Los Angeles (United States) (AFP) – Several western US states including California and Utah were battling wildfires on Monday as millions of Americans in the region were once again under heat alerts. Across California, firefighters were battling 21 blazes of various sizes on Monday, according to government agency Cal Fire. Their efforts were complicated by baking temperatures that hit the western United States over the weekend, with more than 30 million people affected by heat warnings in California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state.
California Governor Gavin Newsom warned earlier in July of a "very active" wildfire season, following two years of respite thanks to rainy winters. Repeated heat waves since the beginning of June have dried out much of the state's vegetation, making it easier for fires to spread. Newsom said that, since January, forest fires have ravaged some 207,415 acres in California -- well above the 10,080 acres recorded during the same period last year, and exceeding the five-year average of 38,593 acres burned.
California last week sent its firefighters to neighboring Oregon, where Governor Tina Kotek said the wildfire season had a "very aggressive start." Around 20 fires are being battled in the northwestern state. One of them, the Cow Valley Fire, obtained so-called "megafire" status last week after it tore through more than 100,000 acres in a rural, largely unpopulated area.
Authorities say it is now 80 percent contained. Utah was also hit by a blaze on Saturday that broke out near state capital Salt Lake City. It prompted evacuation orders for around 40 homes in the hills north of the city, and spread panic among some who saw the flames up close.
"I ran out of the house and thought, 'That's my backyard,'" Utah resident Roger Hobbs told local channel KSL TV, adding: "It's scary to death up here." Extreme weather events are becoming increasingly common as our planet warms, largely due to human reliance on fossil fuels, according to scientists. Last month saw the hottest June on record across the globe, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service, capping half a year of wild and destructive weather, including floods and heat waves.
Washington (AFP) – Doctored images, sexual slurs, racial innuendos -- false narratives around Kamala Harris surged online as she emerged as the Democratic frontrunner in the US presidential race, with researchers warning of an incoming flood of gendered disinformation. President Joe Biden exited the race on Sunday and endorsed Harris -- the first Black, South Asian and woman vice president in US history -- who vowed to win her party's nomination to take on Donald Trump in November. An online explosion of misogynistic and sexist narratives about Harris quickly ensued, including previously debunked falsehoods.
Some social media posts repeated suggestions Harris "slept her way to the top" in American politics, citing her brief relationship in the 1990s with former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown. The charge was refloated by conservative influencers such as Candace Owens, Matt Walsh, and Clay Travis. Meanwhile, posts on the platform X recirculated a doctored image of Harris appearing to pose alongside disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The picture -- debunked years ago by AFP's fact-checkers using a reverse image search -- had been manipulated to include Epstein instead of Harris's husband, Douglas Emhoff. Online posts also derided US-born Harris as a "Black African woman," with some attributing her success solely to her ethnicity. "It's important to label these narratives and lies as what they are: an attempt to undermine a powerful woman's public service because of her gender, her background, her skin color," said Nina Jankowicz, co-founder of the disinformation watchdog American Sunlight Project.
"I challenge anyone who opposes Harris's candidacy to engage in a substantive debate on the merits of her policies and track record, rather than calling her disgusting names." - 'Lies and conspiracies' In 2020, Jankowicz led a study that found more than 336,000 instances of "gendered abuse and disinformation" used to attack 13 women politicians. Some 78 percent of that targeted Harris.
The disinformation involved not just sexual tropes but also false transphobic narratives, such as Harris could not have ascended politically without secretly being a man. Also included were racist narratives falsely asserting Harris was "ineligible" to run for office because both her parents were immigrants, while some insisted that she was "exaggerating" her racial identities for political gain. Roberta Braga, executive director of the Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas, warned internet users to be alert for "lies and conspiracies" about Harris in the coming days.
"The misinformation will be laced with gender-based attacks. And it won't be new," Braga said. Women candidates of color in the 2020 elections were twice as likely as other candidates to be targeted with disinformation, according to a report from the Washington-based Center for Democracy & Technology.
They were also four times as likely as white candidates to be targeted with violent abuse, the report added. 'Full spectrum' Gendered disinformation –- when sexism and misogyny intersect with online falsehoods -- has relentlessly targeted women politicians around the world, tarnishing their reputations, undermining their credibility and, in many cases, upending their careers. AFP's global fact-checkers have regularly debunked falsehoods targeting politically active women, who are often sitting ducks for online abuse and sexually-charged trolling.
As the White House race -- already vulnerable to an avalanche of disinformation -- heads into its final months, researchers are bracing for a flood of falsehoods targeting Harris. Widely available artificial intelligence tools are expected to add fuel to the fire on social sites such as X -– the platform formerly known as Twitter and owned by Elon Musk, who is strongly backing Trump. Platforms including X have scaled back content moderation, removing many of the guardrails against false information, and reinstated accounts of known purveyors of falsehoods.
"We should expect a full spectrum of disinformation," said Ronald Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, a research center affiliated with the University of Toronto. That will range from "well-organized and professional influence operations, in some cases backed by foreign adversaries, through to amateur productions created by miscreants," Deibert told AFP. CONTINUE READING Show less Paris (AFP) – As Paris prepares for the opening ceremony of the Olympics on July 26 with what promises to be a spectacular parade of boats along the river Seine, AFP looks back at memorable Olympics curtainraisers of the past.
Issued on: 23/07/2024 - 04:15Modified: 23/07/2024 - 04:13 4 min 1896: Gigantic choir in Athens On April 6, 1896, the first modern Olympic Games opened in the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, newly restored in white marble, in front of 80,000 spectators, some in traditional Greek attire, others in suits. The King proclaimed the opening of the Games and the Olympic hymn, written by Greek composer Spyridon Samaras, was then sung by a 150-strong choir, accompanied by nine philharmonic orchestras. German chancellor Adolf Hitler gives the Nazi salute during the opening ceremony of the Berlin Olympics on August 1, 1936 © - / HO/AFP/File 1936: "Heil Hitler" in Berlin On August 1, 1936, Adolf Hitler opened the Summer Games in Berlin as a Nazi German showcase, aimed at presenting foreign spectators with the image of a peaceful and tolerant country.
Swastikas bedecked the Brandenburg Gate as musical fanfares announced the dictator's arrival to a largely German crowd of 100,000, who hailed him with Nazi salutes and cries of "Heil Hitler". When the athletes filed through the stadium, the German delegation also performed the Nazi salute. 1964: Japan's rebirth Yoshinori Sakai from Hiroshima on October 10, 1964 after lighting the Olympic torch during the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympic Games © - / AFP/File The Tokyo Olympics marked Japan's great return to the world stage after its defeat and destruction two decades earlier in World War II.
In a poignant symbolic nod to its pacifist credo, the last carrier of the Olympic torch was Yoshinori Sakai, an athlete born on August 6, 1945, the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. 1984: Rocket man in Los Angeles Held at the height of the Cold War, boycotted by the Soviet Union and 14 Eastern bloc allies, the opening of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics was designed to show off America's technological prowess. In a futuristic tour de force that took millions of viewers by surprise, "Rocket man" Bill Suitor flew into the Memorial Coliseum using a hydrogen peroxide-fuelled jet pack.
1996: Muhammad Ali lights up Atlanta Boxing superstar Muhammad Ali overcomes his trembling from Parkinson's disease to light the Olympic flame in Atlanta © OMAR TORRES / AFP/File In 1996, a global audience of three billion held its breath as boxing superstar Muhammad Ali momentarily conquered his trembling due to Parkinson's disease to defiantly raise the Olympic flame and then slowly lower it to light the cauldron, marking the start of the Atlanta Games. Ali's participation had been kept top secret. The crowd gasped in surprise as he emerged from behind a curtain in a white tracksuit, his arms and head shaking erratically.
2000: Aboriginal hero shimmers in Sydney Australian Aboriginal sporting icon Cathy Freeman holds up the Olympic torch before lighting the cauldron in Sydney © KAZUHIRO NOGI / AFP/File At the millennium Games in Sydney, Aboriginal star Cathy Freeman symbolised the desire to reconcile the people of Australia when she ascended to the cauldron in a cascading waterfall to light the flame. Ten days later she won the 400m final before an ecstatic crowd in what was to be her last major race. 2008: China flaunts global power The opening of the Beijing Games, a coming out party for a nation whose global power was rising as quickly as its wealth, took place to the thundering beat of 2,008 drums in the "Bird's Nest" stadium.
A host of dancers, acrobats and trapeze artists went on to tell the story of the Great Wall of China, the Silk Road and China's love affair with martial arts in an awe-inspiring display that drowned out the political controversies and pollution concerns that plagued the run-up to the Games. 2012: Queen Elizabeth's London skyfall Actors imitating Britain's late Queen Elizabeth II and James Bond parachute into the stadium during the opening ceremony of the London Olympics © OLIVIER MORIN / AFP/File The late Queen Elizabeth II played a starring role at the London Olympics, appearing alongside James Bond actor Daniel Craig in a film shown at the opening ceremony in which she appeared to skydive into the stadium from a helicopter. Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle, of "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Trainspotting" fame was the mastermind of the ceremony, which showcased British history with a hefty dollop of the nation's offbeat humour.
The show included a tribute to the National Health Service, a major source of national pride, with children wearing pyjamas bouncing on 320 giant hospital beds. CONTINUE READING Show less WASHINGTON – Accused of sexual misconduct and affairs spanning decades, blamed for strict abortion curbs and criticized for sexism, Donald Trump has a women problem -- and Democrats are gambling that Kamala Harris can use it as a cudgel. Trump was accused of misogyny by his Democratic 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton -- the only woman ever nominated for a White House run by a major party -- and is facing similar attacks from a vice president looking increasingly likely to be the second.
Broadening Trump's appeal to women is seen as key to the Republican's electoral success in November, after he won just 42 percent of the female vote on his way to defeat in 2020, against Joe Biden's 57 percent.There was an coordinated push at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last week to soften the 78-year-old billionaire's rougher edges, with former and current associates effusive in their praise. Several female family members also weighed in, with Kai Trump, his oldest grandchild, sharing stories of "a normal grandpa" who "gives us candy and soda when our parents aren't looking.
" The praise was at odds with his public persona as an adjudicated sexual predator who has bragged about groping women and has a reputation for being unfaithful, allegedly cheating on third wife Melania Trump with a Playboy model and a porn star. 'Fat pigs, dogs, slobs' Trump was found liable last year for a mid-1990s sex attack on writer E. Jean Carroll -- the judge called it "rape" -- and ordered to pay $88 million in damages for the assault itself and for defaming her.
During his first primary campaign, he criticized the looks of his only female Republican rival and implied that the wife of another opponent-- Senator Ted Cruz of Texas -- was ugly. Then the "Access Hollywood" footage of him boasting about being able to grab women by their genitals almost brought a swift end to his campaign. Years earlier he had boasted on Howard Stern's show about entering beauty pageant changing rooms with "incredible-looking women" in various states of undress.
Voters were reminded of Trump's controversial statements during one of the primary debates in 2015, when moderator Megyn Kelly brought up his descriptions of women as "fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals." He later criticized the questioning, saying Kelly had "blood coming out of her wherever." Clinton accused Trump of "stalking" her during their debate in October 2016, after a bizarre performance during which he often stood closely behind her glowering.
After he won that election, more than 500 Women's March protests were held in America and scores of foreign cities. Trump has denied more than a dozen sexual misconduct allegations, from groping and harassment to rape. The official Trump White House position in 2017 was that the women were all lying.
'Formidable female contender' He avoided jail in the Carroll case because it was a civil trial, but incarceration has not been ruled out in his September sentencing for falsifying business records to cover up an affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt told AFP the media's portrayal of his treatment of women was "entirely false," pointing to his efforts to expand access to paid family leave and child care in his first term. Meanwhile, reproductive rights have become a hot-button 2024 election issue after Trump's appointment of three Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn federal abortion protections.
Harris, as well as being a former prosecutor who used to put men away for fraud and rape, is a leading proponent of abortion access. A coalition of 22 progressive and women's groups released a statement calling Harris "the leading voice in the Biden administration to restore abortion rights -- the issue galvanizing voters in red states and blue." Political strategist Sergio Jose Gutierrez says that while Harris might struggle with moderate and older women, the 2020 Democratic coalition of suburban women and working moms could help her across the line.
"Trump's stronghold remains among small-town voters, seniors, and economic conservatives," said Gutierrez, the CEO of consultancy Espora. "But he must adapt to the dynamics of running against a formidable female contender." CONTINUE READING Show less.
