Social media users have slammed a decision to ban a catsuit worn by US tennis champion Serena Williams as part of changes to the dress code at the French Open.
French Tennis Federation President Bernard Giudicelli singled out Williams’ black and red outfit, whichshe wore at the tournament in May, in an interview with Tennis Magazine saying “certain limits” would be imposed on player’s uniforms going forward.
“I think that, sometimes, we’ve gone too far,” he said. “[The catsuit] will no longer be accepted. One must respect the game and place.”
The comments have prompted a lively debate on social media, with users attributing the decision to racism, sexism and ignorance.
Others have questioned the wisdom in banning an outfit which was specially designed by Williams’ sponsor, Nike, for health reasons.
Williams told reporters after she first wore the outfit in May that the skin-tight material helped avoid blood clots, which caused her to have a pulmonary embolism after giving birth in September.
“I’ve been wearing pants, in general, a lot when I play so I can keep the blood circulation going. It’s a fun suit, but it’s also functional so I can be able to play without problems,” she said.
Rafi D’Angelo, a blogger, said in a series of posts on Twitter that the ban was about men telling women what to wear and white men “continuing to be uncomfortable with Serena’s body”.
Serena Williams, who wore an outfit specifically designed to help prevent blood clots because she almost *died* after giving birth, won’t be able to wear her catsuit again at the French Open because the tournament chief…doesn’t like it.
After playing in May’s French Open, Williams said the outfit made her feel like a “warrior”.
“I call it my Wakanda-inspired catsuit,” she said, referring to the fictional African country which is home to the Marvel superhero Black Panther.
“I feel like a warrior in it, like a warrior princess kind of, queen from Wakanda maybe … I’ve always wanted to be a superhero, and it’s kind of my way of being a superhero. I feel like a superhero when I wear it.”
Nike, who made the suit for Williams, has shared a message of support [Christian Hartmann/Reuters]
A photo of Williams in her catsuit next to a 1985 shot of former US tennis player Anne White wearing a long-sleeved white bodysuit has been widely shared by social media users who say it shows a double-standard in clothing restrictions for white and black women.
At the time, White was asked to wear something more “appropriate”.
For the record, Serena Williams wasn’t the first woman to wear a catsuit at a Grand Slam. Anne White did it in 1985 at the US Open. They knew this was a possibility but didn’t ban it until Serena did it for MEDICAL REASONS. pic.twitter.com/0GyDbKnhEO
Kristen Clarke, president of the US-based Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law said the decision was “racist and sexist” and reflected how black women’s bodies are subject to increased restrictions.
“Arbitrary dress code policies have been disproportionately used to target Black women in schools, at work and now on the tennis court. This is the unfair policing of Black women’s bodies,” she said on Twitter.
Let’s call this French Open restriction on Serena Williams for what it is- racist and sexist. Arbitrary dress code policies have been disproportionately used to target Black women in schools, at work and now on the tennis court. This is the unfair policing of Black women’s bodies https://t.co/kbMbLSHF2a
Many social media users took exception to the suggestion that Williams choice of outfit showed a lack of respect for tennis.
“The French Open needs to learn how to respect the GREATEST OF ALL TIME and stop telling Serena Williams what to wear,” environmental activist Ryan White said in a post on Twitter.
The 36-year old is considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time, having won 23 singles grand slam titles, the second-highest number for a female player after Australian former tennis player Margaret Court’s 24.
The French Open needs to learn how to respect the GREATEST OF ALL TIME and stop telling Serena Williams what to wear.
Giudicelli’s comments came on Friday, as Williams topped Forbes’ annual list of highest paid female athletes, having taken home some $18.1m between June 2017 and June 2018.
Williams, who is currently training for September’s US Open, has not responded to the comments but did not attend a pre-tournament press conference yesterday because she was feeling “under the weather,” according to a tournament announcement.
However, Nike responded by sharing a photo of Williams in the outfit, saying: “You can take the superhero out of her costume, but you can never take away her superpowers.”
Giudicelli did not offer specifics on what the new dress code would entail, but said it would not be as strict as those in place at Wimbledon, where players are required to wear white.
The next French Open will be held in May 2019 and many player’s uniforms have already been designed but Giudicelli said the FFT would be asking manufacturers for an advance look at them.
Super quiet • Pass-through charging for MacBooks with USB-C
Expensive • Non-replaceable graphics processor • Many apps aren’t optimized for eGPU • Most apps don’t support hot-plugging • eGPU support for macOS High Sierra and Mojave varies • Included Thunderbolt 3 cable is really short
Blackmagic’s eGPU is worth considering if you wanna give your Mac a graphics boost, but only if you have all the right equipment and don’t mind going through trial and error to see if your apps will benefit from it.
If you judged by how Apple presented the Blackmagic Design external graphics processing unit (eGPU) at its coming-out party for the latest MacBook Pro, turbo-charging your Mac with faster graphics performance was easy. Improving speed for things like exporting high-resolution video looked as simple as connecting the Blackmagic eGPU into one of the laptop’s Thunderbolt 3 ports.
Take it from me: It’s not.
After weeks of frustrated testing, I learned that there’s actually a very specific “correct“ way to use the $700 external graphics processor and I had been using it all wrong.
But could you really blame me? None of the info to get the eGPU working properly is included in the instructions.
It was only after a long journey down Google search and seemingly endless back-and-forth emails with Blackmagic and a call with Apple that I was finally able to see faster and not slower graphics performance.
But first, some basics. The almost 10-pound eGPU houses a non-upgradeable AMD Radeon Pro 580 graphics processor with 8GB of VRAM. Unlike other eGPUs such as the Razer Core, you can’t swap the GPU. This non-upgradeability severely limits its usefulness if you want more power down the road.
The Radeon Pro 580’s not bad (it’s the same one in the 2017 5K 27-inch iMac), but its performance still pales in comparison to NVIDIA’s GTX 1080 and is nowhere as powerful as the AMD Radeon Pro Vega GPUs inside of the iMac Pro.
If you need even more graphics performance, you can also connect multiple Blackmagic eGPUs directly to each of your Mac’s Thunderbolt 3 ports. (Don’t daisy chain them, though, because that will overload the port, according to the company’s FAQ.) I didn’t get to test multiple Blackmagic eGPUs (I only had one to play with), but keep in mind that an app also needs to support multiple GPUs (external or not) in order for it to access the extra power.
The eGPU runs almost silent.
Image: raymond wong/mashable
GPU choice aside, Blackmagic’s eGPU is well built and won’t easily be knocked over on desks (the included 20-inch Thunderbolt 3 cable is a tad short, though). I wouldn’t call it beautiful — the base is ugly in my opinion — but it blends in nicely with any space gray MacBook or iMac Pro. It kind of reminds me of the the trash can Mac Pro (Apple helped design this thing after all) and works similarly with air being sucked up from the bottom and released out through the top vent. Most impressive is how quiet it operates — it’s barely audible.
Lots of ports to plug your external display and accessories into. It’s basically a huge dongle.
Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE
Around the eGPU’s back is a healthy stable of ports for connecting accessories: two Thunderbolt 3 ports, four USB 3.0 ports, and an HDMI 2.0 port.
The only indicator the eGPU is on is this light.
Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE
Noticeably missing on the eGPU is a power button. The only way to know if the eGPU is on and connected properly is the white LED down below, which lights up when its in use. Also, on your Mac, the eGPU symbol appears in the menu bar.
One issue after another
My main beef with Blackmagic’s eGPU isn’t just that it’s expensive or that the GPU is non-upgradeable, but that there are a whole lot checkboxes you need to tick off to get it to actually work. Even worse, when it’s connected and not working, there’s absolutely no way to tell (unless you’re looking at the Activity Monitor or doing rigorous testing like me). It still lights up, and you still get the menu-bar icon.
When I first unboxed the eGPU, I thought I’d just plug it into my 2017 top-of-the-line 15-inch MacBook Pro (2.9GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, Intel HD Graphics 630, and Radeon Pro 560 discrete GPU with 4GB of VRAM) running the latest version of macOS High Sierra and — BOOM — faster graphics performance.
How wrong was I.
My first order of business was to test video exporting with and without the eGPU. I plugged the eGPU into the MacBook Pro and fired up both Final Cut Pro X and Adobe Premiere Pro CC. With the help of Mashable video producer Ray White we created several test projects to export.
(We did a 1080p export project, but to keep things simple we’ll focus on my 4K trials because 1080p performance was the same with and without the eGPU.)
For both video-editing apps, we created a 4K video project with the following components:
12 video clips at 3,840 x 2,160 resolution and 30 fps (shot with a Sony A6300 camera)
3 simple transitions (dissolve, crossfade, and wipe)
2 title cards (intro and outtro)
3 of the 12 clips were stabilized
We exported the video at native resolution and framerate in H.264 and took the average of three trials for each test. Here’s what we got:
Without the eGPU:
With the eGPU:
Without the eGPU:
With the eGPU:
After seeing a measly 36 seconds faster export time in Final Cut Pro X and surprisingly worse exporting times with the eGPU versus without in Premiere Pro CC, I knew something was perhaps… not right. So I did what anyone would do. I went to Google and found a shocking answer: The eGPU does nothing if it’s just plugged into a MacBook Pro by itself.
If your Mac is running High Sierra, you need an external display plugged into the eGPU. This is because only one GPU can drive a Mac’s built-in screen and that’s the one already inside of it.
(I later learned macOS Mojave does support eGPUs for a Mac’s built-in screen, but since the OS was still in beta at the time of testing, it didn’t work reliably.)
The proper way to use the eGPU: external display, MacBook Pro lid closed, and keyboard and mouse connected.
Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE
Okay, no biggie — just a minor setback! I borrowed an LG 5K UltraFine Display (it’s the only Thunderbolt 3 display that’s officially supported by the eGPU) and plugged it directly into my MacBook Pro with the eGPU also plugged into a separate port.
I fired up both FCP X and Premiere Pro CC and again saw no improvements. Export times with the eGPU were again slower in Premiere CC compared to without it. What could be wrong now? More Googling and I find out graphics performance is only better if the monitor is plugged into the eGPU, which is then plugged into your Mac.
Ughhh. Alrighty, then!
With the correct wiring, I ran my tests and yet again saw exports that were either barely faster or somehow slower. I just wasn’t seeing faster performance.
Super annoyed, I combed Blackmagic’s website and noticed there’s no mention of faster graphics performance for any app but its own DaVinci Resolve video production software. Could it be that this eGPU is only good for one app? Because that would be really dumb.
Besides, the description for the eGPU on Apple’s website says otherwise:
Get desktop-class graphics performance on your MacBook Pro with the Blackmagic eGPU. Featuring the Radeon Pro 580 graphics processor, the Blackmagic eGPU is built to make any Mac with Thunderbolt 3 ports a graphics powerhouse. Enjoy supersmooth gaming, accelerate graphics-intensive pro app workflows, and enable VR experiences or content creation. Built-in I/O connections drive a Thunderbolt 3 display, support multiple accessories, and charge your MacBook Pro at the same time.
Hmm, maybe it was something with High Sierra. I booted up another partition with the latest beta version of Mojave.
This was supposed to be easy. Instead, it was turning into a technical nightmare.
Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, they did. Premiere CC on Mojave just wouldn’t work. It kept crashing and I never was able to export a single video at any resolution. About to lose my mind, I contacted Blackmagic to see if I could get to the bottom of all of these problems I was experiencing.
A spokesperson kindly provided some non-answers that basically blamed the issues on Adobe for optimizing Premiere Pro CC for eGPUs. At the same time, I was told the eGPU (any one from any company) “should not slow any app down.”
Really wanting to smash the eGPU to bits (physical abuse is never the answer, but just goddamnit), I switched back to High Sierra and ran my Premiere exports again. This time, I opened up the Activity Monitor and fired up the GPU history to see what the heck was going on.
To my surprise, the GPU History chart showed the app was using the MacBook Pro’s two built-in graphics processors (both the discrete AMD Radeon Pro 560 and the Intel HD Graphics 630) and not the eGPU like it should have been.
If there’s no activity on the eGPU’s chart (Radeon Pro 580), it means something is wrong or an app’s not using the eGPU at all.
Image: screenshot: raymond wong/mashable
I went back to Google to find out if there was a way to force apps to use the eGPU. I found out on High Sierra, that’s not possible. But, on Mojave, there is a way to force apps to use the eGPU on an app-by-app basis. I cursed both Apple and Blackmagic.
I rebooted into Mojave and followed the steps to force Premiere CC to use the eGPU and then said a little prayer as I launched the app. Everything seemed to work until I hit the export button. The app crashed again.
Even more frustrated than before, I decided to try something else. I loaded up Fortnite on the default “High” settings to see how playable the game would be. TL;DR: Not very. Not at High settings.
On High settings on just the MacBook Pro, the game recorded between 30-32 fps. With the eGPU, the game’s framerate jumped up to 40-45 fps. Both were below 50-60 fps, which is considered to be the optimal framerate for smooth gameplay by many players.
The game wasn’t unplayable at High settings with the eGPU, but there was still quite a bit of noticeable latency as I panned the camera around or shot at other players. The framerate took a bigger hit when there were multiple players onscreen.
Even crazier was that it took longer to boot the game up with the eGPU compared to without: about 55 seconds versus 30 seconds.
Dropping Fortnite’s settings down to Medium increased the framerate, but the graphics became so low-res, I would have been better off just playing it on iPhone.
Instructions that should have come in the box
It looks clean, but wait until you connect power, a monitor, and accessories to the back and it becomes a mess of cables.
Image: raymond wong/mashable
I was all ready to give up on the eGPU until I reached out to Apple to see if I could make a last-ditch effort to troubleshoot my problems.
After chatting with an Apple hardware engineer I learned a few new things that (again) aren’t included in the instructions manual and is valuable for anyone who buys this eGPU.
Here’s what ultimately led to faster graphics performance with the eGPU:
Never mirror your Mac to the external display. It uses up some of the eGPU in order to do so and as a result will slow performance down.
If you’re using a MacBook like I did, make sure the lid is closed. Doing so forces the computer to always default to the eGPU when possible instead of using the internal GPU. Apple told me you don’t need to have the lid closed, but there’s a chance that it won’t tap the eGPU if you don’t.
Most apps will not support hot-plugging with the eGPU, which is the ability for the computer to recognize changes when an accessory is plugged in or removed. In other words, if you want to use the eGPU with, say, Premiere Pro CC, you need to quit the game and launch it again after you hook it up. I’m told only two known apps are hot-pluggable, one of them being Cinema 4D.
With all this in mind, I ran the same 4K and 1080p export tests. Here’s what I got after properly setting the eGPU up with my MacBook Pro. (As with the earlier tests, all times are the average of three trials each.)
Final Cut Pro X actually used all three graphics cards: two from the MacBook Pro and the eGPU.
Image: screenshot: raymond wong/mashable
Without the eGPU:
With the eGPU:
Adobe Premiere Pro CC only used two GPUS: the MacBook Pro’s Intel integrated graphics and the eGPU.
Image: screenshot: raymond wong/mashable
Without the eGPU:
With the eGPU:
For good measure, I also took the same 4K video project and exported it to a downscaled 1080p resolution. The leap in performance is much more drastic for rendering:
Without the eGPU:
With the eGPU:
As you can see in the above export times, Final Cut Pro X doesn’t appear to benefit much from the eGPU. However, exporting video in Premiere Pro CC is way faster. With the eGPU, Premiere Pro CC shaved 1 minute and 29 seconds off.
Where the eGPU seems most useful is for rendering things like effects and scaling.
Note the framerate in the upper right corner.
Image: screenshot: raymond wong/mashable
Playing Fortnite with the correct setup, I saw almost no change in average framerates:
Without the eGPU:
With the eGPU:
Not sure why, but the latest version of Fortnite sometimes has these black glitching patterns.
Image: screenshot: raymond wong/mashable
Not worth the trouble (for now)
Unless you’re willing to experiment, the Blackmagic eGPU is more trouble than it’s worth.
Image: raymond wong/mashable
I’ve been fascinated by eGPUs for as long as they’ve been around. The idea that you can soup up a thin and light computer designed for portability (but not performance) and transform it into a desktop-class beast for graphics-intensive tasks like video editing or gaming when you’re at home or at work is super appealing.
I was genuinely excited that, maybe — just maybe — Blackmagic had made an eGPU that any regular ol’ joe could easily set up and enjoy the benefits of.
While I did eventually get the Blackmagic eGPU set up right and saw minor boosts to performance in FCP X and and significant improvements in Adobe Premiere Pro CC, I nearly lost my marbles doing so.
My tests are by no means definitive — everyone uses different apps and has a different workflow demands — but they do suggest eGPUs have potential.
Ultimately, the the Blackmagic eGPU is useful if your Mac has a really old discrete graphics card or only Intel integrated graphics. You may see big graphics performance boosts or you may not. It’s gonna take a lot of trial and error.
If you’re willing to experiment, then by all means check out the eGPU. However, if you’re hoping the eGPU will make your Mac faster across the board for all your apps, that’s just not gonna happen.
Maybe in a few years when eGPUs are mature and more apps use GPU-acceleration, but they’re still in their infancy right now. The fact that all of the issues I ran into took a bunch of Googling and chats with Blackmagic and Apple to resolve tells you all you need to know about the current state of eGPUs: It’s basically the Wild West.
Tokhtamysh and his Tatar Muslim army were rushing to the northeast across the vast steppes of Ukraine, unsure of what was to come.
The journey was long and strenuous, but the warriors were disciplined nomads skilled in horsemanship and accustomed to hardship.
Tokhtamysh’s army was escaping the battlefield of the Terek river, looking for safety after a humiliating defeat at the hands of Tamerlane, the ruler of the Timurid Empire.
For the Golden Horde – Tokhtamysh’s khanate, this was the beginning of a prolonged decline.
The army was heading to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which under Vytautas the Great was in a period of its greatest territorial expansion, looking to take control of lands in the east.
In exchange for military support in the fight against Tamerlane, Tokhtamysh offered Vytautas the rights to rule the entire Kievan Rus, including Moscow.
In the Polish history, for 600 years Tatars have always fought for Poland, from the Battle of Grunwald to September 1939 as separate Tatar units of the Polish army.
Krzysztof Mucharski, a Polish Tatar
While the joint campaign to regain power over the Golden Horde eventually failed, Tokhtamysh’s army and their descendants remained in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
They settled in the centre and the state’s borderlands and became its loyal defenders. In the following centuries, Tatars took part in all major battles in the region.
In 1385, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland formed a union which later transformed into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous states in the 16th and 17th century Europe.
But it was only John III Sobieski, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, who invited Tatars to the territories of the Polish-Lithuanian borderland in the second half of the 17th century.
In exchange for fighting alongside the Polish-Lithuanian army, he granted Tatars lands stretching over 150km in an area around the city of Białystok, inhabited by various cultures and religions, including Jews, Orthodox Belarusians, and Catholic Poles.
A mosque in Bohoniki, northeastern Poland, where inter-faith prayers take place [Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska/Al Jazeera]
Tatars largely belonged to the privileged class and many received noble titles and coats of arms in return for their service.
As they were allowed to marry local women, Tatars soon lost their language, but they retained their faith.
“In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Tatar community was unique within Christian Europe, excluding Russia. It was a Muslim group which was in minority, but was tolerated,” Adam Balcer, lecturer at the Warsaw University’s Centre for Eastern European Studies at Warsaw University, told Al Jazeera. “At the time, in Spain Muslims were forced to convert to Christianity or expelled.”
In Poland, Tatars were not only allowed to practise their faith, but acted as intermediaries between East and West.
I would compare Polish Tatars to the Catholic Church in the West. It is a light version of Islam.
Tomasz Miskiewicz, Mufti of Poland
A recent discovery by a team from the University of Nicolaus Copernicus in Torun, led by Joanna Kulwicka-Kaminska and Czeslaw Lapicz, found that as early as in the second half of the 16th century, Polish Tatars translated the Quran into the Polish language.
The Tatar translation for years remained a mystery for scientists, since the Slavic text – the northeastern borderland variety of Polish, was written with Arabic alphabet and it took several years of research to decipher the original text.
According to Kulwicka-Kaminska, it was the third – after Italian and Latin – translation of the Quran into a European language.
“It was most likely in the second half of the 16th century that the first translations of religious writings into Slavic languages – spoken by the Tatar community – appeared, as only in these languages it was possible to introduce Muslims to the rules and teachings of their faith,” Kulwicka-Kaminska told Al Jazeera. “It was to ensure for the Tatars their continued ethnic separation and cultural identity, which already in the 16th century was identified only by Islam.”
The authors of the translations remain unknown, but they were certainly part of an educated clergy elite, maintaining ties with the Muslim East and speaking both oriental and Slavic languages.
A mosque in Kruszyniany [Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska/Al Jazeera]
In the following centuries, Tatars continued to be present within Polish elite circles and, as Balcer explains, in the interwar period, they were overrepresented among judges, in the army, and politics.
In 1919, at the request of the chief of state Jozef Pilsudski, a Tatar regiment was formed and its soldiers hoisted symbols of the star and crescent.
Today, there are 35,000 Muslims overall in Poland and at least 2,000 Tatars.
Their faith, physical appearance and cuisine are among the only features they have inherited from their ancestors.
The architecture of two old mosques located in the villages of Kruszyniany and Bohoniki resembles Catholic and Orthodox churches.
“We are Muslims who grew up among Christians”, said Maciej Szczesnowicz, the head of the Muslim parish in Bohoniki. “Together with Catholics and Orthodox Christians, we organise joint prayers for peace and justice in the world. Priests and bishops come over here and pray together in our mosque.”
Although Tatars maintained their identity for 600 years, there is a fear that they will gradually abandon their culture.
“I would compare Polish Tatars to the Catholic Church in the West. It is a light version of Islam,” Tomasz Miskiewicz, Mufti of Poland and Chairman of Poland’s Muslim Religious Association, told Al Jazeera.
“There are places where Friday prayers do not take place at all and places which are increasingly becoming history. It is a drift away from our identity.”
Inter-religious marriages are becoming common among the younger generation.
“It used to be unthinkable, there were such situations, but it was a taboo”, says Dagmara Sulkiewicz, a Tatar religion teacher from Białystok. “Two weeks ago, I was invited to a real Tatar wedding. But it is a relic”.
The interior of Bohoniki Mosque [Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska/Al Jazeera]
Growing Islamophobia affects the community, although some Tatars say they do not experience discrimination in their daily lives.
“Tatars experience Islamophobia less than other Muslim communities in the country, partially because of their historic presence and also due to the fact that there are few religious signs that would make them easily recognisable as Muslims,” Konrad Pedziwiatr from the Cracow University of Economics told Al Jazeera.
“Therefore, the strategy of not recognising Islamophobia is partly connected with the secularisation of the group”.
Yet, over the past years mosques were vandalised several times with images of the Celtic cross, a pig or even a symbol of the Kotwica – a World War II emblem of the Polish Underground State often used by the far right.
“People who paint those things lack basic awareness. In the Polish history, for 600 years Tatars have always fought for Poland, from the Battle of Grunwald to September 1939 as separate Tatar units of the Polish army,” Krzysztof Mucharski, a Polish Tatar, told Al Jazeera.
“I found the Kotwica symbol particularly surprising as in the past it was used by Tatars fighting in the Polish underground.”
But despite problems, Polish Tatars are not only proud of their Muslim heritage, but also their Polish roots.
“We are a bit of a rabbit pulled out of a hat to surprise the world that there is a group like us, that is assimilated and devoted as citizens,” Miskiewicz says. “We are Poles.”
Since the day President Trump announced conservative judge Brett Kavanaugh as his Supreme Court nominee, liberals argued that giving him a lifetime appointment would be a terrible mistake. On Sunday, August 26, they’re taking their case to the streets with a national “Unite for Justice” day of action to demand the Senate reject Kavanaugh’s nomination.
The progressive organizations NARAL Pro-Choice America and MoveOn oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination and are leading “Unite for Justice” protests this Sunday. With more than 75 organizations involved and more than 180 events set to take place in all 50 states, the efforts are expected to result in the largest single-day protest of a Supreme Court nominee in history.
Here’s everything you need to know about how you can join the fight against Kavanaugh’s confirmation, both on Sunday and beyond.
How to locate an event near you
Since every state has events planned for the day of action, you should be able to find a rally near you. The Unite for Justice website provides a map so you can see every event across the country, and it also has a helpful search tool that allows you to filter events by city, state, or zip code.
If you don’t find an event as close to you as you’d like, the website also offers information on how to host your own and register a Unite for Justice event such as a rally, press conference, and march, or even a petition delivery or potluck in your area.
After Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy — who often served as a swing vote when it came to issues related to gay rights and abortion — announced his retirement in June, Trump looked for someone he knew would give Republicans and his administration a 5-4 advantage in court decisions.
“Brett Kavanaugh will vote to end Roe v. Wade, criminalize abortion, gut the Affordable Care Act, roll back LGBTQ rights, and decimate the Voting Rights Act and Affirmative Action,” Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a statement.
“Brett Kavanaugh will vote to end Roe v Wade…”
If Kavanaugh were to overturn Roe v. Wade and limit legal access to abortions, he would essentially send America back to a society that resembles The Handmaid’s Tale.
Though Kavanaugh recently told Sen. Susan Collins of Maine he feels Roe v. Wade is “settled law,” that doesn’t mean he’ll vote to uphold it in the future. Chief Justice Roberts once made the same claim and has since voted to undermine access to women’s healthcare and the right to abortion on several occasions.
Kavanaugh, who once suggested a sitting president can’t be indicted, also seems to believe the Supreme Court should put the president above the law — a viewpoint that seems immensely problematic, especially considering the legal drama currently surrounding Trump.
Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was recently found guilty on eight counts of tax fraud charges, bank fraud, and hiding foreign bank accounts, and his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors, implicating Trump in campaign finance crimes.
“There’s the threat that Kavanaugh could allow Trump to place himself above the law at a time when there is an active investigation into potentially criminal wrongdoing.”
“There’s the threat that Kavanaugh could allow Trump to place himself above the law at a time when there is an active investigation into potentially criminal wrongdoing by Trump and his associates,”Anna Galland, executive director of MoveOn Civic Action, said in a statement.
By peacefully making their voices heard across the country, Unite for Justice participants hope their actions will speak to senators in each state and discourage them from moving forward with Kavanaugh’s nomination hearings.
“Senators have tried to hide from their constituents all summer because they know Brett Kavanaugh is a deeply unpopular nominee,” Hogue said. They don’t want to have to look their constituents in the eye and tell them they are risking our lives and our freedoms…”
Other ways to make a difference
Though the upcoming day of action will have nationwide participation, it’s far from the first step that’s been taken to fight Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
According to NARAL Pro-Choice America, the Unite for Justice coalition previously organized around 400 events across the country to fight the SCOTUS pick, and other organizations like Planned Parenthood are also taking action.
If you can’t attend a Unite for Justice rally on Sunday, or simply want to do more to help, you can start by using the hashtag #StapKavanaugh on social media and visiting the website’s home page to download social graphics and posters to help raise awareness.
You can also donate money to The People’s Defense, a coalition of grassroots organizations fighting Kavanaugh’s nomination, and sign up for text message alerts by scrolling to the bottom of the Unite for Justice website’s “About” page.
The People’s Defense also organized a petition you can sign to demand that senators vote no on Kavanaugh. CREDO Action, a group of activists dedicated to bringing about progressive change, also has a petition urging members of Congress to block Kavanaugh, particularly because he could rule on any Supreme Court case related to the special counsel’s investigation into Trump and Russian election interference.
You can also get involved with Planned Parenthood’s #DearSenators campaign by sharing the personal reasons you’re opposed to Kavanaugh’s appointment. And finally, check out our comprehensive guide to learn even more ways to participate.
Beauden Barrett almost added a fifth try when he touched down in the corner in the closing stages, but it was ruled out by the television match official for an earlier knock-on by Ardie Savea
New Zealand won the Bledisloe Cup for a 16th consecutive year with a 40-12 victory over Australia in Auckland.
Beauden Barrett scored four tries and kicked five conversions, while Joe Moody and Liam Squire crossed for the dominant All Blacks at Eden Park.
Will Genia and Reece Hodge scored tries for Australia, with Bernard Foley landing one conversion.
New Zealand added to their 38-13 win in Sydney, with the games also part of the Rugby Championship.
Like in Sydney, Australia were competitive until half-time when the score was 14-7 before the All Blacks pulled away after the interval.
Barrett’s four tries is a new All Blacks record in a match against Australia.
The Bledisloe Cup is an annual three-match series between New Zealand and Australia, with the third fixture taking place in Yokohama, Japan on October 27.
Argentina host South Africa on Saturday in Mendoza in the Rugby Championship.
New Zealand: J. Barrett, B. Smith, Goodhue, Laumape, Naholo, B. Barrett, A. Smith, Moody, Taylor, Franks, Retallick, S. Whitelock, Squire, Cane, Read.
Bench: Harris, Tuinukuafe, Tu’ungafasi, S. Barrett, Savea, Perenara, McKenzie, Liernert-Brown.
For Nermin Saydam, a 35-year-old Palestinian NGO worker, the United States’ decision to cut $200m of economic aid to the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip, is devastating.
“I never expected this to happen to me,” said the mother of two, who works as a project manager with the Gaza Envision 2020 USAID programme.
For many NGO workers, the announcement on Friday that President Donald Trump had ordered the State Department to “redirect” the funding to unspecified “high-priority projects elsewhere”, means no more work nor income.
According to Saydam, Gaza Envision 2020 is expected to close down by the end of August as one of several US-funded aid and development programmes that will be affected by the cut in US aid.
Now Saydam, who took out a large loan to buy a flat a few months before she signed a five-year contract with the project, faces being thousands of dollars in debt.
“Now that I have no more income, I’m facing a serious catastrophe,” she added, explaining that she will no longer be able to pay her monthly instalments of $550 to the bank.
The move comes months after the US, which had been the largest donor to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, known as UNRWA, slashed its annual $360m contribution by more than 80 percent to $60m earlier this year.
It also follows Trump’s decision to unilaterally recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital last December. The move sparked global anger and undercut long-standing underpinnings of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks where the city’s status was to yet to be determined.
Palestinians have rejected calls from the Trump administration to return to the negotiating table, arguing that Washington gave up its status as a neutral mediator.
Like Saydam, Ruba Mohamed, 29, who was also employed by Gaza Envision 2020 as a field worker earlier this year, has been left in disbelief.
“I built high hopes and dreams for myself and for Gaza through this project,” says Mohamed, whose five-year contract with Gaza Envision 2020 USAID programme was put on hold when funds did not come through in May.
“I wanted to work and help myself and my people, especially the young graduates who cannot find employment,” she added, saying that the project aimed at helping create opportunities for people in Gaza.
Along with 100 other employees in the project, she hoped that by August, her work would resume, but the latest move has killed these prospects for good.
“This decision is a huge shock and disappointment for us,” said Mohamed. “There’s no way we will be getting back to work now,” she added.
The US, which had been the largest donor to UNRWA, slashed its annual $360m contribution by more than 80 percent to $60m earlier this year [Reuters]
‘Political blackmail’
Palestinian officials and analysts slammed the move, describing the decision as a form of political coercion and blackmail.
“This is flagrant declaration that the real aim of US aid is to interfere in the internal affairs of other peoples and affect their national rights,” Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said in a statement on Saturday.
Erekat said the US decision to cut aid “is a sign that [Washington] had abandoned its international obligations” adding that “the Palestinian people reject any conditional aid”.
Accusing Trump of using “cheap blackmail as a political tool,” Hanan Ashrawi, a top PLO official, said in a statement late Friday: “The US administration has already demonstrated meanness of spirit in its collusion with the Israeli occupation.”
“Now it is exercising economic meanness by punishing the Palestinian victims of this occupation,” she added, vowing that Palestinians would not be intimidated by the US move.
In a similar statement Hossam Zomlot, head of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) delegation to the US, said the move was confirmation that the Trump administration had adopted Israeli’s agenda on the peace process.
“The decision along with the cuts to UNRWA aid earlier this year underscore the Trump administration’s abandoning of the two-state solution and its full adoption of the agenda of Netanyahu.
“The use of humanitarian and development aid as a tool of political blackmail, will not work,” he added.
Commenting on the move, Omar Shaaban, a Palestinian economic expert told Al Jazeera, that while the move will have limited direct impact on the PLO, it will have a huge effect on development and aid projects and specifically employees working in that sector.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees announced in July that it will cut more than 250 jobs in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip after the US slashed its funding.
Mohsen Abu Ramadan, another economic expert from Gaza told Al Jazeera that the decision attempts to punish the PLO for not agreeing to the “deal of the century”, referring to the long-mulled peace plan which Trump and his team are preparing a rollout to end the decades-long conflict.
“This move is part of [a] series of decisions that have [the] aim to recognise Israeli settlements and limit funds to Palestinians.
“It [the decision] shows that the US government wishes to weaken the PLO and support the Netanyahu government’s approach to the peace process.”
Tasmin Ara, Mustakima, Nur Akter, and Showkat Atu arrived at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, a year ago.
The girls, all of whom are 10 with the exception of 12-year-old Showkat Atu, have developed a system for surviving Kutupalong: They make friends with every new girl who’s forced to call the world’s largest refugee camp her home.
“It is hard when you first arrive, so we help by sharing food and clothes,” Mustakima recently told Plan International, a child rights and humanitarian organization that provides services in Kutupalong. (Plan Internernational identified the girls, who participate in the nonprofit’s programs, by only their first names.)
“We never eat alone,” said Tasmin Ara. “We eat every meal together, no matter what!”
The girls live with nearly a million Rohingya Muslim refugees who began fleeing state-sanctioned violence and religious persecution in neighboring Myanmar a year ago. With no end in sight to the crisis, girls like Tasmin Ara, Mustakima, Nur Akter, and Showkat Atu are finding hope in their improbable friendships.
President Donald Trump thinks the stock market would crash if he were impeached, but critics are still placing their bets. USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump may be following his predecessors, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, into the world of criminal law.
The question both of them faced – and which Trump may confront – is whether a president can be indicted while in office.
The Constitution doesn’t say. Neither has Congress spoken by statute. The closest the Supreme Court has come was a narrow ruling in 1997 that a sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton could proceed.
That has left the Justice Department as arbiter on the question of whether a sitting president can be charged with a crime. No, it said, first in 1973 and again in 2000. But some authorities on the separation of powers say: Not so fast.
Now that Trump has been implicated by his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, in a possible violation of campaign finance laws, the question of his criminal culpability has resurfaced. Herewith, some answers:
Can a president be indicted?
From a 41-page memo issued in 1973 to a 39-pager written in 2000, the Justice Department has said no. The main reason: A criminal trial would interfere with the president’s unique duties under the Constitution.
“The indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting president would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions,” assistant attorney general Randolph Moss wrote in 2000.
What happened with Nixon?
Accused in the cover-up of the 1972 break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington’s Watergate office complex, Nixon was named as an unindicted co-conspirator by special prosecutor Leon Jaworski, who refused the grand jury’s unanimous recommendation to indict the president.
Nixon resigned in August 1974 amid impeachment proceedings and later was pardoned by President Gerald Ford, lest he face criminal proceedings.
Congress passed a law four years later establishing the office of independent counsel, giving unprecedented power to a court-appointed prosecutor not answerable to the president or Congress.
What about Vice President Agnew?
The same protection from indictment in office did not extend to Nixon’s vice president, Spiro Agnew, who was investigated in 1973 for tax fraud and corruption from his days in Maryland politics.
Agnew at first argued that he could not be indicted but eventually offered his resignation in exchange for a plea bargain. He escaped with a $10,000 fine and three years’ probation.
The best-known independent counsel was Ken Starr, who expanded his original probe into Clinton’s Whitewater land deal in Arkansas to include the president’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
A memorandum commissioned by Starr’s office contended in 1998 that he could indict and convict the president. But two years later, the Justice Department reaffirmed its opinion that indictment was out of bounds.
Clinton was impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate. He paid a fine and had his law license suspended for lying under oath.
What is the current rule?
The 2000 memo is the latest official opinion, but it’s not ironclad. Trump’s counsel, Rudy Giuliani, claimed earlier this year that Mueller’s office has pledged to abide by it, meaning no indictment is forthcoming.
CLOSE
Rudy Giuliani explains why he doesn’t want President Trump to testify in the Mueller Russia Probe saying “truth isn’t truth.” Buzz60
But under Justice Department regulations written for future special counsels in 1999, Mueller could ask acting attorney general Rod Rosenstein for the authority to indict Trump. If he’s rebuffed, a report would go to Congress explaining the reasons.
Would it wind up in court?
Any effort to indict the president could end at the Supreme Court, making Trump’s nomination of federal appeals court Judge Brett Kavanaugh potentially significant.
Kavanaugh earned his stripes in Republican circles by pursuing Clinton as a member of Starr’s staff, even recommending that the president be asked explicit questions about his dalliance with Lewinsky. But in 2009, he wrote that he had changed his mind, and that presidents should be spared criminal investigation while in office.
Can Trump be charged later?
Nothing prevents criminal charges being brought once the president leaves office. But if he’s not indicted within several years of the alleged crime, the statute of limitations could run out. That’s why some experts argue for indicting presidents.
“This is a matter that could be reconsidered by the department,” Walter Dellinger, who headed the Office of Legal Counsel early in Clinton’s first term, wrote recently. “The complex history of criminal proceedings against presidents and vice presidents suggests that these issues are not foreclosed.”
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