AFP USA

The National Park Service has scrubbed references to transgender and queer people from the website of a monument to the 1969 Stonewall riots, a foundational moment in the struggle for LGBTQ rights, igniting protests in New York City on Friday.The move comes as President Donald Trump has sought a return to a strict binary definition of gender in the United States, leading attacks on transgender people and issuing an executive order that states the country only has two genders — male and female. The website — managed by the National Park Service, a branch of the federal government — had provided information about the monument, which includes a visitor center as well as the famed Stonewall Inn.The small Greenwich Village gay bar was raided by police on June 28, 1969, igniting six days of rioting that birthed the modern gay rights movement, later extended to transgender and non-binary people, who do not identify as male or female.But on Friday the widely-used “LGBTQ” acronym — which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer — had been changed throughout the website to “LGB” and all reference to transgender or queer people erased.Several hundred people carried signs bearing slogans such as “Silence = death” and “there’s no Stonewall without the T” as they rallied in New York City against the move. “This is just cruel and petty,” posted New York Governor Kathy Hochul on social media.”Transgender people play a critical role in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights — and New York will never allow their contributions to be erased,” she wrote.Trump has demonized any recognition of gender diversity, attacking transgender people — notably transgender women in sports — and gender-affirming care for children — in both his rhetoric and in executive orders.

The US Justice Department filed court papers Friday to dismiss a corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams, despite a barrage of resignations from prosecutors who refused to drop the charges.Adams, who pleaded not guilty in September to charges of fraud and bribery, has denied allegations he asked for the case to be dropped in exchange for enforcing President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda.The Justice Department motion seeks dismissal without prejudice — meaning the case could still be prosecuted in the future and would hang over Adams’s head as he runs for re-election in November.NBC reported that acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove promised leadership positions to government lawyers who agreed to file the dismissal motion, which must still be approved by a judge.Several prosecutors in the Southern District of New York who brought the charges resigned over the Justice Department order to drop the case.The most recent was assistant US attorney Hagan Scotten, who said Friday only a “fool” or a “coward” would comply.Scotten’s boss, acting US attorney Danielle Sassoon, submitted her resignation to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday while several members of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section in Washington, which handles corruption cases, also quit this week after refusing to dismiss the Adams indictment.Pressure has been mounting on the Democratic mayor to resign or for New York Governor Kathy Hochul to remove him as leader of the largest US city.- Adams denial -“I want to be crystal clear with New Yorkers: I never offered — nor did anyone offer on my behalf — any trade of my authority as your mayor for an end to my case,” Adams said.Speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday, Trump said he knew “nothing about the individual case” but it looked to be “very political” coming ahead of Adams’s reelection bid.The president said the prosecutors who resigned were “mostly people from the previous administration” who were “going to all be gone and dismissed.”Sassoon, the acting US attorney, is a Republican and was appointed by Trump while his permanent nominee awaits Senate confirmation.A graduate of Yale Law School and a member of the conservative Federalist Society, Sassoon led the 2023 prosecution of disgraced crypto tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried.Scotten, a decorated US Army veteran and Harvard Law School graduate, was a former clerk to conservative US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.Department of Justice chief of staff Chad Mizelle said the decision to drop the Adams indictment is “yet another indication that this DOJ will return to its core function of prosecuting dangerous criminals, not pursuing politically motivated witch hunts.””The fact that those who indicted and prosecuted the case refused to follow a direct command is further proof of the disordered and ulterior motives of the prosecutors,” Mizelle said in a statement. “Such individuals have no place at DOJ.”- Blistering resignation -In asking for the charges against Adams to be dropped, Bove said the prosecution was restricting the mayor’s “ability to devote full attention and resources to illegal immigration and violent crime.”Scotten sent Bove a blistering resignation email, which was published online by multiple news outlets.”No system of liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives,” Scotten said.”Our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials,” he said.”If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion,” he said. “But it was never going to be me.”Hochul, the New York governor, in an interview with MSNBC on Thursday, denounced the Justice Department’s interference in the Adams case calling it “unbelievably unprecedented.”Asked if she would remove Adams as mayor, Hochul said: “The allegations are extremely concerning and serious, but I cannot, as the governor of this state, have a knee-jerk, politically motivated reaction.”The Justice Department, which Trump has accused of unjustly prosecuting him, has been the target of a sweeping shakeup since the Republican took office and a number of high-ranking officials have been fired, demoted or reassigned.

US Vice President JD Vance pledged Friday that Washington sought to secure a “lasting” peace as he held a first meeting with Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss Donald Trump’s push for a deal with Moscow.The talks in Munich were seen as a key moment for Kyiv as it tries to keep Washington on its side after Trump stunned allies by announcing truce efforts with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.”We want to achieve a durable, lasting peace, not the kind of peace that’s going to have Eastern Europe in conflict just a couple years down the road,” Vance said as the meeting wrapped up.He said “good conversations” had been had with Zelensky about how they could reach that goal, and they would have more talks “in the days, weeks and months to come”.Zelensky also hailed a “good conversation”, saying the encounter with Vance was “our first meeting, not last, I’m sure”.”We are ready to move as quickly as possible towards a real and guaranteed peace,” Zelensky later wrote on X, adding that an envoy from Washington would visit Kyiv. Trump rattled Ukraine and its European allies on Wednesday by agreeing to launch ceasefire talks in his first publicly announced call with Putin since returning to office. The dramatic thaw in relations sparked fears Ukraine could be left out in the cold after nearly three years battling Moscow’s invasion. “We will have low, low chance to survive without support of the United States,” Zelensky said in a clip from an NBC interview, which will be aired on full Sunday. US officials have insisted that Zelensky will be involved in negotiations — and the Ukrainian leader said he would be prepared to sit down with Putin after agreeing a “common plan” with Trump. Vance said ahead of the meeting that the United States was prepared to pressure Russia, adding that Europe should “of course” be at the table. But he also told Europe to “step up” bolstering its own defence to allow Washington to focus on threats elsewhere in the world. – Trump’s phone number -US officials have sent mixed messages over Washington’s strategy after Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth appeared to rule out Ukraine joining NATO or retaking all of its territory. That has sparked major worries in Kyiv and Europe that Ukraine could be forced into a bad deal that leaves the continent facing an emboldened Putin. But Vance told the Wall Street Journal that Trump would put everything “on the table” in potential talks, and that Washington could even use “military leverage” against Russia to force a deal. He did not give more away in a keenly awaited keynote speech, which mostly focused on scolding Europe over immigration and free speech. Saudi Arabia, after being named by Trump as a likely venue for a meeting with Putin, said it would welcome holding any talks between the two leaders.Zelensky appeared to play down fears that Trump was cutting out Kyiv, saying the US president had given him his personal number when they spoke.European allies, who along with Washington are Ukraine’s strongest backers, demanded they be included in negotiations that will impact their continent’s security. French President Emmanuel Macron said he assured Zelensky that it is “Ukrainians alone who can drive the discussions for a solid and lasting peace” with Russia.Zelensky said he had discussed with Macron “many important issues, including security guarantees and specific proposals from France”.In a bid to keep Washington close, Kyiv has held talks over granting access to its rare mineral deposits in return for future US security support.EU chief Ursula von der Leyen warned that forcing Ukraine into a bad deal would harm US interests. “I believe that by working together, we can deliver that just and lasting peace,” she said. – Chernobyl strike -While Europe nervously monitors the US stance on Ukraine, there is little ambiguity on Trump’s determination to get Europe to spend more on its defence. Fears that Vance could announce a major US troop reduction in Europe did not materialise, but he repeated warnings that Washington needed to focus more on other parts of the globe. On the sidelines of the conference, Vance also met with leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), Alice Weidel, according to German press.It comes as Vance criticised Germany for blocking the far right from possibly sharing power in upcoming elections.The conservative candidate and poll favourite Friedrich Merz insists he would not govern with the AfD or actively seek its support.Amid the diplomatic flurry in Munich, Zelensky said that back on the ground in Ukraine a Russian drone had struck a cover built to contain radiation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, though he added that radiation levels were normal.The Ukrainian air force said Russia had launched 133 drones across the country overnight, including attack drones, targeting northern regions of the country where the Chernobyl plant lies.Zelensky said the attack was evidence that “Putin is definitely not preparing for negotiations — he is preparing to continue deceiving the world”.

A woman who accused hip-hop stars Sean “Diddy” Combs and Jay-Z of sexually assaulting her when she was 13 dropped her civil lawsuit on Friday, court records showed.Jay-Z — real name Shawn Carter — was accused in December of raping the girl with Combs at a party following the MTV Video Music Awards in September of 2000. The document filed with the US District Court for the Southern District of New York claims the accuser “hereby gives notice that the above-captioned action is voluntarily dismissed, with prejudice” — meaning the suit cannot be refiled.It was not immediately clear if the stars had reached a settlement with the woman, who has not been identified.But 55-year-old billionaire Jay-Z welcomed the closure of the case, which he slammed as “frivolous, fictitious and appalling.””This civil suit was without merit and never going anywhere. The fictional tale they created was laughable, if not for the seriousness of the claims,” he said in a statement.”I would not wish this experience on anyone. The trauma that my wife, my children, loved ones and I have endured can never be dismissed.”The complaint said Combs and Carter — who is married to pop superstar Beyonce — took turns assaulting the plaintiff as another celebrity stood by and watched.”Many others were present at the after party, but did nothing to stop the assault,” it went on.”Carter has been with Combs during many such instances described herein. Both perpetrators must face justice.”Combs, also 55, has separately been charged with sex trafficking and racketeering. Federal prosecutors allege that he sexually abused women and coerced them into drug-fueled sex parties using threats and violence.He has denied all charges, and his criminal trial is currently slated to begin on May 5.

A top prosecutor who brought corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams resigned on Friday, saying only a “fool” or a “coward” would comply with a Trump Justice Department demand to drop the case.Hagan Scotten, an assistant US attorney for the Southern District of New York, is the latest federal prosecutor to quit this week in protest over the extraordinary request.Scotten’s boss, Danielle Sassoon, the acting US attorney, submitted her resignation to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday after being asked to drop the case against Adams.Several members of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section in Washington, which handles corruption cases, have also resigned this week after refusing to dismiss the Adams indictment.Pressure has been mounting on the Democratic mayor to resign or for New York Governor Kathy Hochul to remove him as leader of the largest US city.Adams, who pleaded not guilty in September to charges of fraud and bribery, has denied allegations he asked for the case to be dropped in exchange for enforcing President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.”I want to be crystal clear with New Yorkers: I never offered — nor did anyone offer on my behalf — any trade of my authority as your mayor for an end to my case,” he said, adding that it was time to “put this difficult episode behind us.”Speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday, Trump said he knew “nothing about the individual case” but it looked to be “very political” coming ahead of Adams’s November reelection bid.The president also said the federal prosecutors who resigned were “mostly people from the previous administration” who were “going to all be gone and dismissed.”Sassoon, the acting US attorney, is a Republican and was actually appointed by Trump to the position while his permanent nominee awaits Senate confirmation.A graduate of Yale Law School and a member of the conservative Federalist Society, Sassoon led the 2023 prosecution of disgraced crypto tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried.Scotten, a decorated US Army veteran and Harvard Law School graduate, was a former clerk to conservative US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.- ‘Unbelievably unprecedented’ -Department of Justice chief of staff Chad Mizelle said the decision to drop the Adams indictment is “yet another indication that this DOJ will return to its core function of prosecuting dangerous criminals, not pursuing politically motivated witch hunts.””The fact that those who indicted and prosecuted the case refused to follow a direct command is further proof of the disordered and ulterior motives of the prosecutors,” Mizelle said in a statement. “Such individuals have no place at DOJ.”In asking for the charges against Adams to be dropped, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove said the prosecution was restricting the mayor’s “ability to devote full attention and resources to illegal immigration and violent crime.”Scotten sent Bove a blistering resignation email, which was published online by multiple news outlets.”No system of liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives,” Scotten said.”Our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials,” he said.”If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion,” he said. “But it was never going to be me.”Hochul, the New York governor, in an interview with MSNBC on Thursday, denounced the Justice Department’s interference in the Adams case calling it “unbelievably unprecedented.””The Bondi administration in that Department of Justice is already showing they’re corrupt,” she said.Asked if she would remove Adams as mayor, Hochul said: “The allegations are extremely concerning and serious, but I cannot, as the governor of this state, have a knee-jerk, politically motivated reaction.”The Justice Department, which Trump has accused of unjustly prosecuting him, has been the target of a sweeping shakeup since the Republican took office and a number of high-ranking officials have been fired, demoted or reassigned.

Nearly half of an elite US epidemiology program known as the “disease detectives” were dismissed by the Trump administration on Friday, according to sources familiar with the matter, dealing a blow to public health efforts as fears rise over bird flu.The sackings come as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency pushes to downsize the federal government and as newly-confirmed Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr vows to overhaul the nation’s health agencies. “I’m so angry,” a senior epidemiologist in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who supervised some of those affected by the cuts told AFP. “We’re on the verge of potentially another pandemic and we’re firing the people who have probably more expertise than anyone else in the country collectively.”The cuts, first reported by CBS News, are part of broader efforts to remove employees still in their probationary periods, who can be dismissed more easily.Established in 1951, the Epidemic Intelligence Service is a two-year post-doctoral training program whose officers have been on the frontline of investigating outbreaks from the first Ebola cases in Africa in the 1970s to the earliest case reports of Covid-19 in the United States. “Without those officers we would not have eliminated smallpox from the globe,” the official said. “We had people fanning across countries, wading through mud and navigating rivers on boats to eliminate smallpox.”- ‘Directly impact health security’ -Known colloquially as the “disease detectives,” the researchers are hired annually through a competitive process that each year whittles down hundreds of applicants — including doctors, nurses, scientists and more — to a class of a few dozen.While some are stationed at CDC headquarters in Atlanta, others are posted around the country. Several former CDC directors began their careers as EIS officers, highlighting the program’s role as a pipeline for leadership in public health.There are approximately 140 officers across two classes. On Friday, the class of 2024 was informed they would receive termination emails that afternoon, while the class of 2023 was informed that their status was still under review.Around 30 officers from both classes were hired through a different mechanism under the US Public Health Service, meaning they remain unaffected for now.In total, nearly 1,300 CDC employees — roughly 10 percent of the agency’s workforce — were dismissed, according to CBS News.”The Epidemic Intelligence Service is one of the most storied and prestigious programs of the CDC,” infectious disease physician Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins University told AFP.  “Any attempts to end this program will directly impact the national and health security of the US.”Health Secretary RFK Jr. has made no secret of his disdain for infectious disease research, suggesting recently that it should be paused entirely for eight years while the focus shifts to addressing chronic conditions. Beyond his well-known anti-vaccine stances, Kennedy has also expressed skepticism about widely accepted infectious disease science, questioning whether germs cause disease and whether HIV causes AIDS.

Mudslides blocked roads around Los Angeles on Friday after heavy rain pounded areas burned by last month’s wildfires, sending denuded hillsides tumbling.Parts of Los Angeles got as much as 2.8 inches (7 centimeters) of rain in a day, leaving areas flooded and burn scars in Pacific Pallisades and Altadena strewn with fire debris and rubble.The Pacific Coast Highway — a once picturesque road where multi-million dollar properties were razed by January’s blazes — was shuttered, with thick mud blocking the way.The torrent of water also washed a Los Angeles Fire Department vehicle into the ocean, where it remained Friday, with authorities saying they hoped to pull it out of the surf later in the day.The fire department official who had been driving the SUV at the time escaped with minor injuries, a spokesman said.In the Hollywood Hills, home to a mixture of movie stars and working class people, a large mudslide left around 8 inches of debris all over a main road.And in Altadena, where thousands of buildings were destroyed by the fierce fires last month, a number of vehicles were stranded in debris that washed onto the streets.The damage came despite extensive preparations by local authorities who had placed sandbags and concrete barriers in places thought to be at risk from the strongest storm of California’s winter.While the area badly needed the rain — until February there had been no significant precipitation for eight months — it was always going to be a problem in places affected by the deadly fires.Hillsides where anchoring vegetation has burned away are not able to absorb water quickly.The heat of the fires also has the effect of baking and hardening the soil, meaning rain just washes off.

Faulty instruments and communication problems may have caused a passenger jet and army helicopter to collide in the worst US air disaster in two decades, flight safety investigators said Friday.The airliner was coming in to land at Reagan National Airport — just a few miles from the White House — when it collided with a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk on a training mission, killing 67 people.The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) told a news conference it had established a timeline of events leading to the January 29 crash, although the full investigation could take up to a year.NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said air traffic control had warned the Black Hawk pilot several minutes before disaster struck that the American Eagle airline craft was circling.But data pulled from the helicopter’s wreckage showed that the message was muffled and the word “circling” was obscured.The Black Hawk’s cockpit voice recorder (CVR) then appears not to have picked up crucial instructions to veer out of the Bombardier CRJ-700’s path seconds before the collision.”At 8:47:42 — or 17 seconds before impact — a radio transmission from the tower was audible on both CVRs directing the Black Hawk to pass behind the CRJ,” Homendy told reporters.”CVR data from the Black Hawk indicated that the portion of the transmission that stated ‘pass behind the’ may not have been received by the Black Hawk crew.”Those words appear to have been muted by the mic key on the Black Hawk’s radio as it was communicating with the tower, she said.President Donald Trump has repeatedly tied the causes of the crash to diversity, equity and inclusion policies, none of which was mentioned as a factor.Homendy and Sean Payne, branch chief of the NTSB’s vehicle recorder division, said investigators would look into discrepancies between the real altitude of the Black Hawk and what its crew were apparently seeing. The passenger plane recorded its altitude at 313 feet (95 meters) two seconds before collision.”Now we’re confident with the radio altitude of the Black Hawk at the time of the collision. That was 278 feet,” she said.”But I want to caution, that does not mean that’s what the Black Hawk crew was seeing on the barometric altimeters in the cockpit. We are seeing conflicting information in the data.”Aviation experts had homed in on whether the helicopter crew could see through military night-vision goggles.Homendy said there was nothing to suggest that the crew had removed their goggles, and that testing was underway to establish what both crews were able to see at the time of the collision.

The White House said Friday it was indefinitely blocking Associated Press journalists from Air Force One and the Oval Office, escalating a row with the US news agency over its refusal to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.””The Associated Press continues to ignore the lawful geographic name change of the Gulf of America,” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich said in a post on X.”While their right to irresponsible and dishonest reporting is protected by the First Amendment, it does not ensure their privilege of unfettered access to limited spaces, like the Oval Office and Air Force One,” Budowich said.Instead of AP, he said, “that space will now be opened up to the many thousands of reporters who have been barred from covering these intimate areas of the administration.”AP reporters have been barred since Tuesday from attending President Donald Trump’s events in the Oval Office over the agency’s refusal to follow his executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.AP editor-in-chief Julie Pace has called the administration’s stance a “plain violation” of AP’s protected free speech rights and “an incredible disservice to the billions of people who rely on The Associated Press for nonpartisan news.”In a style note last month, AP noted that “the Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years” and said Trump’s executive order “only carries authority within the United States.”In making the case for using Gulf of America, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that the US secretary of interior had officially designated the new name, and Google and Apple had made the change on their popular maps.The White House Correspondents’ Association has called AP’s exclusion from Trump events “outrageous.””The attempted government censorship of a free press risks a chilling effect on journalists doing their job without fear or favor on behalf of the American people,” the group’s president Eugene Daniels said in a statement.”This is a textbook violation of not only the First Amendment, but the president’s own executive order on freedom of speech and ending federal censorship.”Budowich, the White House official, said that while AP would be barred from the Oval Office and the Air Force One presidential plane, AP journalists and photographers will retain their credentials to the White House complex.

A growing measles outbreak in west Texas has infected 48 people, according to official state data released Friday — the latest sign that the once-vanquished childhood disease is making a comeback as vaccination rates decline.The outbreak comes as vocal vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who has repeatedly and falsely linked the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism — was confirmed as the United States’ health secretary, a position that grants him significant authority over immunization policy.The patients are overwhelmingly children, all were either unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status, and 13 have so far been hospitalized. Health officials expect additional cases to emerge.Childhood vaccination rates have been declining across the United States, a trend that accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic, when concerns over the rapid deployment of mRNA vaccines, coupled with mountains of misinformation, further eroded trust in public health institutions.”There are pockets in the US that are susceptible, and it’s not surprising to me that it’s occurring in a county where there are the lowest rates of vaccination in the state — these are kindling for such outbreaks,” Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins University, told AFP.The bulk of the cases occurred in Gaines County, which reportedly has a high rate of exemptions to vaccines — often granted on religious grounds. Nationwide, vaccination coverage among kindergarteners dropped below 93 percent during the 2023–24 school year, remaining under the federal target of 95 percent for a fourth consecutive year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).The United States reported 285 measles cases last year, per the CDC. The worst recent outbreak was in 2019, when 1,274 cases — largely concentrated in Orthodox Jewish communities in New York and New Jersey — drove the highest national total in decades.Measles is a highly contagious respiratory illness best known for its rash, but it can also cause pneumonia, brain infections, and other severe complications. It remains a major global killer, claiming tens of thousands of lives each year.”It really is mind-boggling that people in the United States have decided not to take this vaccine,” Adalja said.”When you think about infectious disease, there should be steady progress to make it less and less of an issue. But what we see in the case of measles is that it’s see-sawing.”Kennedy’s confirmation as health secretary has alarmed many in the medical community, including Adalja.”Measles and RFK Jr. go together,” he said.”When you have the chief propagandist for the anti-vaccine movement in the highest position of government power when it comes to health, the only thing that benefits from that is measles.”