Sanders fights again: The world at a glance $250,000 fine for hair bias:
Chicago, Illinois
Doubts over assault: Police in Chicago want to re-interview a well-known TV actor, Jussie Smollett (pictured), following claims that he staged a hate-crime assault on himself. Smollett, 36, a gay actor from the TV drama Empire, reported that he had been assaulted on 29 January by two masked men who screamed homophobic and racist abuse. Police arrested two Nigerian brothers they identified from surveillance footage; one was Smollett’s personal trainer and the other a TV extra who had appeared on Empire. Sources told CBS in Chicago that Smollett allegedly paid the pair $3,500 to stage the attack – a claim he strongly denies.
Washington DC
Treason claim: President Trump has accused Andrew Mccabe, the former acting chief of the FBI, and Rod Rosenstein, his own deputy attorney general, of “treason” over claims made by Mccabe while promoting his new book. Mccabe says that in May 2017 he discussed with Rosenstein the possibility of removing Trump under the 25th Amendment – on the grounds of unfitness to be president. It was reported this week that Rosenstein, who appointed EX-FBI chief Robert Mueller as the special counsel investigating Russian collusion, is to step down next month – a possible sign that the Mueller inquiry is winding up.
Washington DC
Bernie Sanders, the self-styled socialist whose 2016 presidential campaign grew from an unlikely leftwing insurgency to a major force that reshaped the Democratic Party, announced this week that he will run again for the party’s presidential nomination in 2020. The Vermont senator, 77, who sits as an independent, said he was building “an unprecedented grass-roots campaign” whose mission was not just to beat Donald Trump – “the most dangerous president in modern American history” and a “pathological liar” – but to “transform our country and create a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice”.
Port-au-prince
Protests rage: The Haitian capital, Port-au-prince, has been rocked by violent anti-government protests over the past fortnight, in which at least four people have been killed. Residents demanding the resignation of President Jovenel Moïse and his government have torched cars, set up blockades and clashed with police. The violence follows months of mounting anger over soaring inflation and corruption. The focus of public rage is some $2bn in missing funds – apparently embezzled by officials involved in a deal to buy heavily discounted oil from Venezuela.
Caracas
Aid stand-off: Venezuela’s government announced plans to stage two concerts on the Colombian border this weekend, as a show of strength in response to a concert organised by Richard Branson, the British businessman. Branson’s concert, due to take place on Friday just across the border in the Colombian town of Cúcuta, is aimed at raising funds for food and medicine for Venezuelans impoverished by the country’s collapse under President Maduro. The Maduro government regards humanitarian aid as a Trojan horse for a US invasion, and has blockaded the bridge to Cúcuta, where US aid is stockpiled. But Juan Guaidó, the opposition leader who has declared himself Venezuela’s interim president, has called on hundreds of thousands of people to travel to the border this weekend to help carry the aid across it.
New York
The city of New York has introduced a ban on discriminating against anyone due to their hairstyle, in what is believed to be the first such law in the US. In future, anyone found to have discriminated against someone for hairbased reasons at work, school or in a public place will be liable to a fine of up to $250,000. Although the law applies to all ethnic groups, it is designed to tackle bias against black people. It cites the right of New Yorkers to maintain their “natural hair, treated or untreated hairstyles such as locs, cornrows, twists, braids, Bantu knots, fades, Afros, and/or the right to keep hair in an uncut or untrimmed state”. “Bias against the curly textured hair of people of African descent is as old as this country and a form of race-based discrimination,” said Chirlane Mccray, wife of mayor Bill de Blasio, who is herself African American.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
“Black lives matter” movement: Anti-racism campaigners have taken to the streets in five major cities in Brazil, following the death in Rio de Janeiro of a young black man who had been immobilised in a “sleep hold” – a tight grip round the neck – by a supermarket security guard. Video footage of the incident shows Pedro Gonzaga, 19, being held down on the floor until he passed out, while a crowd of onlookers plead with the guard to let him go. Gonzaga was taken to hospital, where he later died. He was reportedly a drug user who had suffered a fit or hallucination while on his way to a rehabilitation clinic. A public outcry over the case has spread in Brazil under the hashtag #Vidasnegrasimportam (“Black Lives Matter”).