New York, Mar 19: Security officials got alerted after the driver of a car claimed to have a bomb in his vehicle as he drove up to the White House.
There was no confirmation of any device in the vehicle, but security at the White House was immediately upgraded, CNN reported.
One person was taken into custody after the incident and the vehicle was checked.
Several streets around the White House were closed in what remained an ongoing operation.
London, Feb 9: A US court has rejected a Turkish attempt to dismiss civil cases brought by protesters who were violently attacked in Washington by Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s security officers.
The incident took place in May 2017 during a visit to the US by the Turkish president. About a dozen bodyguards beat-up a group demonstrating outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington.
The attack, which was caught on video, left nine people injured and further strained US relations with Turkey.
While criminal charges against the security guards were dropped within a year, around the same time Turkey released a US pastor, the victims pressed ahead with a civil case.
On Thursday, a federal court denied Turkey’s request to have the two cases thrown out on the grounds that it should have sovereign immunity from legal proceedings.
US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said the protesters had not posed a threat and were merely gathered on a sidewalk outside the residence at Sheridan Circle when Erdogan’s security burst through a police line and attacked them.
“The Turkish security forces did not have the discretion to violently physically attack the protesters, with the degree and nature of force which was used, when the protesters were standing, protesting on a public sidewalk,” she said. “And, Turkish security forces did not have the discretion to continue violently physically attacking the protesters after the protesters had fallen to the ground or otherwise attempted to flee.”
The judge said Turkey “has not met its burden of persuasion to show that it is immune from suit in these cases.”
The ruling was welcomed by the victims of the attack, which Erdogan stopped to watch as he made his way from his car to inside the residence.
Washington, Jun 2: There is no place for hate and racism in the society, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said, asserting that empathy and shared understanding are a start, but more needs to be done. Nadella’s remarks come in the wake of the custodial death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man who was pinned to the ground in Minneapolis on May 25 by a white police officer who kneeled on his neck as he gasped for breath.
“There is no place for hate and racism in our society. Empathy and shared understanding are a start, but we must do more,” Nadella said in a tweet on Monday.
“I stand with the Black and African American community and we are committed to building on this work in our company and in our communities,” Nadella said.
A day earlier, Google CEO Sunder Pichai expressed solidarity with the African-American community.
“Today on US Google & YouTube homepages we share our support for racial equality in solidarity with the Black community and in memory of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery & others who don’t have a voice,” Pichai wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
“For those feeling grief, anger, sadness & fear, you are not alone,” Pichai said, sharing a screenshot of the Google search home page which said, “We stand in support of racial equality, and all those who search for it.”
Nadella’s Microsoft also said they will be using the platform to amplify voices from the Black and African American community at the company.
Nadella had also spoken out a few months ago about the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act passed in his native country. Talking to BuzzFeed’s editor-in-chief, Ben Smith, in Manhattan, Nadella said what’s happening in the country is “sad.”
“I think what is happening is sad. I feel, and in fact quite frankly, now being informed (and) shaped by the two amazing American things that I’ve observed which is both, it’s technology reaching me where I was growing up and its immigration policy and even a story like mine being possible in a country like this.
“I think, it’s just bad, if anything, I would love to see a Bangladeshi immigrant who comes to India and creates the next unicorn in India or becomes the CEO of Infosys. That should be the aspiration. If I had to sort of mirror what happened to me in the US, I hope that’s what happens in India,” Microsoft’s India-born CEO was quoted as saying by BuzzFeed.
Ottawa, Jun 25: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took his son out for ice cream on Wednesday in his first family outing since Canada started easing out of its pandemic lockdown.
It was also Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day in Quebec province.
Wearing masks, the Canadian leader and his six-year-old son Hadrien were cheered at Chocolats Favoris in Gatineau, Quebec.
According to a pool report, Trudeau said the shop tapped into a federal emergency wage subsidy and business loan in order to weather the pandemic, and "avoid being frozen out of the frozen treat market."
Hadrien is said to have bounced with excitement, settling on a vanilla cone with a cookie topping while dad bought a vanilla cone dipped in chocolate for himself.
Father and son then headed out to the patio, where they doffed their masks to eat their cones.
Canada's provinces and territories declared states of emergency mid-March, closing schools and non-essential businesses in response to the pandemic.
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