US prosecutors dropped charges Friday against a black man who was tried six times and spent more than 20 years in prison for the same murders.

Curtis Flowers served 23 years for a quadruple murder committed in Mississippi in 1996. He has always maintained his innocence.

The prosecutor in all six trials was ultimately accused last year by the US Supreme Court of trying hard to keep black people off the jury and eventually resigned from the case.

Flowers — who has been sentenced to death four times in the case — was released on bail in December, although another trial was still possible. But on Friday Mississippi’s attorney general dismissed the charges against him.

“I am finally free from the injustice that left me locked in a box for 23 years,” Flowers said in a statement.

“The day I’ve prayed for is here at last.”

Under US law, a suspect acquitted of a crime cannot be tried again. Still, Flowers was tried six times.

His case became well known in a podcast called “In the Dark.”

Each of the convictions and death sentences in the first three trials was overturned by the Mississippi Supreme Court for prosecutorial misconduct. The next two ended in hung juries.

In 2010 Flowers was convicted a final time and sentenced to death.

But this decision was overturned in 2019 by the US Supreme Court because of what it called a prosecutor’s “relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals.”

That prosecutor, Doug Evans, had been on the case from the outset.

In January he agreed to step down from the case and the state attorney general Lynn Fitch started the proceedings from scratch.

She asked that the case be thrown out, and a judge agreed.

Source: AFP

The US has urged states to get ready for a potential Covid-19 vaccine rollout two days before the presidential election, it emerged Wednesday, as France prepared to present a mammoth spending plan for its virus-hit economy.

Across the world, governments are hoping to announce a vaccine as soon as possible to reopen economies shuttered to contain an illness that has killed more than 850,000 people and infected over 25 million.

In a widely circulated letter, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked states to sweep away red tape that could prevent a network of vaccine distribution centers being “fully operational by Nov. 1, 2020.”

That is two days before voters head to the polls in an election clouded by the virus and the economic crisis it provoked, sparking concerns President Donald Trump’s administration is rushing to have a vaccine before November 3.

“The normal time required to obtain… permits presents a significant barrier to the success of this urgent public health program,” CDC head Robert Redfield told states in the August 27 letter.

“CDC urgently requests your assistance in expediting applications for these distribution facilities.”

Priority will be given to essential workers, national security officials, seniors and members of vulnerable racial and ethnic groups, according to The New York Times.

Three Western drug makers are progressing with their Phase 3 clinical trials, involving tens of thousands of participants.

AstraZeneca is partnering with Oxford University in England while Moderna is collaborating with the US National Institutes of Health. Pfizer and BioNTech are partnering on the third candidate.

– ‘Dangerous’ –

Under normal procedures, test administrators must wait — probably for months — to verify that vaccine candidates work and are safe.

The US Food and Drug Administration however has raised the possibility that a vaccine might be given emergency authorization before the end of trials.

The FDA has faced mounting criticism from the medical community that it is bowing to political pressure from Trump, who is behind Democratic challenger Joe Biden in the polls and has said one might be ready before the election.

“This means mass vaccination nationwide could start in 59 days. FIFTY-NINE DAYS. Is any #COVID19 #vaccine likely to have completed Phase 3 safety and efficacy clinical trials, and gone through full scientific and @US_FDA review in 59 days?” award-winning epidemiology writer Laurie Garrett asked on Twitter.

“To my knowledge, none of the US #COVID19 #vaccines have finished even enrolling test subjects for Phase 3 trials. Rushing this to completion within 59 days is DANGEROUS.”

FDA chief Stephen Hahn, however, has denied he is acting under pressure from Trump, arguing that any vaccine approval would be a “science, medicine, data decision.”

The US has registered more than six million Covid-19 cases — almost a quarter of the global total — and 185,000 deaths.

Shutdowns have taken a toll on livelihoods across the globe as business revenues plunge and millions are forced out of work.

In Europe, where GDP plunged 12.1 percent in the three months to June, fears are growing of more lockdowns and disruption this autumn and winter as the virus resurges.

The French economy has been pushed into its worst downward spiral since 1945, with GDP down 13.8 percent in the second quarter, after a drop of more than five percent in the first.

– Venice festival tribute –

Paris, hoping to ward off the threat of mass layoffs, has earmarked 100 billion euros ($120 billion) to counter the devastating impact of the coronavirus.

Some critics say the money may come too late to save many companies, while others say high hopes for President Emmanuel Macron’s green revolution in the French economy are likely to be dashed.

Economists have welcomed the departure from the kind of austerity measures seen after the 2008 crisis which were “a huge error,” said Philippe Martin, who heads up the CAE think tank, which advises the government.

Unlike the post-2008 crisis response, much of the new plan targets the supply and investment side of the economy, namely businesses.

The measures over the next two years include 10 billion euros’ worth of corporate tax cuts.

Youth employment is also a major target of the spending, with 6.5 billion euros aimed at encouraging hiring for millions of new entrants on a depressed job market.

In Australia, the government announced a record contraction of seven percent despite authorities providing billions of dollars in support to struggling firms.

New Delhi reported that growth suffered a historic 23.9 percent decline in the second quarter, while Brazil’s economy contracted by a record 9.7 percent.

And to add insult to injury for the sports-mad South American nation, football icon Neymar was one of three Paris Saint-Germain stars to have contracted the coronavirus, a well-placed source told AFP.

“Three Paris Saint-Germain players have confirmed positive Sars CoV2 tests and are subject to the appropriate health protocol,” PSG said in a statement.

When contacted by AFP, the club declined to confirm the identity of the players in question.

The virus failed to put the brakes on the Venice film festival in Italy, which opened Wednesday with a tribute to those who lost their lives from coronavirus.

The festival, rolling out on the glitzy beachfront Lido through September 12, is the first major international festival to take place since Covid-19 shuttered theaters, halted production and drove millions of moviegoers around the world to their television sets.

Source:  AFP

The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, over her investigation into whether American forces committed war crimes in Afghanistan. The Hague-based tribunal reacted denouncing an “unprecedented” attack against “the rule of law”.

“The International Criminal Court condemns the economic sanctions imposed by the US earlier today on the court’s prosecutor and a member of her office,” an ICC statement said. “These coercive acts, directed at an international judicial institution and its civil servants, are unprecedented and constitute serious attacks against the court, the Rome Statute system of international criminal justice, and the rule of law more generally.”

The war crimes court said it “continues to stand firmly by its personnel and its mission of fighting impunity for the world’s most serious crimes.”

Pompeo also said that Phakiso Mochochoko, the head of the ICC’s Jurisdiction, Complementarity and Cooperation Division, had been blacklisted under sanctions authorised by President Donald Trump in June that allow for asset freezes and travel bans.

“Today we take the next step, because the ICC continues to target Americans, sadly,” Pompeo told reporters.

In addition, Pompeo said that individuals and entities that continue to materially support Bensouda and Mochochoko would risk exposure to sanctions as well.

The US State Department also restricted the issuance of visas for individuals Pompeo said were involved in the court’s efforts to investigate US personnel. He did not name those affected, though.

‘Kangoroo court’ investigating war crimes in Afghanistan

The US move came after President Donald Trump authorised sanctions on the ICC on June 11 for probing and prosecuting US troops.

Pompeo at the time referred to the ICC as a “kangaroo court” and warned that if US soldiers are investigated by it, those of US allies in Afghanistan risk the same threat. US Attorney General Bill Barr said in June that the ICC has become “little more than a political tool employed by unaccountable international elites”.

Bensouda was given the go-ahead by the court in March to investigate whether war crimes were committed in Afghanistan by the Taliban, Afghan military and US forces.

The sanctions were announced just two months before US elections, in which Trump is running in part on his record of standing up to international institutions that don’t bow to US demands.

But Washington’s move also added to the broader pressure on the ICC to shore up its legitimacy, 18 years after it was founded to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

The ICC was founded by the Rome Statute, which entered into force in 2002, and has since been signed by 123 countries. The United States – like Russia, China, Israel, Syria and a number of other countries – is not a member of the ICC, and its opposition to the court is longstanding.

US Sanctions ‘only serve to weaken the fight’ against ‘mass atrocities’

The head of the ICC’s Assembly of States Parties, which groups the court’s member countries, said separately that it would meet to discuss how to support the tribunal in the face of the US measures. “I strongly reject such unprecedented and unacceptable measures against a treaty-based international organisation,” said assembly president O-Gon Kwon. “They only serve to weaken our common endeavour to fight impunity for mass atrocities.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was concerned by Pompeo’s announcement, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters. He said that “we trust that any restriction taken against individuals will be implemented consistently” with a decades-old US deal with the UN to host the world body’s headquarters in New York.

The United States revoked Bensouda’s entry visa in 2019 over the possible Afghanistan inquiry. But under an agreement between the UN and Washington, she was still able to regularly travel to New York to brief the UN Security Council on cases it had referred to the court in The Hague.

Rights groups immediately condemned the US designations.

Richard Dicker, Human Rights Watch international justice director, said it was a “stunning perversion of US sanctions”. “The Trump administration has twisted these sanctions to obstruct justice, not only for certain war crimes victims, but for atrocity victims anywhere looking to the International Criminal Court for justice,” he said.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS & AFP)

Former White House adviser Steve Bannon was arrested Thursday on charges that he and three others committed fraud as part of an online fundraising campaign to build US President Donald Trump’s Mexican border wall.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan announced that Bannon had been charged in an unsealed indictment for allegedly defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors through a $25 million crowdfunding campaign called, “We Build the Wall.”

The donors thought the money would go towards helping to build a border wall along the frontier with Mexico, prosecutors said.

Co-defendants Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea were also charged.

According to the indictment, Bannon promised that 100 percent of the donated money would be used for the project. But the three men are accused of collectively using hundreds of thousands of dollars in a manner inconsistent with the organisation’s public claims. Kolfage, whom prosecutors described as the public face and founder of the operation, allegedly received thousands of dollars that he used to fund a lavish lifestyle.

However, after calling the effort a “volunteer organisation”, Bannon received more than $1 million of the donations, which he funneled through a non-profit he controlled, prosecutors said, using some of it for his personal expenses.

All four men are charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The indictment said they faked invoices and used sham “vendor” arrangements, among other methods, to hide what was really happening with the money.

“Not only did they lie to donors, they schemed to hide their misappropriation of funds by creating sham invoices and accounts to launder donations and cover up their crimes, showing no regard for the law or the truth,” said Philip Bartlett, head of New York’s division of the US Postal Inspection Service, which worked on the investigation.

The initiative began in 2018 as a GoFundMe campaign to raise money that organisers said would go towards the border wall Trump had promised throughout his 2016 campaign, which Bannon led in its critical final months.

Before his role in the campaign, Bannon ran the conservative website Breitbart News. After Trump was elected, he moved on to a top White House strategy post.

The blunt-spoken, combative Bannon became the voice of an inflammatory nationalistic conservatism. He encouraged Trump to follow through on some of his most contentious campaign promises, including a controversial travel ban on some countries and the decision to pull out of the Paris climate change agreement.

But Bannon also clashed with other top advisers, and allegations that he was the power behind the throne irked Trump. He left the White House after falling out of favour in August 2017.

(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP and REUTERS)

Former monarch Juan Carlos I of Spain has been in the United Arab Emirates since he left his country amid a growing financial scandal, the Spanish royal household said Monday, resolving a two-week mystery and reining in speculation over the ex-king’s whereabouts.

The Spanish government and Royal House officials have been tight-lipped about Juan Carlos’ location since Aug. 3, when he published a letter to his son, King Felipe VI, that said he was moving outside Spain due to the “public repercussions of certain episodes of my past private life.”

At 82, the former king is the target of official investigations in Spain and Switzerland into possible financial wrongdoing.

Conservative Spanish newspaper ABC had published a photo of Juan Carlos stepping out of a plane at an airport in Abu Dhabi. But without any official confirmation, Spanish media had placed him in places as far afield as the Dominican Republic, Portugal, Switzerland or New Zealand.

Ending the swirl of speculation, a Royal House spokesman said Monday that Juan Carlos had asked to convey that he had traveled to UAE on Aug. 3.

“That’s where he currently remains,” the official, who wasn’t authorized to be quoted in media reports, told The Associated Press.

The spokesman declined to say if the UAE, a federation of seven sheikdoms on the Arabian Peninsula, would be Juan Carlos’ permanent residence.

UAE authorities have not responded to repeated questions regarding Juan Carlos’ stay in the country.

Juan Carlos facilitated Spain’s transition to democratic rule in the 1970’s, when the heir of the Bourbon dynasty replaced former Gen. Francisco Franco as the country’s head of state. He reigned for nearly four decades while Spain modernized and joined the European Union.

But criticism grew as his luxurious life and corruption scandals tarnishing members of the royal family offered a striking contrast with the suffering of Spaniards during the global financial crisis.

In 2014, Juan Carlos abdicated the throne that then went to Felipe, who has taken steps to shield the monarchy from the scandals.

Felipe VI has not publicly spoken about his father’s departure earlier this month. On Monday, he and Queen Letizia were scheduled to pay a visit to the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. The royal couple and their two daughters are currently vacationing on a nearby island.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, whose monarchy-supporting Socialist Party is in a coalition government with the pro-republic, far-left Unidas Podemos (United We Can), has praised the Royal House’s decision to take distance from the former king.

Spain’s king has a mostly ceremonial role. Executive power lies with the elected parliamentary government.

Despite relocating outside of Spain, Juan Carlos has pledged via his lawyer to make himself available to prosecutors in Spain. Their investigation, which is in early stages, is looking into whether the former monarch received millions of dollars in kickbacks from Saudi Arabia during the construction of a high-speed railway there by a Spanish consortium.

A separate Swiss judicial probe is looking into millions of euros (dollars) that were allegedly given to Juan Carlos by Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullah and allegedly transformed by Juan Carlos to a former companion.

Source: AP

Facebook Inc on Wednesday took down a post by U.S. President Donald Trump, which the company said violated its rules against sharing misinformation about the coronavirus.

The post contained a video clip, from an interview with Fox & Friends earlier in the day, in which Trump claimed that children are “almost immune” to COVID-19.

“This video includes false claims that a group of people is immune from COVID-19, which is a violation of our policies around harmful COVID misinformation,” a Facebook spokesman said.

A tweet containing the video that was posted by the Trump campaign’s @TeamTrump account and shared by the president was also later hidden by Twitter Inc for breaking its COVID-19 misinformation rules.

A Twitter spokesman said the @TeamTrump account owner would be required to remove the tweet before they could tweet again.

The Trump campaign accused the companies of bias against the president, saying Trump had stated a fact. “Social media companies are not the arbiters of truth,” said Courtney Parella, a spokeswoman with the campaign.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said that while adults make up most of the known COVID-19 cases to date, some children and infants have been sick with the disease and they can also transmit it to others.

An analysis by the World Health Organization of 6 million infections between Feb. 24 and July 12 found that the share of children aged 5-14 years was about 4.6%.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. During a briefing at the White House, Trump repeated his claim that the virus had little impact on children.

“Children handle it very well,” he told reporters. “If you look at the numbers, in terms of mortality, fatalities … for children under a certain age … their immune systems are very very strong and very powerful. They seem to be able to handle it very well and that’s according to every statistical claim.”

It was the first time Facebook had removed a Trump post for coronavirus misinformation, the company’s spokesman said.

It also appeared to be the first reported instance of the social media company taking down a post from the president for breaching its misinformation rules.

Twitter has taken down a post retweeted by Trump pointing to a misleading viral video about the coronavirus, but left up clips of the president suggesting scientists should investigate using light or disinfectant on patients.

Twitter said those remarks expressed a wish for treatment, rather than a literal call for action.

It also left up a March post from Tesla Inc’s outspoken CEO Elon Musk stating that “kids are essentially immune” from the virus.

Facebook has taken heat from lawmakers and its own employees in recent months for not taking action on inflammatory posts by Trump.

The company has previously removed ads from Trump’s election campaign for breaking misinformation rules, in that case around a national census.

It also took down both Trump posts and campaign ads that showed a red inverted triangle, a symbol the Nazis used to identify political prisoners, for violating its policy against organized hate.

Source: REUTERS

France and the Netherlands are gearing up for stricter mask-wearing rules to fight the coronavirus as the global death toll from the pandemic neared 700,000.

Paris, Toulouse and other cities announced that the wearing of masks would be compulsory in particularly busy streets and squares. People already have to wear them inside most private businesses and all public buildings.

A scientific committee advising the French government warned that the country could lose control of its spread “at any time.”

In the Netherlands, the same mask-wearing measure will be applied in Rotterdam and the famous red-light district of Amsterdam from Wednesday.

And Ireland postponed the reopening of pubs and other nightspots on the advice of scientists, concerned about rising infections.

In other developments, the Philippines placed millions of people back under lockdown. And the hunt for an effective treatment continued with the United States launching trials of an antibody treatment for COVID-19.

Philippines resumes lockdown

Millions of people in the Philippines were ordered to stay home Tuesday in a bid to contain the rising rate of infections, and relieve pressure on overwhelmed hospitals.

More than 27 million people on the main island of Luzon, including the capital Manila, went back into a partial lockdown.

People have been told to stay home unless going out to buy essential goods, for exercise or for work, after the number of recorded infections surged past 100,000.

But with only 24 hours’ notice of the shutdown, many people were stranded in Manila, unable to get back to their hometowns after public transport and domestic flights were halted.

More than 18 million people worldwide have been infected with the virus since it first emerged in China late last year.

The worst hit country, the United States, had added 1,300 new deaths as of Tuesday evening, bringing its toll to nearly 156,000, according to Johns Hopkins University. The caseload grew by 53,847 to nearly 4.8 million, it said.

Far from slowing down, the latest figures show that the rate of infection is accelerating.

Brazil is driving a surge in Latin America and the Caribbean, where infections passed five million on Monday.

South America’s largest country has recorded more than 2.75 million cases, and nearly 95,000 deaths, nearly half the region’s 203,800 deaths.

US announces clinical trials

The world’s hope of ending the current cycle of outbreaks and lockdowns rests on finding a treatment.

The United States announced Tuesday it had begun late-stage clinical trials into a drug they hope will be an antibody against the coronavirus.

The Phase 3 trial will initially enroll some 300 volunteers around the world who have been hospitalized with mild to moderate COVID-19 with fewer than 13 days of symptoms.

On Monday, Russia said it aimed to launch mass production of a vaccine in September and turn out “several million” doses per month by next year.

In response, the World Health Organization on Tuesday urged Russia to follow the established guidelines for producing safe and effective vaccines.

Just a day earlier, the agency’s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on countries to focus on basic suppression measures, such as contact tracing, maintaining physical distance and wearing a mask.

“There’s no silver bullet at the moment — and there might never be,” he warned.

‘Extraordinarily widespread’

Despite the grim numbers in America, President Donald Trump adopted a resolutely optimistic tone.

“We’re seeing indications that our strong mitigation efforts are working very well, actually, especially to protect those who are most at risk,” he said during a White House press conference addressing the pandemic.

In a morning tweet, he lashed out at his coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx after she warned the virus was “extraordinarily widespread” in the US.

Trump — angered by what he sees as overly pessimistic media coverage of his much-criticized handling of the epidemic — accused her of giving in to pressure to sound negative about the new surge.

“Deborah took the bait & hit us. Pathetic!” Trump wrote on Twitter Monday. 

Despite rising infection numbers in Europe, some countries are pushing ahead with plans to reopen schools and finding ways to keep their battered tourism sectors functioning.

Angry Nadal withdraws from US Open

Fears over the virus led defending champion Rafael Nadal to announce on Tuesday that he will not play the US Open, which is due to start in New York on August 31.

“The situation is very complicated worldwide, the COVID-19 cases are increasing, it looks like we still don’t have control of it.” Nadal said on Twitter.

“This is a decision I never wanted to take… for the time being I rather not travel.”

Women’s world number one Ashleigh Barty withdrew from the tournament last week citing “significant risks” from COVID-19.

(AFP)

Rescuers worked through the night into Wednesday after two enormous explosions ripped through Beirut’s port, killing at least 78 people and injuring thousands, as they wrecked buildings across the Lebanese capital.

The second blast sent an enormous orange fireball into the sky, immediately followed by a tornado-like shockwave that flattened the port and shattered windows across the city.

The explosions — which were heard in Nicosia, 240 kilometres (150 miles) away in Cyprus — were logged by seismologists, registering as the equivalent of a 3.3-magnitude earthquake.

Bloodied, dazed and wounded people stumbled among the debris, glass shards and burning buildings in central Beirut.

Around 4,000 people were hurt by the blasts, with injuries recorded right across the city.

Lebanon is already reeling from an economic crisis that has left more than half of the population in poverty. The situation has been worsened in recent months by the coronavirus pandemic.

Prime Minister Hassan Diab said 2,750 tonnes of the agricultural fertiliser ammonium nitrate that had been stored for years in a portside warehouse had blown up, sparking “a disaster in every sense of the word”.

“What happened today will not pass without accountability,” said Diab. “Those responsible for this catastrophe will pay the price.”

General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim said the material had been confiscated years earlier and stored in the warehouse, just minutes from Beirut’s shopping and nightlife districts.

A soldier at the port, where relatives of the missing scrambled for news of their loved ones, told AFP: “It’s a catastrophe inside. There are corpses on the ground. Ambulances are still lifting the dead.”

A woman in her twenties stood screaming at security forces, asking about the fate of her brother, a port employee.

“His name is Jad, his eyes are green,” she pleaded, to no avail as officers refused her entry.

“It was like an atomic bomb,” said Makrouhie Yerganian, a retired schoolteacher in her mid-70s who has lived near the port for decades.

“I’ve experienced everything, but nothing like this before,” even during the country’s 1975-1990 civil war, she said.

“All the buildings around here have collapsed.”

AFP correspondents across the city saw shop and apartment windows blown out and streets covered with broken glass.

Photos posted online showed damage to the inside of Beirut airport’s terminal, nine kilometres from the explosion.

Hospitals already struggling with the country’s coronavirus outbreak were overwhelmed by the influx of wounded people and the country’s Red Cross called for urgent blood donations.

– ‘We saw the mushroom’ –

As the national defence council declared Beirut a disaster zone, Diab appealed to Lebanon’s allies to “stand by” the country and “help us treat these deep wounds”.

President Michel Aoun declared three days of mourning, and announced he would release 100 billion lira ($66 million) of emergency funds.

Condolences poured in from across the world with Gulf nations, the United States and even Lebanon’s arch foe Israel offering to send aid. France also promised to send assistance.

AFP video footage showed areas of near-complete devastation, with cars flipped onto their roofs, warehouses flattened and survivors drenched from head to toe in their own blood.

“We heard an explosion, then we saw the mushroom,” said a Beirut resident who witnessed the second deafening explosion from her balcony in the city’s Mansourieh district.

“The force of the blast threw us backwards into the apartment.”

An AFP correspondent at the scene minutes after said every shop in the Hamra commercial district had been damaged, with entire storefronts destroyed and many cars wrecked.

A huge blaze sent up black smoke from the port area, as helicopters dumped water on burning buildings.

A ship moored off the port was on fire, and the blasts also damaged a vessel deployed with United Nations peacekeeping force UNIFIL and injured some of its personnel.

– ‘Like an earthquake’ –

Hundreds shared their shock and grief on social media.

“Buildings are shaking,” tweeted one resident, while another wrote: “An enormous, deafening explosion just engulfed Beirut. Heard it from miles away.”

Online footage from a Lebanese newspaper office showed blown-out windows, scattered furniture and demolished interior panelling.

The explosions hit a country already reeling from its worst economic crisis in decades.

The local currency has plunged, and businesses have shuttered en masse, as poverty and unemployment have soared at an alarming rate.

Charity Save the Children said “the incident could not have occurred at a worse time”.

Source: AFP

In a fiery eulogy for longtime U.S. Representative John Lewis on Thursday, former President Barack Obama took a series of thinly veiled shots at the actions of his successor that he said tore at the legacy of the Black civil rights icon being laid to rest.

The funeral for Lewis, who played an instrumental role in passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, came on the same day Republican President Donald Trump suggested the Nov. 3 election could be delayed. Trump has also waged a war against mail-in ballots, a tactic critics say is aimed at suppressing votes.

“We no longer have to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar in order to cast a ballot,” Obama said in the eulogy, referring to one way Black people were once disqualified at the ballot box.

“But even as we sit here, there are those in power doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations and targeting minorities with restrictive ID laws and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision.”

Obama also referred to reported moves to undermine “the postal service in the run-up to an election that could be dependent on mail-in ballots so people don’t get sick.”

Obama, joined at the funeral by two fellow former presidents, Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton, spoke of Lewis’s rise from humble beginnings on a Troy, Alabama, farm to become a leader of the 1960s struggle for equal rights for Black Americans. Ultimately, the man known as the “conscience of Congress” never gave up his drive to make “good trouble” in the cause of justice, Obama said.

Obama and others spoke or sang in front of his casket draped in the American flag at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. once preached. King, who was assassinated in 1968, had been a mentor to Lewis.

Lewis, who was first elected in 1986 to represent Georgia in the U.S. House of Representatives, died on July 17 at age 80 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. His death came at a time of reckoning across the United States over racial injustice ignited by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.

Obama – a Democrat who was the nation’s first black president and who awarded Lewis the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011 – argued that the man whose sharecropping parents “picked someone else’s cotton” now should be counted among the Founding Fathers.

“America was built by John Lewis. He as much as anyone in our history brought our country closer to its highest ideals,” the Democratic former president said.

In his speech, Bush remembered joining Lewis in Selma, Alabama, for the 50th anniversary of the watershed 1965 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. “The story that began in Troy isn’t ending here today, nor is the work.”

The funeral capped a week of memorial services.

Lewis’s coffin was escorted across the bridge on Sunday, decades after his beating there drew a national spotlight to the struggle for racial equality, including suppression of the Black vote in the South. And on Monday his casket was taken to the U.S. Capitol in Washington where it lay in state through Tuesday.

Eric Terrell, 65, of Atlanta, sat outside the church in his wheelchair, in the heat and thick air of an Atlanta summer morning, waiting to get a glimpse of former Presidents Clinton and Bush, but especially Obama. He was camped out before 6:30 a.m. so he could bow his head as Lewis’s funeral procession rolled by.

And he held his homemade sign until his arms got tired. It read, “Get your ass out and vote.”

“He put his life on the line in Selma so we could vote,” said Terrell, who is Black. “So we better do it,” he said before joining the throng of onlookers outside the church watching the services on a Jumbotron.

In an essay written shortly before his death and published in the New York Times on Thursday, Lewis called on the younger generation to get into “good trouble,” using perhaps his most famous utterance about the importance of challenging inequality.

“In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way,” he wrote, before invoking a famous line from King: “Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.”

(AFP)