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The UN’s George Floyd Resolution is a Vital Step Toward International Accountability

July 19, 2021 Newslanes Media Leave a comment

More than one year after the brutal murder of George Floyd at the hands of police, it is clear that international accountability is critical to complement and bolster domestic efforts to dismantle systemic racism in law enforcement in the United States.

Last month, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet released a highly anticipated and historic report detailing the “compounding inequalities” and “stark socioeconomic and political marginalization” that Black people and people of African descent in many countries, including in the U.S., continue to face. The report found that “no State has comprehensively accounted for the past or for the current impact of systemic racism” and called for a “transformative agenda” to uproot systemic racism and address law enforcement violence against Black people and people of African descent.

The report, which references the U.S. more than any other country, calls for “reimagining policing and reforming criminal justice systems that do not keep racial and ethnic minorities safe and which have consistently produced discriminatory outcomes for Africans and people of African descent” and urges states to address racial profiling in law enforcement, the militarization of law enforcement, and the lack of accountability and transparency regarding police violence.

Building on the momentum of the report, Bachelet formally presented her report and agenda for transformative change to the U.N. Human Rights Council last week. There is, she said, “an urgent need to confront the legacies of enslavement, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, colonialism, and successive racially discriminatory policies and systems, and to seek reparatory justice.”

Advocates immediately recognized the groundbreaking nature of this report and the impact it could have — if the U.S. actively responds. In a video statement on behalf of the ACLU, Collette Flannigan, executive director of Mothers Against Police Brutality, commended the U.N. High Commissioner for “listening to the voices of families of victims of police violence and centering the lived painful experiences of people of African descent more broadly” and called on the Biden administration, Congress, and state and local governments to heed the report’s recommendations.

U.N. member states, led by the Africa Group, also saw the need to capitalize on this moment. In a landmark resolution adopted by consensus the Human Rights Council, the U.N. will create an independent expert mechanism to focus on examining and combating systemic racism worldwide, especially in the context of law enforcement.

Up to the last minute, former colonial powers such as the United Kingdom pushed for a weaker resolution, but an unprecedented international coalition of civil society organizations and NGOs — many of which are led by Black women — successfully urged the council to maintain the core elements of the resolution. The pillars of the resolution call for enhanced global accountability for human rights violations by law enforcement against Black people in the U.S. and globally, and an investigation into the impacts of slavery and colonialism on contemporary forms of systemic racism. This is monumental step toward international accountability for systemic racism in law enforcement.

Following the adoption of the resolution, Secretary of State Antony Blinken released a statement pledging the Biden administration’s cooperation with the new expert mechanism, as the ACLU and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights have been demanding.

For years, the ACLU and civil society organizations have urged administrations to extend similar invitations to thematic human rights experts. In 2019, the ACLU, the National Council of Churches, and a diverse civil society coalition called on the Trump administration to extend an invitation to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism. The ACLU also led a coalition effort which called on the Obama administration to invite the U.N. Special Rapporteur on torture to visit U.S. detention facilities and prisons, including Guantanamo Bay.

The Biden administration’s invitation to U.N. independent experts signifies a new chapter of U.S. engagement with its international human rights bodies, particularly on racial justice and equality. We are encouraged by the administration’s promise to cooperate with the new international probe on systemic racism, but the U.S. government must take further action to confront the impacts of slavery and Jim Crow on systemic racism in the U.S.

Specifically, we’re calling on President Biden and Secretary Blinken to firmly and publicly support:

The passage of domestic legislation that is strongly aligned with the U.N.’s report, including H.R. 40, to study reparations for slavery;
The establishment of a National Human Rights Institution and the appointment of a senior Human Rights Coordinator with a mandate to implement a national plan of action to fulfill international human rights obligations, especially on racial justice; and
Transformative and meaningful changes to our public safety and criminal legal systems, including initiatives to divest from police departments and reinvest in the communities most harmed by police violence and over-policing.

The significant actions taken this week by the highest international human rights body signals a turning point in the struggle against racism and racial discrimination worldwide, and the scourge of systemic racism against Black people, particularly in the context of policing. The implementation of the historic U.N. resolution, which is informally but aptly called the “George Floyd Resolution,” coincides with the 20th anniversary of the Durban Conference Against Racism, which must continue to guide the global fight against racism. The resolution’s implementation should be followed by the creation of a U.N. Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, and work specifically to remedy past and current racial injustices through acknowledgment, recognition, reparations, and guarantees for non-repetition of the crimes against humanity of slavery and the trans-Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans. The onus is now on the Biden administration to lead by example in the work to dismantle systemic racism.

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This post originally posted here The European Times News

‘An international star’: Award-winning Easton children’s book illustrator Floyd Cooper dead at 65

July 17, 2021 Newslanes Media Leave a comment

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This post originally posted here The European Times News

Derek Chauvin Receives 22 and a Half Years for Murder of George Floyd

June 25, 2021 Newslanes Media Leave a comment

MINNEAPOLIS — Derek Chauvin, the former police officer convicted of murder in the death of George Floyd, was sentenced on Friday to 22 and a half years in prison, bringing a measure of closure to a case that set off waves of protest across the nation over police abuse of Black people.

The sentence, delivered by Judge Peter A. Cahill of Hennepin County District Court, came more than a year after a widely shared cellphone video captured Mr. Chauvin pressing his knee on the neck of Mr. Floyd for more than nine minutes along a Minneapolis street. Earlier this year, Mr. Chauvin was convicted of second-degree murder, and the sentence followed emotional statements in court Friday by members of Mr. Floyd’s family as well as by Mr. Chauvin’s mother.

Mr. Chauvin, who spoke only briefly during the hearing on Friday, offering condolences to the Floyd family, has been behind bars since his trial, which ended in April. The judge said Mr. Chauvin would be credited with 199 days already served toward his sentence. Officials said he was being kept in solitary confinement for his own safety.

Before the sentencing hearing, Mr. Chauvin’s lawyer, Eric J. Nelson, had pressed the court for leniency, asking for probation and time served. Mr. Nelson wrote in a memorandum that Mr. Chauvin had not known that he was committing a crime when he tried to arrest Mr. Floyd on a report that he had tried to use a fake $ 20 bill to buy cigarettes. Mr. Nelson also argued that placing Mr. Chauvin in prison would make him a target of other inmates.

In seeking a 30-year prison sentence for Mr. Chauvin, prosecutors had argued that the former officer’s actions had “traumatized Mr. Floyd’s family, the bystanders who watched Mr. Floyd die, and the community. And his conduct shocked the nation’s conscience.”

The killing of Mr. Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, by Mr. Chauvin, 45, who is white, led to a national reckoning over racial injustice in almost every aspect of American life. Calls emerged around the country to defund police budgets, remove statues of historical figures tied to racism and diversify predominantly white corporate boards.

The maximum sentence allowed under Minnesota law for second-degree murder, the most serious charge Mr. Chauvin was convicted of, is 40 years. Under Minnesota’s sentencing guidelines, though, a presumptive sentence for someone like Mr. Chauvin with no criminal history is 12.5 years. The jury, which deliberated for just over 10 hours following a six week trial, also convicted Mr. Chauvin of third-degree murder and manslaughter.

In recent weeks, Judge Cahill had ruled that four so-called “aggravating factors” applied to the case, raising the prospect of a harsher sentence. The judge found that Mr. Chauvin acted with particular cruelty; acted with the participation of three other individuals, who were fellow officers; abused his position of authority; and committed his crime in the presence of children, who witnessed the killing on a Minneapolis street corner on May 25, 2020.

Mr. Chauvin’s conviction was a rare rebuke by the criminal justice system against a police officer who killed someone while on duty. Officers are often given wide latitude to use force, and juries have historically been reluctant to second guess them, especially when they make split-second decisions under dangerous circumstances.

Mr. Chauvin is one of 11 police officers who have been convicted of murder for on-duty killings since 2005, according to research conducted by Philip M. Stinson, a criminal justice professor at Bowling Green State University. The lightest sentence has been just less than seven years in prison, while the harshest was 40 years. The average sentence has been 21.7 years.

Mr. Chauvin’s sentencing on Friday, while a significant milestone, does not end the legal proceedings concerning Mr. Floyd’s death. Mr. Chauvin still faces criminal charges in federal court, where he is accused of violating Mr. Floyd’s constitutional rights. And three other police officers face a state trial, scheduled for March, on charges of aiding and abetting. Those officers, too, were indicted by a federal grand jury as well.

Author: Tim Arango
This post originally appeared on NYT > Top Stories

‘I Made Juneteenth Very Famous’: The Inside Story of Trump’s Post-George Floyd Month

June 19, 2021 Newslanes Media Leave a comment

Trump had staked nearly his entire campaign in 2016 around a law-and-order image, and now groaned that the criminal justice reform that Kushner had persuaded him to support made him look weak and—even worse—hadn’t earned him any goodwill among Black voters.

“I’ve done all this stuff for the Blacks—it’s always Jared telling me to do this,” Trump said to one confidante on Father’s Day. “And they all f—— hate me, and none of them are going to vote for me.”

The weekend after Father’s Day, Trump canceled a trip to Bedminster at the last minute—after Kushner had already left for the New Jersey golf club—and instead scheduled a round of political meetings at the White House without him.

A month after the murder of Floyd, Trump was dumping on his son-in-law, and he was also abandoning the chance to improve his relationship with Black leaders and Black voters during a particularly tumultuous moment in U.S. race relations and the presidential campaign. The story of this month, from the murder of Floyd to Trump’s assertion that his outreach to Black voters wasn’t working, is one of missed opportunities and bungled messaging, even in the eyes of some of Trump’s closest advisers, who described their firsthand accounts with me during the past year. Many of the sources spoke to me on the condition of deep background, an agreement that meant I could share their stories without direct attribution.

Trump had long struggled with addressing the nation’s racial issues, and his senior staff hadn’t included a single Black staffer since he’d fired Omarosa Manigault Newman—a former contestant on his reality television show—at the end of 2017. In August 2018, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway had been asked on NBC’s Meet the Press to name the top Black official in the Trump White House and could only come up with his first name: Ja’Ron.

But Ja’Ron Smith was two pay grades below the top ranks. After Conway’s interview, Smith asked for a promotion to formalize his role as the West Wing’s senior-most Black official and close the $ 50,000 salary gap. Kushner agreed but then put him off for the next two years.

Still, Smith remained in the White House, where he continued to work on Kushner’s criminal justice issues and played a crucial role in outreach to Black community leaders. In June 2020, Smith was writing a proposal for Trump to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. But the outcry over Trump’s rally on the day that commemorated the end of slavery convinced Smith to shelve the plan.

Trump hadn’t thought to ask his seniormost Black official about holding a rally on Juneteenth.

***

Trump’s first test at addressing the country’s racial tensions came in the summer of 2017. On a Saturday in August, 32-year-old Heather Heyer was killed, and 19 others injured, when a 22-old neo-Nazi drove his souped-up 2010 Dodge Challenger at about 30 miles per hour into a crowd in Charlottesville, Virginia. Heyer, who was white, and the others were protesting a white supremacist rally organized to oppose the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, a Virginian who commanded the Confederate States Army during the Civil War. Trump had been golfing at his Bedminster club that morning. It had been about two hours since Heyer’s death, and Trump said he wanted to “put out a comment as to what’s going on in Charlottesville.”

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides—on many sides,” Trump said.

The White House tried in vain to focus cable networks and newspaper reporters on the first words of his statement instead of the final phrase—“on many sides”—that he’d ad-libbed and then repeated. But the obvious question they couldn’t answer was how the president could put any blame on the peaceful counter-protesters. His remarks seemed to justify the white supremacist violence, and Trump’s silence over the next 24 hours unnerved even those around him.

Back at Trump Tower in New York two days later, Trump had a news conference scheduled to discuss the nation’s infrastructure. Responding to questions about Charlottesville, he again blamed the counterprotesters.

“You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides,” Trump said.

The next day, Stephen Schwarzman, a longtime friend of Trump’s and chief executive of Blackstone Group, called the president and told him he had disbanded the White House Strategic and Policy Forum, a coalition of businesses chaired by Schwarzman that Trump had convened in February 2017 to advise him on economic issues. There weren’t enough executives left who would stand by Trump after his repeated failures to adequately address Charlottesville, Schwarzman said. Trump hung up and beat his friend to the punch by quickly tweeting that he was shutting down the panel.

Gary Cohn, the president’s top economic adviser—and a registered Democrat—was even more despondent. Raised Jewish on the East Side of Cleveland and a longtime New York resident, he stood next to Trump for the infrastructure news conference and grew increasingly alarmed and uncomfortable. Later, in a private meeting inside the Oval Office, Cohn unloaded on the president.

Cohn told Trump that his lack of clarity had been harmful to the country and that he’d put an incredible amount of pressure on people working in the White House. He told Trump that he might have to quit. No one backed Cohn up. Others in the room, including Pence, remained quiet.

Cohn returned to his office after the meeting broke up. Following a few minutes behind, Pence climbed the flight of stairs and appeared at the threshold of Cohn’s door.

“I’m proud of you,” Pence told him, safely out of earshot of the president.

An even bigger test for Trump came on May 26, 2020.

Ironically, in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Trump’s team had started picking up positive signals from some Black leaders that they interpreted as potential softening on the incumbent president. The reduction in sentences for crack cocaine offenses, which had disproportionately and unfairly targeted Black offenders, reduced prison time by an average of six years for more than 2,000 prisoners. Of those, 91 percent were Black. Trump’s tax-cut bill included specific incentives for investments in poverty-stricken areas, known as opportunity zones. And those incentives were starting to work, according to a study from the Urban Institute. The administration had also made some inroads with historically Black colleges and universities when it canceled repayment of more than $ 300 million in federal relief loans and made permanent more than $ 250 million in annual funding.

Al Sharpton, the MSNBC host and civil rights activist, had been secretly calling him, which left the president with the impression that their staffs should work together. But the follow-up calls from Kushner’s team would go unanswered. Jesse Jackson, the Baptist minister and civil rights activist and one-time presidential candidate, had phoned a few times, too.

And more than 600 Black leaders joined a call as White House aides strategized over a push to codify the opportunity zone revitalization council that Trump had created by executive order.

But none of Kushner’s efforts to repair Trump’s image with the Black community would matter when the video of George Floyd’s murder began spreading online.

The morning after Memorial Day, senior White House staff gathered inside the West Wing for a prescheduled meeting about coronavirus. The death toll was approaching 100,000 in the United States, and the administration was scrambling to address a shortage of remdesivir, the antiviral used to treat Covid.

“We’re getting crushed on Covid,” said Alyssa Farah, the communications director.

Kushner, who seemed distracted and more aloof than usual in the meeting, interrupted her.

“I’m just going to stop you,” he said. “There is going to be one story that dominates absolutely everything for the foreseeable future. I’m already hearing from African American leaders about the death of George Floyd in Minnesota.”

Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, brushed it off.

“Nobody is going to care about that,” Meadows told him, according to officials in the room. Meadows disputed this version of events.

It took another day for Trump to watch the devastating video of Floyd’s murder aboard Air Force One, where he was returning to Washington from Florida. Trump sat in the president’s suite near the front of the plane. As Trump pressed “play” on the video, he was surrounded by Kushner, social media director and deputy White House chief of staff Dan Scavino, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien and his media team. Trump contorted his face as he watched. He looked repulsed, then turned away. He handed the phone back to his aides without finishing.

“This is f—— terrible,” he exclaimed.

Trump said he wanted to speak immediately with Attorney General Bill Barr.

Trump was still shaken by the video the next afternoon when Barr arrived in the Oval Office on Thursday to brief the president about Floyd’s death, now three days later. Trump had tweeted the night before that he planned to expedite the probe from the Justice Department. The only effect of the tweet, however, was to politicize the issue and infuriate Barr, who hated the suggestion that his interest in the case was political or the idea that anybody was his boss. It was the opening fissure in the relationship between the prickly and stubborn septuagenarians.

“I know these f—— cops,” Trump said, recalling stories he’d heard growing up in Queens about savage police tactics. “They can get out of control sometimes. They can be rough.”

Trump’s assessment struck some in the room as surprisingly critical of police, and the president showed a level of empathy for Floyd behind closed doors that he would never fully reveal in public. Had he tried, it might have helped dial down the tension. But Trump didn’t see it as part of his job to show empathy, and he worried that such a display would signal weakness to his base.

Trump’s compassion quickly evaporated that night as he watched demonstrators torch a Minneapolis police station, and the protests spread to New York City; Denver; Phoenix; Columbus, Ohio; and Memphis, Tennessee.

“These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd,” he wrote on Twitter. “When the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!”

Later, Jackson said during one of his calls with Trump that the president said he was considering attending Floyd’s funeral. Jackson dissuaded him from that idea, telling the president that he had barely spoken to the family after Floyd died. Trump had reached out to the Floyd family four days after his death in a call that relatives later criticized as brief and one-sided. Jackson told Trump that it would have been disrespectful to then turn up to the memorial service.

Trump agreed—and it was the last time he and Jackson spoke for the rest of the year.

***

As Trump stewed amid negative coverage of the worsening pandemic, the deepening recession and now the racial justice protests, it was clear to campaign aides that they needed to get their candidate back on the road again, and soon.

In early June, Trump gathered a dozen of his top White House staffers and campaign aides—plus Mike Lindell, the MyPillow company founder and a vocal Trump supporter—to discuss the campaign’s television advertising strategy and a return to the campaign trail. Trump admired the success Lindell had selling pillows with infomercials, and Brad Parscale, his campaign manager, cornered Lindell before the meeting and urged him to attest to the brilliance of the advertising campaign.

Parscale’s prep work paid off. Trump turned to Lindell as soon as campaign staffers finished their presentation on the advertising strategy.

“Mike, are they doing a good job?” Trump asked.

“Yes, they’re doing great!” Lindell said. “I’ve talked to them before, and they’re talking to my team.”

The meeting then turned to a discussion about rallies, and Parscale presented 11 potential locations in six different states: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Nearly all of the sites were outdoors.

But Florida was off the table. Parscale suggested a drive-in-style rally in Central Florida, but Trump said Governor Ron DeSantis didn’t want a big crowd in his state during the pandemic. Parscale urged Trump to call DeSantis and tell him it was safe, but Trump refused.

No one liked the options in Arizona—the weather was too hot for an outdoor rally, and a spike in Covid cases precluded indoor venues—and Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin were all governed by Democrats. That left Tulsa, Oklahoma, which had landed on Parscale’s list after he asked Pence earlier that week about which state, governed by a Trump-friendly Republican, had the fewest Covid restrictions in the nation. The Mabee Center—the 11,300-seat arena Parscale proposed that day—had been the location of a Trump rally during the 2016 campaign. Trump was sold. (Parscale moved the venue to the 19,000-seat Bank of America Center after ticket requests shot through the roof, a result of both a prank from TikTok teens and a campaign decision to blast the announcement out to supporters across the country.)

Parscale recommended holding the Tulsa rally on June 19. No one on Parscale’s team flagged that day—or that combination of time and place—as potentially problematic. Had Parscale bothered to ask Katrina Pierson, the highest-ranking Black staffer on the campaign and a close friend of Parscale’s, she would have told him that June 19 was Juneteenth, a significant holiday for Black Americans that commemorated the end of slavery. She also would have said to him that Tulsa, as most Black Americans are well aware, had been home to one of the bloodiest outbreaks of racial violence in the nation’s history.

When staffers inside the Republican National Committee heard about the plans, they immediately pushed back.

“Don’t do this,” Ronna McDaniel, the RNC chairwoman, told Parscale. “The media is not going to give us the benefit of the doubt, especially now.”

There still was time to change the date or reconsider plans entirely. The campaign hadn’t yet signed contracts with vendors or the arena or even publicly announced the event. But Parscale dug in. Parscale’s only previous campaign had been Trump’s 2016 bid. Still, what the marketing and advertising veteran lacked in political experience, he filled in with overconfidence in what he viewed as his unlimited ability to win hearts and change minds.

On June 10, Trump had a single item on his public schedule: a 12:30 p.m. intelligence briefing. But, as was often the case with the Trump White House, that changed suddenly without any significant notice.

At 3:30 p.m., the White House summoned whichever reporters hadn’t wandered too far from their briefing room desks and quickly ushered them into the Cabinet Room, where Trump sat with Kushner and, as Trump described them, “friends of mine and members of the African American community.” That included Ben Carson, Trump’s housing secretary; Darrell Scott and Kareem Lanier, the founders of the Urban Revitalization Coalition; and Republican gadfly Raynard Jackson, who had sued the party over the trademark for “Black Republican Trailblazer Awards Luncheon,” which he believed that he, not the GOP, owned.

Trump said the meeting had been called to address law enforcement, education and healthcare issues. But for the next half-hour, Trump didn’t articulate any particular policy that would address any of those issues. The one thing Trump did talk about most extensively that afternoon: his return to rallies.

“We’re going to start our rallies back up now,” Trump informed the press. “The first one, we believe, will be probably—we’re just starting to call up—will be in Oklahoma.”

As reporters were ushered out of the room, one journalist asked Trump when he planned to be in Tulsa.

“It will be Friday,” Trump said. “Friday night. Next week.”

Juneteenth.

Democrats went on the warpath. Trump, they said, couldn’t be more insensitive to the world erupting all around him. Trump’s response was also impaired by his stunning disregard for history, particularly compared to most other modern presidents. Senior officials described his understanding of slavery, Jim Crow or the Black experience in general post-Civil War as vague to nonexistent. Now, the rally on Juneteenth threatened to exacerbate the racial fissures further.

The backlash shocked Trump. He started quizzing everyone around him.

“Do you know what it is?” Trump would ask.

Two days after announcing his rally, Trump turned to a Secret Service agent, who was Black, and asked him about Juneteenth.

“Yes,” the agent told Trump. “I know what it is. And it’s very offensive to me that you’re having this rally on Juneteenth.”

At 11:23 p.m. that night, Trump posted on Twitter that he wanted to change the date.

***

The following week, on the afternoon of June 17, my phone vibrated with a call from the White House. It was a few days before Trump’s Tulsa rally, and the president wanted to see me.

In our interview, one year ago this week, Trump tried to put a spin on the controversy. He told me that he had made Juneteenth a day to remember.

“Nobody had heard of it,” Trump told me.

He was surprised to find out that his administration had put out statements in each of his first three years in office commemorating Juneteenth.

“Oh really?” he said. “We put out a statement? The Trump White House put out a statement?”

Each statement, put out in his name, included a description of the holiday.

But such details were irrelevant to him. Instead, he insisted, “I did something good.”

“I made Juneteenth very famous,” he said.

Trump would arrive in Tulsa to a half-filled arena. Parscale had hightailed it out of the backstage area when he saw Trump and the White House entourage approaching—no one had told the president that the BOK Center wasn’t anywhere close to capacity.

Before rallies, White House aides usually inflated crowd sizes for Trump once they were told a capacity crowd was inside the building. On the way to Tulsa, no one knew how to break the disappointing news to Trump. It wasn’t until he was backstage and turned on the television that he realized the arena was two-thirds empty.

When Trump finally took the stage that night, he urged his latest audience to forget the past several months. From the rally stage in Tulsa, Trump sought a fresh start for his reelection bid.

“So we begin, Oklahoma,” the president would tell them. “We begin. We begin our campaign.”

But the truth was the campaign had begun long ago. What was actually beginning now, for Trump, was the end.

Adapted from ‘Frankly We Did Win This Election’: The Inside Story of How Donald Trump Lost by Michael C. Bender.

Author: Michael C. Bender
This post originally appeared on Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories

Sports

Floyd Mayweather makes Logan Paul admission after exhibition bout goes the distance

June 7, 2021 Newslanes Media Leave a comment

Mayweather was widely expected to toy with the taller, heavier, less-experienced YouTuber in their eight-round exhibition bout at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.

But, despite being by far the more skilled boxer in the ring on Sunday night, the undefeated legend couldn’t find the knockout punch to underscore his dominance over the dogged vlogger.

After a bout that was at times scrappy, as Paul frequently tied up Mayweather to avoid taking clean shots from close range, Mayweather admitted that the YouTube sensation had surprised him with his smarts inside the ring.

“I had fun,” he said after the bout, which had no official winner.

“You gotta realise i’m not 21 anymore, but it’s good to move around with these young guys, test my skills, just to have some fun.

“Great young fighter, tough, strong. He’s better than I thought he was.”

Mayweather said that Paul might struggle to continue his boxing career against similarly-sized fighters, but gave praise to his inexperienced opponent for putting up a tough fight in front of a huge pay-per-view audience.

“As far as with the big guys, the heavyweights, it’s gonna be kinda hard (for him),” he offered.

“But he’s a tough, rough competitor.

“It was good action, we had fun. I was surprised by him tonight.

“Good little work. Good guy. I had fun.”

Talk then turned to what might be next for Mayweather, with a potential rematch with Conor McGregor a possibility, while Paul’s younger brother, Jake, has also made no secret of his desire to step into the ring with the 50-0 legend.

But the Las Vegas native wouldn’t be drawn on his future plans as he hinted that his age may be starting to play a factor in his performances.

“I fought against a heavyweight, but I had fun,” he said.

“Even though he don’t got that much experience, he knew how to use his weight and he knew how to tie me up tonight.

“But I had fun, I’m pretty sure he had fun, and hopefully the fans enjoyed it.

“We don’t know what the future holds,” he continued.

“I’ll talk it over with my team and see where we go from here.

“You gotta realise I’ve been in this game 25 years and I understand I’m not 21, I’m not 25. But I had fun tonight.”

Author:
This post originally appeared on Daily Express :: Sport Feed

Sports

Floyd Mayweather returns to fight YouTube sensation Logan Paul

June 7, 2021 Newslanes Media Leave a comment

Mayweather and Paul are set to box eight, three-minute rounds. There will be no scoring. Each can win only by knockout, technical knockout or disqualification.

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — The rebranding of Floyd Mayweather Jr. takes another unconventional turn Sunday night.

Mayweather is a retired five-division world champion and perhaps the best boxer of the past 30 years. But his life after boxing, mostly as the head of his promotional company, did not quite satisfy.

The allure of the ring is not easily put aside.

Consequently, at age 44, he returns to the ring under conditions that will not recall any of his great exploits in the ring. He will face YouTube personality Logan Paul in an exhibition at Hard Rock Stadium, home of the Miami Dolphins.

“I don’t look at is as a fight; I think my opponent looks at it as a fight,” Mayweather said during a media gathering Thursday in Miami Beach. ”I look at it, for one night, I’ll be entertaining the people. I do it when I want to. We’re going to go out there have fun Sunday and give the people what they want to see.”

The enviable pay-per-view stripes Mayweather earned during his unblemished 50-fight career and Paul’s reported 29 million followers on his social media platform helped move the event to a football stadium. The Mayweather-Paul marquee is supported by additional bouts involving former world champions. TV and other viewing options will require a $ 50 price tag.

Mayweather and Paul are to box eight, three-minute rounds. There will be no scoring. Each can win only by knockout, technical knockout or disqualification.

Another feature is the floating weight limit. Paul will be allowed to weigh as much as 190 pounds. The heaviest Mayweather weighed for a boxing match was 151 pounds for his super welterweight title fight against Miguel Cotto in 2012. The 5-foot-8 Mayweather began his career in the 130-pound junior lightweight division.

“You never worry about height or size, it’s about skills,” Mayweather said. “And that’s one thing about Floyd Mayweather is I’ve got skills.”

The exhibition has drawn predicted outcries from boxing purists. But Mayweather admirers and younger audiences, who don’t care about the nuances of the sweet science, are generating enthusiasm.

“This whole thing is surreal, everything about it,” Paul said. “I told my manager and we kind of had an inside joke that until I get in the ring with him, I didn’t think this fight was happening.

“But I think it’s safe to say that I can believe it now. I think it’s happening. It’s fight week. I can’t imagine Floyd would back out now, but who knows? Old man fakes an injury, gets scared of the big kid. I’m excited.”

Paul, 29, has one previous boxing exhibition. He lost a split decision against fellow YouTube personality KSI (Olajide William Olatunji) in November 2019.

Mayweather won world titles in the super featherweight, lightweight, super lightweight, welterweight and super welterweight classes during his 21-year career. He defeated Manny Pacquiao, Oscar De La Hoya, Shane Mosley and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Many boxing experts consider Alvarez the sport’s best pound-for-pound fighter.

After stopping UFC star Conor McGregor in 2017, Mayweather retired. Mayweather, who recently became a grandfather, has no intentions to upgrade ring appearances beyond exhibitions. Pacquiao, 42, will return after a two-year absence to fight welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr. on Aug. 21 in Las Vegas.

“Am I proud of Manny Pacquiao? Absolutely,” Mayweather said. “But he has to fight. I’ve made sound investments. I’m able to put myself in a position where I don’t have to fight anymore.”

The Mayweather-Paul event headlines a card that will feature a second exhibition involving retired NFL wide receiver Chad Johnson.

“I’ve been using boxing to prepare for football throughout the years, but I’ve never done it to this magnitude,” said Johnson, who will face Brian Maxwell. “To prepare for an actual fight, is something new. I’m facing a guy who does this for a living, so I’m not taking this lightly at all.”

Also on the card are former super welterweight champion Jarrett Hurd and ex-super-middleweight titleholder Badou Jack. Hurd will face Luis Arias while Jack will fight Dervin Colina. Jack originally was scheduled to face former light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal before Pascal tested positive for a banned substance.

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This post originally appeared on CBS8 – Sports

Technology

Logan Paul v Floyd Mayweather free live stream warning: Watching online could cost YOU

June 7, 2021 Newslanes Media Leave a comment

Fight fans only have a short time to wait until the main event starts, including the exhibition fight everyone has been waiting for. Logan Paul vs Floyd Mayweather, the high-profile boxing bout, is taking place at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, with those looking to watch the big fight having to pay a PPV fee – with Sky Box Office having the UK rights. It costs £16.95 to watch Paul Mayweather on Sky Box Office, with the pair not expected to step into the ring till 4am UK time on Monday June 7.

If you’re looking to tune into Paul vs Mayweather, and have been tempted to watch the match via an illegal free live stream, then just be warned that it could end up costing you severely.

For Paul’s last fight, a rematch between fellow YouTuber KSI, measures were put in place to try to clamp down on the rampant piracy that affected the pair’s first bout.

Given how high profile the Paul Mayweather fight is, rights holders may look to go even further to clampdown on illegal streams.

And if they do want to go down this road, they don’t have to look too far.

Recently Paul’s brother Jake, another YouTuber, also took part in a boxing match versus Ben Askren.

And those reportedly involved in the illegal live streaming of this fight are now facing a very heavy cost.

As reported by TorrentFreak, Triller – who distributed the Paul Askren fight – have launched legal action against companies, business entities and individuals who allegedly posted the fight online without permission.

Triller’s first attempts at legal action, which was a $ 100million lawsuit that targeted entities and individuals that allegedly streamed the fight illegally, didn’t go to plan with a judge unhappy that 13 separate defendants had all been bundled into the same action.

All defendants bar FilmDaily.com were culled from the suit, but that didn’t deter Triller.

The company went on to file a $ 50million lawsuit against the popular H3 Podcast. The suit claims the pod’s YouTube channel “unlawfully uploaded, distributed, and publicly displayed” the fight.

And Triller didn’t stop there, with lawsuits recently filed against Online2LiveStream.us, My-Sports.club and YouTubers ‘ItsLilBrandon’ and Elipt Gaming.

The latter is a small YouTube channel which has just 2,250 subscribers.

While Triller’s suit goes on to say that the video in question, from Elipt Gaming, was viewed “at least 300 times”.

The complaint says: “Defendants’ calculated and reprehensible infringement, theft, and other unlawful acts — committed in knowing violation of the law — has resulted in damages suffered by Plaintiff by stealing and diverting at least 300 unique viewers of the illegal and unauthorized viewings of the Broadcast from Plaintiff.”

This latest legal action is a clear example of rights holders not just going after big name piracy hubs, but also willing to target streams that reach a much smaller amount of people.

While Triller aren’t broadcasting the Mayweather Paul fight, it’s a timely warning to anyone thinking of trying to watch or share an illegal live stream of the serious risks they take doing so.

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This post originally appeared on Daily Express :: Tech Feed

Sports

Floyd Mayweather vs Logan Paul LIVE: Boxing legend faces YouTube star in Miami

June 7, 2021 Newslanes Media Leave a comment

Face to face: Floyd Mayweather and Logan Paul will face off in an exhibition bout in Miami (Image: GETTY)

Floyd Mayweather vs Logan Paul: Fight Card

Floyd Mayweather vs Logan Paul – 190-pound exhibition bout
Badou Jack vs Dervin Colina – light-heavyweight bout
Jarrett Hurd vs Luis Arias – middleweight bout
Chad ‘Ochocinco’ Johnson vs. Brian Maxwell – cruiserweight exhibition bout

Jarrett Hurd vs Luis Arias

The 10-round middleweight bout between former light-middleweight world champ Jarrett Hurd and Luis Arias didn’t go the way of the formbook, as Arias scored a huge victory to hand Hurd only the second defeat of his pro career.

Arias, who hadn’t won since 2017, looked fired-up and ready for the fray, while Hurd appeared a little slower to the punch as he got clipped frequently by Arias’ right hand.

Hurd attempted to rough-house his way back into the fight, and was given a strong warning by the referee after two low blows in quick succession left Arias in agony on the canvas in Round 7.

Then, in Round 9, Hurd then earned a knockdown after a shot sent Arias to the canvas, though it looked like the wet canvas from the torrential rain in Miami was a much to blame as Hurd’s punch.

However, it proved to be a frustrating night for Hurd, as Arias ran out the split-decision winner with scores of 94-95, 97-93, 96-93.

Split-decision winner: Luis Arias defeated Jarrett Hurd (Image: GETTY)

Chad ‘Ochocinco’ Johnson vs Brian Maxwell

The exhibition bout between former NFL star Johnson and bare-knuckle fighter Maxwell proved to be a smart piece of matchmaking, with the pair looking relatively evenly-matched in their four 2-minute-round encounter.

Despite Maxwell having the experience advantage, it was Johnson who landed the cleaner work through most of the bout, using his lunging southpaw style well to repeatedly clip the combat sports professional.

But, in the final round, Maxwell connected with a big right hand that sent “Ochocinco” crashing face-first to the canvas.

Johnson beat the count, but looked decidedly wobbly as he backpedalled his way to the final bell.

We scored it as we went along, and gave “Ochocinco” the first three rounds before Maxwell scored the final-round knockdown, meaning our unofficial scorecard had the former NFL star as the winner, 38-37.

But, with the bout contested as an exhibition, no winner was announced as both men had their hands raised after the fight.

1:15am: The night’s first fight offers plenty of interest on the other side of the pond, with former NFL wide receiver Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson set to make his combat sports bow against journeyman mixed martial artist and bare-knuckle fighter Brian Maxwell.

“People who are buying tickets, people that are showing up, I want them to leave and say, ‘I doubted Ocho, but to see him get in the ring, knowing that someone tried to kill. He put on one hell of a f****** show,'” he told ESPN.

“I wouldn’t step in the ring with Charlo or Canelo, but the opportunity presented itself to move around with somebody who has skills and has ring experience.

“I felt I was in adequate enough shape and had enough background to do it.

“With a huge amount of respect for combat sports, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.”

Six-time NFL Pro Bowler Chad ‘Ochocinco’ Johnson is set for undercard action (Image: GETTY)

1:00am: Former cruiserweight world champion Johnny Nelson has joined the Sky Box Office panel as they try to keep the interest up during the long build-up to the first fight of the night.

And while nobody has attempted to build a case for Logan Paul actually winning, Nelson brought a stark sense of reality of just how big of a mismatch we’re about to see tonight.

“Unless Floyd Mayweather goes out there blindfolded, and probably drunk, how can he possibly lose to this young man?” he said, with a smile.

12:40am: The fight’s rules are a little, well, strange.

Knockouts are legal. However, there will be no judges at ringside, and no official winner will be declared.

Floyd Mayweather vs Logan Paul: Exhibition rules

No ringside judges
No official winner to be announced
Knockouts are legal
Knockout is up to referee’s discretion
10-ounce gloves to be worn, with no headgear
Fight to be contested over eight 3-minute rounds
Fighters to weigh no more than 190 pounds

Logan Paul pulls on the gloves during his open workout (Image: GETTY)

12:30am: Logan Paul may have the height and reach advantage, but the difference in boxing ability isn’t so much a skills gap as an almighty chasm.

And British boxer and Mayweather gym fighter Viddal Riley, who trained YouTuber KSI in his two fights against Logan Paul, said “The Maverick’s” physical advantages will count for nothing once the fight starts.

In one line, he aptly described what the overwhelming majority of fight fans are thinking about Paul’s chances heading into the fight.

“The skill’s so low, the weight doesn’t matter.”

Size difference: Logan Paul towered over Floyd Mayweather at the weigh-ins (Image: GETTY)

12:15am: Paul, 26, has been given virtually no chance of success against the boxing icon, but that hasn’t stopped the Ohio native from portraying a confident attitude heading into tonight’s fight.

“People are asking me if I’m like scared. No, no I’m not scared,” he said

“The feelings I’m getting right now are just excitement.

“I’m excited, I’m blessed to have this opportunity, and I think we’re going to wow a lot of people.

“I just don’t believe I’m gonna get in there and people are gonna see what they expect to see.”

Paul towered over Mayweather at the weigh-ins after tipping the scale at 189.5 pounds, 34 and a half pounds heavier than Mayweather, who came in at 155 pounds.

But, as Mayweather stated afterward, size won’t matter when the pair start throwing leather.

“Height doesn’t win fights, weight doesn’t win fights,” he said.

“Fighting wins fights… and I can fight.”

12:10am: The first fight of the evening will see former NFL wide receiver Chad ‘Ochocinco’ Johnson make his boxing debut.

The 43-year-old will be trying his hand at boxing for the first time.

He has previously trained with Mayweather during the NFL off-season, however.

Ochocinco will be taking on bare-knuckle boxer Brian Maxwell, who has lost his only three previous fights.

Elsewhere, former world champion Jarrett Hurd is expected to pick up a victory over Luis Arias in their middleweight bout.

Hurd, who held the unified WBA (super), IBF and IBO light-middleweight titles between 2017 and 2019, is looking to make his way back to a title fight.

And the 30-year-old is expected to pick up the win against Arias, who is fighting for the first time since 2019, and hasn’t earned a victory since June 2017.

Former WBC super-middleweight and WBA light-heavyweight champion Badou Jack is also set for action on the card.

Jack was originally slated to face fellow former world champion Jean Pascal in a rematch of their 2019 light-heavyweight title fight, which Pascal won by split decision.

However, Pascal failed a drug test in the lead-up to the fight, and has been replaced by undefeated contender Dervin Colina, who has won all bar two of his 15 pro fights inside the distance.

12:05am: Despite losing his professional debut to fellow YouTube star KSI in November 2019, Paul challenged Mayweather to a fight last year, which was confirmed in December.

The affair was initially scheduled for February 2021 but was postponed until this month due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.

Mayweather is set to earn a monstrous payday from the event, with the Hall of Famer claiming he will make over $ 100million (£70million) for fighting Paul.

He said: “I can fight a fighter right now, and I can guarantee myself $ 35million. I can eventually probably make $ 50million for just a regular fight.

“Or me and Logan Paul can go out, entertain, have fun and make nine figures, $ 100million or more.”

12:00am: The sport of boxing has seen many big-money, big-occasion matchups, but few have been quite like the one we’re about to witness tonight.

There are no world titles on the line. Indeed, officially, there are no professional records on the line.

Instead, tonight’s main event is an exhibition bout between one of the greatest technical boxers in the sport’s history and a young upstart YouTuber with a massive social media following who has only boxed twice in competitive bouts in his life.

It’s the latest instalment of the Floyd Mayweather money-printing bandwagon, as the 44-year-old taps into the lucrative social influencer market for what, on paper at least, should be by far his easiest assignment since this first bout as a professional back in October 1996.

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This post originally appeared on Daily Express :: Sport Feed

Sports

Logan Paul has no chance of defeating Floyd Mayweather, says boxing legend

June 5, 2021 Newslanes Media Leave a comment

“This dude (Paul) is a YouTube sensation. Floyd boxes.

“And not only does Floyd box, Floyd was one of the best. Floyd was one of the best, pound-for-pound, for a long time.

“Boxers couldn’t hit him. How’s a non-boxer gonna hit him?

Jones also said that, with Logan taking a mismatch against a legend like Mayweather, and Logan’s brother Jake taking a fight with former UFC champion Tyron Woodley, the days of the two YouTuber siblings fighting in novelty matchups are now gone, and the bouts will only get more serious from now on.

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This post originally appeared on Daily Express :: Sport Feed

Minneapolis Removes Memorials and Barricades From ‘George Floyd Square’

June 5, 2021 Newslanes Media Leave a comment

MINNEAPOLIS — The bulldozers arrived before dawn on Thursday at the South Minneapolis intersection where the police killed George Floyd. Moving quickly, city workers in neon vests hauled away flowers, artwork and large cement barricades that have allowed the corner to serve as an ever-growing memorial to Mr. Floyd for more than a year.

By the time hundreds of people began flocking to the scene in protest, many of the tributes at the intersection known as George Floyd Square were gone. The large metal fist that sprouts from the middle of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue was still there, but the barriers that activists used to block traffic had been removed and the city had put most of the items honoring Mr. Floyd into storage.

The mayor and other city officials hoped that the effort would let traffic flow through the intersection again, allowing businesses to prosper and cutting down on the violence in the neighborhood. But demonstrators said that the unannounced action was disrespectful to Mr. Floyd’s memory and that the city was trying to force people to move on from his killing.

In the weeks after May 25, 2020, when a police officer knelt on Mr. Floyd’s neck as he took his last breaths, the intersection was transformed into a community space that people visited from around the world, to pay their respects or simply to say they had been there. In April, hundreds of people gathered in the intersection and erupted in cheers when Derek Chauvin, the white former officer, was found guilty of murdering Mr. Floyd, a Black father who had recently lost his job as a security guard.

But the intersection had also become an autonomous zone of sorts that the police avoided; some residents complained that it had become dangerous and detrimental to nearby businesses. Several shootings have erupted in the area, including when one man was shot in broad daylight on the anniversary of Mr. Floyd’s death last month.

For months, the question of how to preserve the memorial while allowing the neighborhood’s businesses and residents to thrive has vexed city officials. They have announced a series of investments in the area and changed the name of Chicago Avenue to George Perry Floyd Jr. Place for two blocks.

Even as some residents and businesses praised the removal of the sprawling memorial on Thursday, others set up new makeshift barriers to block traffic in the one-block radius around the intersection, using lawn chairs, a drying machine and an air-conditioner. By the afternoon, traffic was not able to pass freely through the intersection as city officials had hoped.

“I acknowledge that it will be a bit touch-and-go and difficult over the next several days,” Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis said at a news conference.

Mr. Frey said the city was investing in Black-owned businesses in the area and that reopening the streets to traffic was just one part of creating an accessible and prosperous neighborhood. “We will be putting our money where our mouth is,” he said.

But others said it was too soon to clear the area, and that doing so with little warning early in the morning was not consistent with city officials’ repeated promises of transparency following Mr. Floyd’s death.

“I think it’s wrong,” said D.J. Hooker, a community activist who arrived early on Thursday after hearing that the memorial was being taken down. “This is not what they should be doing while people are trying to still heal.”

As protesters were at the intersection on Thursday afternoon, they got word that police officers had fatally shot a man at a parking garage elsewhere in the city.

A spokesman for the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office sent a statement from the U.S. Marshals Service, a federal agency, that said its task force members had killed a man who was sitting in a parked car after he showed a handgun. The statement said the task force members, which are often made up of local police officers, were trying to arrest the man on a warrant related to a gun charge, but the agency did not identify the man or the officers who fired.

Jeremy Zoss, the spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office, would not say whether sheriff’s deputies were the ones who shot the man. A spokesman for the Minneapolis Police Department said its officers were not involved.

In clearing George Floyd Square, the city partnered with the Agape Movement, an organization that has provided security in the neighborhood since Mr. Floyd’s death and has worked to improve the relationship between the police and residents. It has several contracts with the city, including one for up to $ 359,000 for help with revitalizing the intersection, said Sarah McKenzie, a city spokeswoman.

Steve Floyd, a senior member of the Agape Movement, said at the news conference with city officials that it was important to start making the neighborhood more prosperous and peaceful. Mr. Floyd, who is not related to George Floyd, said that he had spoken with many residents in recent months about clearing the intersection and that he had coordinated with the city about when to do so to avoid pushback.

Agape Movement members, some of whom have spoken about being former members of gangs, have received harsh criticism from some activists for working with the city, but Mr. Floyd said the city’s investment was an example of how local governments can fund community groups instead of the police.

The city crews arrived at about 4:30 a.m. on Thursday and began to remove the memorial structures outside of Cup Foods, the convenience store where a clerk called 911 last year to say he thought that Mr. Floyd had used a fake $ 20 bill to buy cigarettes, drawing Mr. Chauvin and other officers to the scene.

In a statement, Mr. Frey and the two City Council members who represent the neighborhood, Andrea Jenkins and Alondra Cano, said they were “committed to establishing a permanent memorial at the intersection.” The politicians said in the statement that the city was “playing a supportive role” in helping the Agape Movement and other community leaders clear the area, though one member of the Agape Movement dismissed the idea that city officials were not in charge.

“That is the narrative,” said Akeem Cubie, 32, who said the Agape Movement had advised city officials about how to peacefully reopen the intersection. “They don’t want to take the backlash coming in here.”

But Mr. Cubie, who grew up near the intersection and now lives elsewhere in Minneapolis, said that the neighborhood had become a hub for gangs and that clearing the memorial would make it safer for the community.

“What is this here for?” he asked, motioning to the intersection filled with protesters. “Is this here for you to just come over here and have a good time? Our life doesn’t turn off even though you probably have a good time. We’ve still got to go home.”

On Thursday, a representative of Cup Foods praised the city’s move to reopen the area to traffic.

“Businesses can once again thrive,” said Jamar Nelson, who has worked as a spokesman for Cup Foods since Mr. Floyd’s death. “Now, hopefully, a memorial can be put in place, to respect the Floyd family and the community.”

Danielle Fabunmi, 48, who lives about six blocks away from the intersection, stood in front of Cup Foods on Thursday as she watched city workers dismantle the memorial. She said she felt that the city had bowed to pressure from businesses and residents worried about crime.

“I kind of always knew that it wasn’t going to last, but I’m pretty hurt because there needs to be a reminder of what happened here,” Ms. Fabunmi said. “They’re really feeling that a lot of these memorials are kind of getting in the way of business, so that’s to be understood, but also, there’s something larger at hand.”

The scene on Thursday was at times tense, with some activists yelling at city officials as they removed the barriers. “No justice, no streets!” one said. But later, the crowd grew more relaxed, with one activist handing out coffee and doughnuts. No uniformed police officers could be seen as the demolition took place.

Matt Furber contributed reporting from Minneapolis. Christine Hauser also contributed reporting.

Author: Deena Winter, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Jenny Gross
This post originally appeared on NYT > U.S. News

Floyd Mayweather vs Logan Paul: Fight Card

Jarrett Hurd vs Luis Arias

Chad ‘Ochocinco’ Johnson vs Brian Maxwell

Floyd Mayweather vs Logan Paul: Exhibition rules

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