year’s celebrations outdoors will be all but prohibited, with the sale of fireworks and gatherings in public both banned. “All of this will impact the holidays, we know that, but we have been forced to take action and that is what we are doing now,” Ms. Merkel said at a news conference announcing the measures, which are to remain in place through Jan. 10. Germany earned widespread recognition for its … [Read more...]

Get ready for the second coming of Fenty. On Friday, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest luxury group, officially confirmed not only that the fashion line created by Rihanna was becoming part of its gilded stable, but also that the first products from the new company would be unveiled — in a few weeks. Thus the disruption of the status quo begins. Rihanna will become the first woman to create an original brand at LVMH, the first woman of color at the top of an LVMH maison, and her line will be the first new house created by the group since Christian Lacroix in 1987. It joins such storied heritage brands as Dior, Givenchy, Celine and Fendi and positions Rihanna as a breakthrough designer on a number of levels. [An update: In 2021, LVMH and Rihanna hit pause on the Fenty lines .] The move is a formal acknowledgment from the establishment that a multi-hyphenate pop star/actress/image-maker now has as much global currency, name-recognition and (yes) … [Read more...]

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration, scrambling to make up for lost time after a halting start, is rushing to roll out a $250 million public education campaign to encourage Americans to take the coronavirus vaccine, which will reach the first patients in the United States this week. Federal officials acknowledge the effort will be a complicated one. It must compete with public doubt and mistrust of government programs amid deep political divisions created in part by a president who has spent much of the year belittling government scientists , promoting ineffective treatments and dismissing the seriousness of the pandemic — and is now rushing to claim credit for a vaccine that he has made a priority. “When you have an anti-science element together with a divisiveness in the country, it will be challenging,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said in an interview on Friday, while declining to talk specifically about President Trump. “But you … [Read more...]

WASHINGTON — President Biden on Friday ordered a 180-day study of adding seats to the Supreme Court , making good on a campaign-year promise to establish a bipartisan commission to examine the potentially explosive subjects of expanding the court or setting term limits for justices. The president acted under pressure from activists pushing for more seats to alter the ideological balance of the court after President Donald J. Trump appointed three justices, including one to a seat that Republicans had blocked his predecessor, Barack Obama, from filling for almost a year. The result is a court with a stronger conservative tilt, now 6 to 3, after the addition of Mr. Trump’s choices, including Justice Amy Coney Barrett , who was confirmed to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg just days before last year’s presidential election. But while Mr. Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has asserted that the system of judicial nominations is “getting out of whack,” … [Read more...]

Camera manufacturer Canon has invented a new way to boost workplace morale — installing AI cameras in its offices that force workers to smile to enter the building. The Verge reports that Canon has installed cameras with AI-enabled “smile recognition” technology in the offices of its Chinese subsidiary Cannon Information Technology. The cameras only allow smiling workers to enter rooms or book meetings, ensuring that all employees are consistently smiling while at the office. The feature was noted in a recent report from the Financial Times about how Chinese companies are surveilling employees to a worrying degree using AI and algorithms. Many firms are monitoring which programs employees use on their computers in order to gauge productivity and are using CCTV cameras to measure how long they take on their lunch break. Some companies are even tracking worker movements outside the office using mobile apps. King’s College London academic Nick Srnicek told the Financial … [Read more...]

The first time I heard about Juneteenth, I was in college. Shameful, I know. Maybe it was the mostly white schools I attended, where lessons on Black history started with slave ships, skipped a few centuries and ended with the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Or maybe — and this seems most likely, based on an informal poll of friends and family — it’s because it wasn’t really celebrated in northeast Ohio. It was my professor of Black history who introduced me to Juneteenth. Appalled that most of her Black students knew nothing of the holiday, she decided to hold a mock celebration in early June, a week or so before most of us graduated. She brought in red food and drinks to share, symbolizing the blood of our ancestors. The strawberry soda, the red beans and red velvet cake. Advertisement We talked about what it must have felt like for the enslaved Black people of Galveston, Texas, to learn from Union soldiers on June 19, 1865, that they were free — … [Read more...]