A black police officer in the US state of Ohio has filed a discrimination complaint after allegedly receiving a racist note from a superior officer. Officer Keith Pool made the complaint after video footage emerged of then-Sheffield Lake Police Chief Anthony Campo placing a note on his desk reading “Ku Klux Klan” (KKK) last June. It is also alleged Mr Campo engaged in ongoing racist abuse against Mr Pool. Mr Campo has since resigned and said his actions were “a joke”. Mr Pool, who became Sheffield Lake’s first black officer in 2020, told reporters during a press conference on Thursday that his initial reaction had been one of shock, simply asking the then police chief: “Are you serious?” “What else can you say to the chief of police, who had done something so heinous and so awful to the first black officer ever? It’s not understandable,” he said.(BBC)…[+]

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is set to declare Western Europe’s first partial Covid lockdown of the winter, with three weeks of restrictions for shops, sport and catering. His caretaker government is responding to record infections and rising intensive care cases in hospitals. Much of Europe is facing a surge in cases, blamed partly on low vaccine take-up in several countries. Austria is expected to back a lockdown for unvaccinated people this weekend. Restrictions would be imposed first in the two provinces of Upper Austria and Salzburg from Monday, according to Health Minister Wolfgang Mückstein. Denmark, which had downgraded coronavirus as no longer a “socially critical” disease, has re-instated a Covid pass that was phased out in September. The government wants to push through a law allowing workplaces to require the pass for staff.(BBC)…[+]

A man has been arrested for allegedly threatening to rape the 10-month-old daughter of Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli after the team’s dismal performance in the T20 World Cup. He was arrested in the southern city of Hyderabad on Wednesday. The Indian team has faced a deluge of online abuse after losing back-to-back matches in the ongoing tournament. The trolling appears to have begun after India’s loss to arch-rival Pakistan. It was the first time India lost a match to Pakistan in a World Cup. After entering as clear favourites to lift the trophy, the Indian team crashed out of the tournament, sparking shock and anger among fans back home.  Relations between India and Pakistan have always been frosty and a cricket match often sparks tensions. Soon after the game against Pakistan ended, Mohammed Shami, the only Muslim in the Indian cricket team, was bitterly trolled and abused online. Some social media users even accused him of deliberately giving runs to the Pakistani team and labelled him a traitor.(BBC)…[+]

Lawyers for a teenager charged with shooting three people amid civil unrest in Wisconsin last year have called for a mistrial. Kyle Rittenhouse’s defence asked that the case be dismissed after the judge angrily rebuked prosecutors for airing apparently inadmissible evidence. Mr Rittenhouse, 18, sobbed earlier in court as he took the stand. He testified that he killed two men and injured a third on 25 August 2020 on the streets of Kenosha in self-defence. Mr Rittenhouse is facing counts including intentional and reckless homicide, reckless endangerment and illegal possession of a firearm after he fatally shot Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz, 28. He could get life in prison. Riots erupted on the streets of the city two days earlier after police shot a black man, Jacob Blake. Mr Rittenhouse – who was 17 at the time – travelled to the city from his home in Illinois and, with a semi-automatic rifle in tow, he said he sought to help protect property from unrest on the streets.(BBC)…[+]

Belarus’s leader has threatened to cut-off gas supplies to Europe if sanctions are imposed over an escalating migrant crisis at the country’s border. Thousands of people are at the border with Poland, where they are enduring freezing conditions in the hope of crossing into the European Union. Western officials have accused Belarus of provoking the crisis to undermine EU security, an allegation it denies. Meanwhile, the EU is reportedly preparing a package of fresh sanctions. “If they impose additional sanctions on us… we must respond,” the country’s long-time authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday. “We are heating Europe, and they are threatening us,” he said, referring to a Russian gas pipeline that runs through Belarus and into the EU. “And what if we halt natural gas supplies?” he added. “I would recommend that the Polish leadership, Lithuanians and [others] think before speaking.” His comments raised new concerns about a shortage of natural gas supplies and high prices in Europe. More EU sanctions could be introduced on Belarus as early as Monday, two unnamed diplomats told the Reuters news agency.(BBC)…[+]

The first Nasa mission since 1972 to put humans on the Moon’s surface has been pushed back by one year to 2025. Few observers expected Nasa to make the previous 2024 date, because of a funding shortfall and a lawsuit over the landing vehicle. But the space agency’s chief Bill Nelson confirmed the delay in a press conference on Tuesday. Under its Artemis programme, Nasa will send the first woman and the 13th man to the lunar surface. A US federal judge recently upheld a decision by the agency to award the contract to build a lunar landing vehicle for this mission to Elon Musk’s company SpaceX. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos had contested the decision, in part because he said the contract was supposed to have been awarded to more than one bidder. Mr Bezos’ firm Blue Origin had partnered with three other aerospace companies to vie for the prestigious lander contract.(BBC)…[+]

One of Germany’s top virologists has warned that a further 100,000 people will die from Covid if nothing’s done to halt an aggressive fourth wave. Case numbers have soared and Germany on Wednesday registered its highest rate of infection since the pandemic began, with almost 40,000 cases in a day. “We have to act right now,” said Christian Drosten, who described a real emergency situation. Doctors in the intensive care Covid ward at Leipzig University Hospital warn this fourth wave could be the worst yet.

One patient here, a woman in her 20s, has just given birth. Her baby is fine, but staff say they don’t know whether she’ll survive. This state of Saxony has the highest seven-day infection rate in Germany at 459 cases per 100,000 people. The national rate is 232. It also has the lowest take-up of vaccine: 57% of the population here have been immunised. There are 18 patients on the Covid ward. Just four were vaccinated. “It’s very difficult to get staff motivated to treat patients now in this fourth wave,” says Prof Sebastian Stehr, who heads the department. “A large part of the population still underestimates the problem.”(BBC)…[+]

A teenage girl who disappeared while jogging in north-west France but was found alive after a huge hunt has said she escaped an attempting kidnapping. The 17-year-old was found in a state of shock in a takeaway about 10km (six miles) from where she had gone running. She was receiving medical care after vanishing on Monday in the Mayenne region, east of Rennes. French media reports say she told police she had been held captive by kidnappers but managed to flee. Prosecutors said a kidnapping investigation had been opened and a man had been questioned in custody but released without charge. The teenager, a regular runner who has not been named, left her home for the local Bellebranche forest at around 16:00 on Monday.(BBC)…[+]

A man who survived after being shot by a US teenager during racial justice protests in Wisconsin has told a court that he pointed his own gun, but had no intention of firing it. Gaige Grosskreutz was the third person to be shot by Kyle Rittenhouse in the city of Kenosha on 25 August 2020. He said he thought Mr Rittenhouse was an “active shooter” when he drew his own gun and advanced on him. Mr Rittenhouse then opened fire, shooting him in the arm, he said. Lawyers for Mr Rittenhouse argue that he was acting in self-defence. The 18-year-old has denied six charges, including reckless homicide, intentional homicide and recklessly endangering safety.

Riots erupted in Kenosha in August 2020 after police shot a black man. Mr Rittenhouse had travelled to the city from his home in Illinois the day before and, with a semi-automatic rifle in tow, he claimed he sought to help protect property from unrest on the streets.(BBC)…[+]

Ghislaine Maxwell will challenge claims that she groomed underage girls for the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse. According to a letter by her lawyer, the British socialite’s defence will say her accusers might have faulty memories. The letter says that leading experts in psychiatry and memory would be brought in to testify in her defence. Ms Maxwell, 59, has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against her. She has been in a New York jail since her arrest in July last year, awaiting the trial which will begin on 29 November and last six weeks. The letter, written by Ms Maxwell’s lawyer Jeffrey Pagliuca, gives a first glimpse at what her legal team are hoping to use to defend her in court.(BBC)…[+]