Headline

US Capital Scraps Black Lives Matter Mural After Trump Pressure

Published

7 months ago

March 11, 2025

Editor

Workers in Washington on Monday began removing a “Black Lives Matter” street mural installed during the height of 2020 racial justice protests, bowing to pressure from President Donald Trump.

Large, yellow lettering reading “Black Live Matter” has been painted on a roadway near the White House since June 2020, when protests broke out across the nation following the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man.

City officials in the US capital have credited the art installation with calming tensions near the White House, where violent clashes between protesters and security personnel had occurred in the days prior.

Trump, who was president at the time of the unrest, returned to office in January seeking to overturn so-called diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices which spread widely throughout the public and private sectors following the George Floyd protests.

Congressional Republicans and Trump aides had eyed the mural as part of their move to force changes in the administration of Washington, an overwhelmingly Democratic city.

Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, has sought to establish a good working relationship with Trump, seeking to head off Republican calls for fully overturning the city’s right to govern itself.

She has also been worried that mass layoffs of federal workers by Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk could wreak havoc on the city’s finances.

“We have bigger fish to fry than fights over what has been very important to us and to the history, and especially in our ability to keep our city safe during that time — that mural played a very important part,” Bowser told reporters last week.

“But now our focus is on making sure our residents and our economy survives.”

When asked if it was in response to White House pressure, she said: “I’m not going to talk about specifics… but I think it’s safe to say that people don’t like it, didn’t like it.”

As jackhammers plowed away Monday at the pavement, numerous onlookers snapped photos of the work.

Iran president says Trump aiming to bring country ‘to its knees’
Two African American women told AFP they had come to get a final look at the mural, expressing dismay at the decision to remove it.

Both said they were lifelong Democrats.

“It’s history… and now they’re basically saying it didn’t happen,” said one of the two, a 54-year-old caregiver from nearby Virginia who requested anonymity because of her political work.

“The money you’re spending to remove it could’ve been spent on so many other things,” she said.

“What’s next?” asked her friend, 57-year-old Tajuana McCallister, a healthcare worker in Maryland.

“Black history clearly doesn’t matter to him,” she said, nodding toward the White House.

The site, erected during the protests, showed leaders “have compassion, (were saying) ‘we hear you,’” according to the caregiver.

Its removal, she said, shows “what you (leaders) said didn’t matter.”

Headline

Welcome Home, Israel Confirms Return Of 20 Hostages From Gaza

Published

6 hours ago

October 13, 2025

Editor

Israel said that the last 20 living hostages released by Hamas on Monday had arrived in the country.

“Welcome home,” the foreign ministry wrote in a series of posts on X, hailing the return of Matan Angrest, Gali Berman, Ziv Berman, Elkana Bohbot, Rom Braslavski, Nimrod Cohen, David Cunio, Ariel Cunio, Evyatar David, Guy Gilboa Dalal, Maxim Herkin, Eitan Horn, Segev Kalfon, Bar Kuperstein, Omri Miran, Eitan Mor, Yosef Haim Ohana, Alon Ohel, Avinatan Or and Matan Zangauker.

AFP

Headline

20 Members Of Gang Blacklisted By US Escape Guatemala Prison

Published

8 hours ago

October 13, 2025

Editor

Twenty members of a gang designated a “foreign terrorist organisation” by the United States have escaped from detention in Guatemala, a prison chief said Sunday.

The members of the Barrio 18 gang “evaded security controls” at the Fraijanes II facility, prison director Ludin Godinez said at a news conference.

He received “an intelligence report” on Friday warning about the “possible escape” from the prison, which is southeast of the capital, Guatemala City.

Godinez said they were investigating possible acts of corruption.

Washington last month blacklisted Barrio 18, an El Salvador-based gang which has a reputation for violence and extortion, as part of its crackdown on drug trafficking.

The US embassy in Guatemala condemned the prison escape as “utterly unacceptable.”

“The United States designated members of this heinous group as the terrorists they are and will hold accountable anyone who has provided, provides, or decides to provide material support to these fugitives or other gang members,” the embassy said on X.

It called on the Guatemalan government to “act immediately and vigorously to recapture these terrorists.”

According to Interior Minister Francisco Jimenez, there are about 12,000 gang members and collaborators in Guatemala, while another 3,000 are in prison.

The country’s homicide rate has increased from 16.1 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2024 to 17.65 this year, more than double the world average, according to the Centre for National Economic Research.

According to the Salvadoran government, the gangs Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha, better known as MS-13, are responsible for the deaths of about 200,000 people over three decades.

The two gangs once controlled an estimated 80 percent of El Salvador, which had one of the highest homicide rates in the world.

Headline

South Africa Bus Crash Kills 40 Including Malawi, Zimbabwe Nationals

Published

8 hours ago

October 13, 2025

Editor

At least 40 people, including nationals of Malawi and Zimbabwe, were killed when a passenger bus rolled down an embankment in South Africa, a provincial transport minister said Monday.

The bus travelling to Zimbabwe crashed around 90 kilometres (55 miles) from the border on Sunday after the driver apparently lost control, Limpopo province transport minister Violet Mathye said.

“They are still working on the scene, but 40 bodies have already been confirmed to date,” Mathye told the Newzroom Afrika channel. The dead included a 10-month-old girl, she said.

Thirty-eight people were in hospital and rescuers were searching for other victims, she told eNCA media.

The bus was travelling from the southern city of Gqeberha, around 1,500 kilometres away, and its passengers included Malawians and Zimbabweans who were working in South Africa. The crash may have been caused by driver fatigue or a mechanical fault, the minister said.

South Africa has a sophisticated and busy road network with a high rate of road deaths, blamed mostly on speeding, reckless driving and unroadworthy vehicles.

AFP