34 h. ago ‘She was a wonder’: Ahmedabad reels amid aftermath of Air India plane crash

True scale of the tragedy still unfolding, as accounts of those onboard begin to emergeAs he dropped off his only daughter at Ahmedabad airport, Suraj Mistry seized the opportunity to take one final family selfie before she went back to London. Kinal Mistry, 24, had laughed lovingly at her father as he made her promise that they would meet again soon. “Yes, Daddy, very soon,” she said.Instead, the photo – of Kinal smiling beside her mother and father – would commemorate the last time his family was a whole. In scenes of horror that have since reverberated around the world, just a few minutes after the flight took off from Ahmedabad airport on Thursday morning, it plummeted from the sky, exploding in an inferno of fire and black smoke. Only one of the 242 people onboard survived. Continue reading...

Events

64 h. ago Air India plane to Gatwick crashes in fireball with up to 242 people on board

The Air India plane carrying hundreds of people hit the ground at an airport in Ahmedabad sending black smoke billowing into the sky - it was bound for London.

Events

9 d. ago 'Fed up' Notting Hill residents paint colourful houses black to put off people

Homeowners on the famous west London road say they are constantly swamped with people taking photos in front of their properties

Politics

2 w. ago Trump’s pardoning of Black celebrities is a cynical ploy | Tayo Bero

It’s not the first time the president has sought to curry favor this way. His instincts about Black Americans are clearThis week, Trump issued two dozen presidential pardons to a motley crew of wrongdoers, including shady politicians, fraudulent CEOs and other wealthy ne’er-do-wells. On that list were the Louisiana rapper NBA YoungBoy (whose real name is Kentrell Gaulden) and the Chicago gangster Larry Hoover.Regardless of where you stand on American carceral culture and what we know about the ways the criminal justice system squashes Black people who have the misfortune of interacting with it, Trump handing out pardons to Hoover and Gaulden isn’t the magnanimous or justice-focused move he wants us to believe it is. Instead, it’s a clear effort to garner support from the Black community by way of its big names.Tayo Bero is a Guardian US columnist. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Afro Mexican actors fighting racism celebrate their heritage through their plays

Unlike the efforts made to raise awareness of Black history in the United States, acknowledging the presence of Black people in Mexico has received little support

Events

2 w. ago ‘Now they are home’: human skulls shipped overseas from New Orleans for racist research to be laid to rest

Remains dating back to late 18th century are being repatriated and interred, with commemoration and jazz funeralIn the late 1800s, 19 Black New Orleanians’ heads were dismembered and shipped to Leipzig University in Germany for research. The 19 had died at New Orleans’ charity hospital between 1871 and 1872, and the research, which was commonplace at the time, sought to confirm and explore the now widely debunked theory that Black people’s brains were smaller than those of other races.In the 1880s, Dr Henry D Schmidt, a New Orleans physician, sent the skulls to Dr Emil Ludwig Schmidt. They were taken from the bodies of 13 men, four women and two unidentified people. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago ‘Young people and black workers at highest risk of workplace surveillance’

The Institute for Public Policy Research said there is an urgent need for legal reform so workers can have a say over how they are monitored.

Events

2 w. ago ‘A cynical ploy to hold power’: how the US right has exploited racial division

In the documentary White with Fear, an insidious long-running campaign to villainize people of color in the US is laid bareIn the year 1968, a group of housewives in Dearborn, Michigan, then a nearly all-white suburb of Detroit, gathered for a workshop on how to shoot a gun. The women at the pistol range, mostly late-middle age and grandmotherly, were reacting to rhetoric from Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign, which fixated on a so-called crime wave. They were scared, defensive, willing to pick up a gun as a guard against what Nixon called “cities enveloped in smoke and flame”.The neighboring city of Detroit was 40% Black, and the “crime” supposedly overtaking US cities meant, in this context, Black people, and white suburbia’s racist fear of them. Nixon knew this, though he didn’t say it outright – “You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the Blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to,” he once said, as quoted in the op...

Politics

2 w. ago Liverpool FC parade horror as 'car driven through crowds of fans' during celebration

Liverpool FC fan celebrations have been rocked after black vehicle seen driving through a crowd of people after the city-wide celebrations following the Premier League win

Sport

2 w. ago In an uneasy climate, diverse pride groups converge on DC with differing interests but common goals

Members of different LGBTQ and transgender communities are descending on the nation's capital with plans for celebrations, parades, concerts and more

Politics

2 w. ago If you think the Defund movement failed, you’re missing the bigger picture | M Adams and Miski Noor

Five years after George Floyd’s murder, America’s view on policing has fundamentally changed. But one summer of protest isn’t enoughMemory is a strange thing – the way sounds, images, and sensations converge to cement a moment in our minds. For millions of people, the memory of what happened to George Floyd five years ago in Minneapolis will stay with us for ever.On Sunday, we remember the life of George Floyd and reflect on the summer of 2020, when movement builders activated as many as 26 million people into the streets to demand an end to the state’s violent disregard for Black lives. Many people will opine today about the perceived failures of that time and the years that followed, focusing on how corporate pledges to increase diversity have since been revoked or zeroing in on how many police departments did not cut their budgets, all in an effort to decide whether the summer of 2020 was really as powerful as it felt.M Adams, Co-Executive Director, Movement for Black Lives &...

Events

3 w. ago Was the Black Lives Matter rebellion all for nothing? It may feel like that, but I have seen reasons for hope | Jason Okundaye

It is easy to look back at 2020 and feel aggrieved, even fooled. But in the British city where slaver Edward Colston’s statue was pulled down, I found cause for optimismIt has been five years since George Floyd, a Black man who lived in Minneapolis, was murdered by Derek Chauvin, a white police officer. The killing, captured in a distressing 10-minute video that quickly flooded social media timelines, sparked something that felt like an international revolution: protests took place across the world, forcing countries and cities to reckon with their present and historical treatment of Black people.In Britain, protests reached fever pitch when activists in Bristol toppled a statue of Edward Colston, the slave trader and deputy governor of the Royal African Company, and hurled it into the harbour. Bristol, once a major slave-trading port, had maintained a veneration of Colston that was increasingly divisive. The statue in particular had been a key focus of tensions: attempts to add a s...

Politics

3 w. ago Natalie Portman says the size of her baby bump was mocked at the 2011 Oscars

The Black Swan star said people told her they hoped she didn’t give birth on the red carpet, despite only being four months pregnant

Politics

3 w. ago Justice Department investigates Chicago's hiring practices after mayor touts Black hires

The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into hiring practices at the city of Chicago in response to comments made by Mayor Brandon Johnson at a church Sunday, praising the number of and naming Black people in top positions in his administration

Events

3 w. ago A black market for VAPES: Brits 'will turn to illegal options' to get a hit on single

Nearly two thirds of people who use disposable vapes are prepared to turn to the black market for their nicotine hit after the new disposable vape ban comes into place.

Events

3 w. ago What British children are REALLY being taught in school: Transatlantic slavery becomes most studied topic in UK history lessons

Meanwhile a significant 96 per cent of schools teach students about the abolition of slavery, a report by Policy Exchange revealed.

Events

3 w. ago Now woke history book promoted to schools claims Stonehenge was built by black people... while Waterloo and Trafalgar go untaught

A Policy Exchange investigation has warned that schools have 'taken it too far' as they adapt history curriculums in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests.

Culture

4 w. ago Now woke schools teach pupils that Stonehenge was built by black people... while Waterloo and Trafalgar go untaught

A Policy Exchange investigation has warned that schools have 'taken it too far' as they adapt history curriculums in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests.

Politics

4 w. ago Beautiful Scottish isle was home to Neolithic villages older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids

Orkney’s stunning islands were home to advanced Neolithic communities who built monuments older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids

Politics