#maryland commission on hate crime response

[eretzyisrael]

by Benjamin Baird

After a lengthy search, Brown's office announced the new members of the Commission on Hate Crimes on July 31. Nassar, who was picked to replace Chaudry and represent the Muslim American community, is described as "the CEO of the Islamic Leadership Institute, where he works with youth to help them be the leaders of tomorrow ... ."

An FBI "Most Wanted Terrorist," Siddiqui was arrested in Afghanistan in 2008 with bomb-making materials and plans to attack U.S. targets on behalf of Al-Qaeda. Under questioning by U.S. authorities, she managed to get her hands on a rifle and shoot at her interrogators. Nassar's group alleges that her prosecution was all part of a grand Zionist plot,��joining ISIS, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in bargaining for her release.

The official Aafia Foundation Facebook page is filled with pro-Hamas screeds and includes statements glorifying the Taliban and deploring the killing of Al-Qaeda terrorists. The terrorist support group also advocates for Hamas operatives and is close to convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad member Sami Al-Arian.

Furthermore, the Islamic Leadership Institute (ILI) that Nassar founded for youth engagement has also faced recent allegations of extremism. Lecturing at a local mosque, ILI instructor Mahmoud Abdel-Hady called Hamas's Oct. 7 attacks a "great victory" and promised that Muslims "will be the ones in control" and "have the final say" around the world due to their expanding population.

This is not merely a case of guilt by association. Nassar's own social-media history shows that he adheres to the same radical antisemitic views that cost his predecessor her seat on the commission. His favorite platform for spreading these hateful opinions is the professional networking website LinkedIn; his profile page is teeming with examples.

First, Nassar echoes antisemitic tropes that have been used to justify violence against Jews. Referring to the Israeli military arrest of a Palestinian youth, Nassar reflected: "Same kidnappings that happened to Africans, [the] only difference [is that] Africans were taken as slaves; Palestinians are taken as body organ donors then murdered."

In a May LinkedIn post, he insisted that the Gazan floating pier used to bring humanitarian aid to Palestinians was built with the "rubble & body parts of the natives" or collected from bombed civilian infrastructure in Gaza that contained human remains. He also referred to Israel as "the colonized portion" of Palestine or the "apartheid land," and shared posts calling the war in Gaza a "Holocaust" and "genocide."

Nassar reserves equal animus for the United States, especially regarding its support for Israel. "If you are working in America, every day two hours of your 8-hour workday is dedicated to murdering children and creating chaos across the globe," he wrote.

His hatred extends to the gay community. In a June rant, he compared how "the white race was able to justify slavery 200 years ago," with how "special interests [were] able to justify homosexuality 20 years ago."

"Attorney General Brown's persistence in naming hate mongers to a commission whose very purpose is to combat hate is a travesty," said Jay Bernstein, a local pro-Israel activist who testified in support of an early version of HB763.

[beardedmrbean]

Democrat Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown took action against a member of his own hate crime task force on Tuesday after numerous antisemitic social media posts by the member surfaced, including a claim that the babies murdered in the brutal Oct. 7 Hamas attack were "fake."

Zainab Chaudry, an anti-Israel activist who serves as the director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' (CAIR) Maryland office, made the posts in the weeks following Hamas' attack, which saw more than 1,200 people killed, including children and babies, as well as numerous rapes and destruction of property.

"The Office of Attorney General learned last week about personal social media posts of a member of the Maryland Commission on Hate Crimes Response and Prevention, Zainab Chaudry, Executive Director of the Council on AmericanIslamic Relations – Maryland Office," Brown said in a press release.

MARYLAND HATE CRIME TASK FORCE MEMBER CLAIMED BABIES MURDERED BY HAMAS WERE ‘FAKE,’ COMPARED ISRAEL TO NAZIS

"Attorney General Brown has determined that Ms. Chaudry’s social media posts risk disrupting the work and mission of the Commission, so he is announcing steps that he took today to ensure that the vital work and mission of the Commission can continue without interruption," he said, adding that Chaudry's membership on the commission would be "temporarily suspended."

He went on to say that his office would "develop a draft values statement" concerning personal communications by commission members, and called on those members to "to exercise great care in their communications and conduct."

In a Facebook post dated Oct. 26, Chadry wrote, "I will never be able to understand how the world summoned up rage for 40 fake Israeli babies while completely turning a blind eye to 3,000 real Palestinian babies."

In an Oct. 17 post, Chaudry wrote, "[T]hat moment when you become what you hated most," and included two photos of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, one showing it lit up with the Israeli flag in solidarity with Israel following the attack, and another from a ceremony in 1936 when it was decorated with the flag of Nazi Germany during the Olympics that year.

In another post from Nov. 6, Chaudry appeared to suggest the mere existence of Israel as a nation was the cause of the ongoing war, writing it was an "inconvenient fact." She included an image of the words "it all started in 1948," the year Israel was founded as a nation.

Others from the weeks following the attack showed Chaudry sharing a quote celebrating "martyred Palestinians," and a post citing what appeared to be an Islamic prophesy that said "garrisons who defend the lands of Islam will be in Ashkelon," an Israeli city north of the Gaza Strip.

When reached for comment, Chaudry told Fox News Digital that the "Nazi post" was originally shared "by a close Jewish friend," before going on to accuse the Israeli government of wanting to commit genocide against Palestinians. She also said she condemned the killing of Israeli and Palestinian civilians.

[kmc6024]

Washington Post: Chaudry suspended from Md. Commission on Hate Crime Response and Prevention

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/11/21/zainab-chaudry-suspended-maryland-commission/

🤦‍♂️

[blackkudos]

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates ( TAH-nə-HAH-see KOHTS; born September 30, 1975) is an American author, journalist, comic book writer, and educator. Coates is a national correspondent for The Atlantic, where he writes about cultural, social and political issues, particularly as they regard African-Americans.

Coates has worked for The Village Voice, Washington City Paper, and Time. He has contributed to The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Washington Monthly, O, and other publications. In 2008 he published a memoir, The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood. His second book, Between the World and Me, was released in July 2015. It won the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction, and is a nominee for the Phi Beta Kappa 2016 Book Awards. He was the recipient of a "Genius Grant" from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 2015. He is the writer of the Black Panther series for Marvel Comics drawn by Brian Stelfreeze.

Early life

Coates was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to father William Paul "Paul" Coates, a Vietnam War veteran, former Black Panther, publisher and librarian, and mother Cheryl Waters, who was a teacher. Coates' father founded and ran Black Classic Press, a publisher specializing in African-American titles. The Press grew out of a grassroots organization, the George Jackson Prison Movement (GJPM). Initially the GJPM operated a Black book store called the Black Book. Later Black Classic Press was established with a table-top printing press in the basement of the Coates family home.

Coates' father had seven children, five boys and two girls, by four women. Coates' father's first wife had three children, Coates' mother had two boys, and the other two women each had a child. The children were raised together in a close-knit family; most lived with their mothers and at times lived with their father. Coates said he lived with his father the whole time. In Coates' family, he said that the important overarching focus was on rearing children with values based on family, respect for elders and being a contribution to your community. This approach to family was common in the community where he grew up. Coates grew up in the Mondawmin neighborhood of Baltimore during the crack epidemic.

Coates' interest in books was instilled at an early age when his mother, in response to bad behavior, would require him to write essays. His father's work with the Black Classic Press was a huge influence: Coates has said he read many of the books his father published.

Coates attended a number of Baltimore-area schools, including William H. Lemmel Middle School and Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, before graduating from Woodlawn High School. Coates' father got a job as a librarian at Howard University, which enabled some of his children to attend with tuition remission.

After high school, Coates attended Howard University. He left after five years to start a career in journalism. He is the only child in his family without a college degree. In mid-2014, Coates attended an intensive program in French at Middlebury College to prepare for a writing fellowship in Paris, France.

Career

Journalism

Coates' first journalism job was as a reporter at The Washington City Paper; his editor was David Carr.

From 2000 to 2007, Coates worked as a journalist at various publications, including Philadelphia Weekly, The Village Voice and Time. His first article for The Atlantic, "This Is How We Lost to the White Man", about Bill Cosby and conservatism, started a new, more successful and stable phase of his career. The article led to an appointment with a regular column for The Atlantic, a blog that was popular, influential, and had a high level of community engagement.

Coates became a senior editor at The Atlantic, for which he wrote feature articles as well as maintaining his blog. Topics covered by the blog included politics, history, race, culture as well as sports, and music. His writings on race, such as his September 2012 The Atlanticcover piece "Fear of a Black President" and his June 2014 feature "The Case for Reparations", have been especially praised, and have won his blog a place on the Best Blogs of 2011 list by Time magazine and the 2012 Hillman Prize for Opinion & Analysis Journalism from The Sidney Hillman Foundation. Coates' blog has also been praised for its engaging comments section, which Coates curates and moderates heavily so that "the jerks are invited to leave [and] the grown-ups to stay and chime in."

In discussing The Atlantic article on "The Case for Reparations", Coates said he had worked on it for almost two years. He had read Rutgers University professor Beryl Satter's book, Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America, a history of redlining that included a discussion of the grassroots organization, the Contract Buyers League, of which Clyde Ross was one of the leaders. The focus of the article was not so much on reparations for slavery, but was instead a focus on the institutional racism of housing discrimination.

Coates has worked as a guest columnist for The New York Times, having turned down an offer from them to become a regular columnist. He has also written for The Washington Post, the Washington Monthly and O magazine.

Coates is a national correspondent at The Atlantic.

Author

The Beautiful Struggle

In 2008, Coates published The Beautiful Struggle, a memoir about coming of age in West Baltimore and its effect on him. In the book, he discusses the influence of his father, a former Black Panther; the prevailing street crime of the era and its effects on his older brother; his own troubled experience attending Baltimore-area schools; and his eventual graduation and enrollment in Howard University.

Between the World and Me

Coates' second book, Between the World and Me, was published in July 2015. The title is drawn from a Richard Wright poem of the same name about a Black man discovering the site of a lynching and becoming incapacitated with fear, creating a barrier between himself and the world. Coates said that one of the origins of the book was the murder of a college friend, Prince Carmen Jones Jr., who was killed by police in a case of mistaken identity. In an ongoing discussion about reparation, continuing the work of his June 2014 Atlantic article on reparations, Coates cited the bill sponsored by Representative John Conyers "H.R.40 – Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act" that has been introduced every year since 1989. One of the themes of the book was about what physically affected African-American lives, e.g. their bodies being enslaved, violence that came from slavery, and various forms of institutional racism. In a review for Politico magazine, conservative pundit Rich Lowry stated that while the book is lyrical and powerfully written, "For all his subtle plumbing of his own thoughts and feelings and his occasional invocations of the importance of the individuality of the person, Coates has to reduce people to categories and actors in a pantomime of racial plunder to support his worldview." In a review for Slate, Jack Hamilton wrote that the book "is a love letter written in a moral emergency, one that Coates exposes with the precision of an autopsy and the force of an exorcism".

Black Panther

Coates is the writer of the comic book series about the Black Panther for Marvel Comics drawn by Brian Stelfreeze. Issue #1 went on sale April 6, 2016, and sold an estimated 253,259 physical copies, the best-selling comic for the month of April 2016.

He also wrote a spinoff of Black Panther titled Black Panther and the Crew which ran for six issues before being cancelled.

We Were Eight Years in Power

Coates' collection of previously published essays on the Obama Era, entitled We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy has been announced by Random House, with a release date of October 3, 2017. The title is a quote from 19th-century African-American congressman Thomas E. Miller of South Carolina, who asked why white Southerners hated African Americans after all the good they had done during the Reconstruction Era. Coates sees parallels with the Obama presidency.

Teaching

Coates was the 2012–14 MLK visiting professor for writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He joined the City University of New York as its journalist-in-residence in late 2014.

In 2017, Coates will join the faculty of New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute as a Distinguished Writer in Residence.

Upcoming projects

Coates is currently working on several projects. These include America in the King Years which is a television project with David Simon, Taylor Branch, and James McBride about Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, based on one of the volumes of the books America in the King Years written by Taylor Branch, specifically At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–1968. The project will be produced by Oprah Winfrey and air on HBO. He is working on a novel about an African American from Chicago who moves to Paris.

Coates is also set to adapt Rachel Aviv's 2014 New Yorker article "Wrong Answer" into a full-length feature of the same title, starring Michael B. Jordan with direction by Ryan Coogler.

Personal life

Coates says that his first name, Ta-Nehisi, is an Egyptian name his father gave him that means Nubia, and in a loose translation is "land of the black". Nubia is a region along the Nile river located in present-day northern Sudan and southern Egypt. As a child, Coates enjoyed comic books and Dungeons & Dragons.

Coates lived in Paris for a residency. In 2009, he lived in Harlem with his wife, Kenyatta Matthews, and son, Samori Maceo-Paul Coates. His son is named after Samori Ture, a Mandé chief who fought French colonialism, after black Cuban revolutionary Antonio Maceo Grajales, and after Coates' father. Coates met his wife when they were both students at Howard University. He is an atheist and a feminist.

With his family, Coates moved to Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn, New York, in 2001. He purchased a brownstone in Prospect Lefferts Gardens in 2016.

In 2016, he was made a member of Phi Beta Kappa at Oregon State University.

Awards

2012: Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism

2013: National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism for "Fear of a Black President"

2014: George Polk Award for Commentary for "The Case for Reparations"

2015: Harriet Beecher Stowe Center Prize for Writing to Advance Social Justice for "The Case for Reparations"

2015: American Library in Paris Visiting Fellowship

2015: National Book Award for Nonfiction for Between the World and Me

2015: Fellow of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

Bibliography

Monographs

Asphalt Sketches. Baltimore, Maryland: Sundiata Publications, 1990. OCLC 171149459 Book of poetry.

The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2008. ISBN 978-0-385-52684-5 OCLC 638193286

Between the World and Me: Notes on the First 150 Years in America. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2015. ISBN 978-0-812-99354-7 OCLC 912045191

Comics

Black Panther (#1–) (2016–)

Black Panther: World of Wakanda (#1–6) (2016) (with Roxane Gay, Yona Harvey)

Black Panther and the Crew (#1–6) (2017) (with Yona Harvey)

A Nation Under Our Feet (collects issues #1–12)

A Nation Under Our Feet Book 1 (tpb, 144 pages, 2016, ISBN 1-3029-0053-6)

A Nation Under Our Feet Book 2 (tpb, 144 pages, 2017, ISBN 1-3029-0054-4)

A Nation Under Our Feet Book 3 (tpb, 144 pages, 2017, ISBN 1-3029-0191-5)

Vol. 1: Dawn of the Midnight Angels (tpb, 144 pages, 2017, ISBN 1-3029-0650-X)

Vol. 1 (tpb, 136 pages, 2017, ISBN 1-3029-0832-4)

Selected articles

"Promises of an Unwed Father". O: the Oprah Magazine. January 2006.

"American Girl". The Atlantic. January/February 2009. Profile on Michelle Obama.

"A Deeper Black". Early, Gerald Lyn, and Randall Kennedy. Best African American Essays, 2010. New York: One World, Ballantine Books, 2010. pp. 15–22. ISBN 978-0-553-80692-2 OCLC 320187212

"Why Do So Few Blacks Study the Civil War?" The Atlantic. The Civil War Issue. February 2012.

"Fear of a Black President". Bennet, James. The Best American Magazine Writing 2013. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. pp. 3–32. ISBN 978-0-231-53706-3 OCLC 861785469

"How Learning a Foreign Language Reignited My Imagination: Pardon my French". The Atlantic. Vol. 311, Issue 5. June 2013. pp. 44–45

"The Case for Reparations". The Atlantic. June 2014.

"There Is No Post-Racial America". The Atlantic. July/August 2015.

"The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration". The Atlantic. October 2015.

"My President Was Black". The Atlantic. December 2016.

"The First White President". The Atlantic. October 2017.

Multimedia

with Richard Harrington, Nelson George, and Kojo Nnamdi. Hip Hop. Washington, D.C.: WAMU, American University, 1999. OCLC 426123467 Audio conversation recorded January 29, 1999, at WAMU-FM, Washington, D.C.

with Stephen Colbert. "Ta-Nehisi Coates". The Colbert Report. June 16, 2014.

with Ezra Klein. Vox Conversations: Should America offer reparations for slavery?" Vox. July 18, 2014.

The Case for Reparations. Middlebury, Vt.: Middlebury College, 2015. OCLC 904962550 Video of lecture delivered at Middlebury College on March 4, 2015.

with Amy Goodman. "Between the World and Me: Ta-Nehisi Coates Extended Interview on Being Black in America". Democracy Now!. July 22, 2015.

with Jon Stewart. "Exclusive – Ta-Nehisi Coates Extended Interview" "Pt. 1" and "Pt. 2". The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. July 23, 2015.

https://goo.gl/HzyZFK

[caduniya]

Islamic State group offshoot claims 2017 Niger attack on US

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Islamic State group offshoot claims 2017 Niger attack on US

DAKAR, Senegal

An Islamic State group offshoot is claiming it carried out the October attack in Niger that killed four U.S. soldiers and four Nigerian troops and sparked questions about U.S. military involvement in West Africa’s vast Sahel region.

The Mauritanian Nouakchott News Agency reported Friday that Abu al-Walid al-Sahrawi with the self-professed IS affiliate claimed responsibility for the Oct. 4 ambush about 120 miles north of Niger’s capital, Niamey. The news agency has carried messages from the affiliate before, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist websites.

The U.S. Africa Command has been investigating the attack, which also wounded two U.S. and eight Nigerian troops. A final report is expected to be released this month.

A 12-member Army special forces unit was accompanying 30 Nigerian forces when they were attacked in a densely wooded area by as many as 50 militants traveling by vehicle and carrying small arms and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

The Pentagon has declined to release details about the commando team’s exact mission. U.S. officials have said the joint U.S.-Niger patrol had been asked to assist a second American commando team hunting for a senior Islamic State group member. The team had been asked to go to a location where the insurgent had last been seen.

France’s playful baby panda makes 1st public appearance

PARIS

France’s first baby panda has made his grand public entrance by acting like many five-month-olds – climbing all over his mother, who looked like she just wanted to rest instead.

Mostly hidden from view since his birth in August, the panda named Yuan Meng left his den Saturday for his first public appearance. BFM TV video showed him endlessly crawling over his mother, who at one point gathered the black-and-white ball of fur to her side before he escaped again to climb over her.

French first lady Brigitte Macron, considered the panda’s “godmother,” announced the panda’s name at a ceremony in December at Beauval Zoo, south of Paris, attended by Chinese officials. It means “the realization of a wish” or “accomplishment of a dream.”

Suspect in postal worker deaths to be tried in federal court

COLUMBUS

A disgruntled postal worker accused of fatally shooting his supervisor at an Ohio post office and then killing a postmaster outside her apartment will be tried in federal court.

County and federal prosecutors in Columbus said Friday that sending the case to federal court was a joint decision.

Police said 24-year-old DeShaune Stewart, of Columbus, shot and killed 52-year-old Lance Dempsey at a post office in suburban Dublin on Dec. 23.

They said he then killed 53-year-old Ginger Ballard at an apartment complex.

Authorities said Stewart was naked during both attacks.

Police said the violence appeared to be retaliation against two people involved in Stewart’s pending dismissal at work.

A message seeking a comment was left at his public defender’s office Saturday.

Girl Scouts join fight over bridge named for segregationist

SAVANNAH, Ga.

Lawmakers can expect face-to-face meetings with Girl Scouts from across Georgia next month at the state Capitol, where the young Scouts plan on treating legislators to a milk-and-cookie reception.

These girls bearing gifts of Thin Mints and Samoas will also come packing an agenda. They want to see Savannah’s towering suspension bridge renamed in honor of Juliette Gordon Low, who founded the Girl Scouts in the coastal Georgia city more than a century ago.

The Girl Scouts saw an opening last fall when Savannah’s city council formally asked state lawmakers during their 2018 session to strip the name of segregationist former Gov. Eugene Talmadge from the bridge. Georgia Scouts are getting support from the Girl Scouts’ national headquarters in New York, which has hired a lobbyist to help sway lawmakers in Atlanta.

Rep. Ron Stephens, a Republican from Savannah, is on board with the switch. He said he plans to introduce a bill Feb. 6, when Girl Scout leaders plan to bring as many as 300 Scouts to the Capitol.

“I can’t think of a name that could go on the bridge at the Savannah River that would mean more,” Stephens said of Low, though he’s not optimistic fellow lawmakers will agree if that means rescinding an honor bestowed on a former governor.

Man convicted in beard-cutting attacks files an appeal

CLEVELAND

The leader of a breakaway Amish group in Ohio convicted in hair- and beard-cutting attacks is asking a federal judge to overturn his 2012 convictions.

Samuel Mullet Sr. is arguing in an appeal filed Friday that his former attorney made a series of mistakes during the trial and in his previous appeals.

His former attorney said in court documents that he did make errors handling the case.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided last year not to review Mullet’s appeal challenging the constitutionality of federal hate crimes.

Prosecutors said Mullet directed the hair-cutting attacks. Hair and beards have spiritual significance in the Amish faith.

Mullet is serving an 11-year sentence. The 15 other members of the eastern Ohio Amish community convicted in the case have since been released.

Research aims to predict algae blooms on lakes, rivers

TOLEDO

Researchers along the Ohio River are trying to figure out how to predict which rivers and lakes in Ohio and other states are at risk from toxic algae.

They said it could help prevent algae outbreaks and be a model for states around the nation seeing an increasing number of waterways plagued by harmful algae.

Researchers at Ohio State University are starting the multi-year project to create a classification system for waterways to say what areas are at risk.

They’ll be collecting and analyzing water samples and studying land-use in the Ohio River’s basin in southern Ohio, northern Kentucky and southern Indiana.

Another project that includes researchers from the University of Cincinnati is setting up a series of sensors along the Ohio River to detect harmful algae.

Police probe man’s claim that wife died on Graceland trip

HARTVILLE, Ohio

Police in Ohio are investigating what happened to a woman who went with her husband to see Elvis Presley’s Graceland.

The woman’s husband told police in Hartville that they were in Memphis, Tenn., just over a week ago when she died in a hotel parking lot.

Philip Snider said his 69-year-old wife was in poor health and this was to be their last trip.

He said he flagged down an ambulance after she died and rescue workers took his wife’s body. He said he returned to Ohio because he didn’t know where they took her.

But police in Hartville said Tennessee authorities don’t have a record of the woman’s body. Police told the Akron Beacon Journal that Snider’s memory might be suspect, and it’s not clear if he misled police.

Chelsea Manning files for US Senate bid in Maryland

NORTH BETHESDA, Md.

Chelsea Manning intends to run for the U.S. Senate in Maryland, returning the transgender former soldier to the spotlight after her conviction for leaking classified documents and her early release from military prison.

Manning, 30, filed her statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday, listing an apartment in North Bethesda as her address.

She is running as a Democrat and will likely challenge two-term Sen. Ben Cardin in the primary. The state’s senior senator is an overwhelming favorite to win.

Associated Press

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[caveartfair]

Dispute over Bacon Painting Complicates Phillips Nonpayment Lawsuit—and the 9 Other Biggest News Stories This Week

Catch up on the latest art news with our rundown of the 10 stories you need to know this week.

01  The failure of the winning bidder to pay for a $24 million Gerhard Richter painting sold at Phillips last year has set off a complex nonpayment dispute.

(Artsy)

Estimated to sell for upwards of $25 million at a Phillips auction last November, Gerhard Richter’s Düsenjäger (1963) was the top lot at Phillips’s 20th-century and contemporary art evening sale last November—without attracting a single bid in the room. The Richter had been guaranteed for $24 million by 28-year-old Beijing businessman and art collector Zhang Chang. But Zhang has so far refused to pay. Zhang’s refusal to make good on his guarantee has resulted in an increasingly tangled series of lawsuits. The dispute has also ensnared a significant piece by Francis Bacon, which Zhang acquired in a separate sale, using borrowed funds he never repaid. The collector’s nonpayment for Düsenjäger (1963) is among the most high-profile instances of a phenomenon relatively commonplace in mainland Chinese auctions and, to a lesser extent, in Hong Kong. About 41% of lots sold at Chinese auctions from May 2015 to May 2016 were never paid for, according to a recent report compiled by Dr. Clare McAndrew for Art Basel and UBS. The figure has risen in recent years from a low of 30% in 2013. It is rare, however, for such a prominent instance of nonpayment to occur in a New York sale.

02 Sixteen of the 17 remaining members of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities resigned in protest on Friday.

(via the Washington Post)

The resigning members of the committee, including artist Chuck Close and architect Thom Mayne, strongly criticized President Donald Trump’s blaming of both sides for the deadly violence in Charlottesville last weekend, where white supremacists clashed with counter-protesters. “Reproach and censure in the strongest possible terms are necessary following your support of the hate groups and terrorists who killed and injured fellow Americans in Charlottesville,” the group said in a letter explaining their resignation. “The false equivalencies you push cannot stand.” Established by Ronald Reagan in 1982, the commission advises the president on matters related to arts and culture but is mostly ceremonial. Some members of the commission who had been appointed by former president Barack Obama resigned following President Trump’s victory in the fall, though others initially decided to stay on until successors could be named. But in recent days, according to the Washington Post, all but one of the remaining members decided to resign.

03  Several U.S. cities announced plans to remove Confederate monuments in the wake of violence in Charlottesville.

(via Reuters)

Protests erupted in Charlottesville last week, as neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups protested the removal of a Confederate monument in the city. The violence turned deadly for one counter-protester when a suspected white nationalist drove his car into a crowd of demonstrators. In the wake of the violence, state and local government efforts to take down Confederate monument ramped up, with cities from Baltimore to Memphis to Jacksonville removing, or announcing plans to remove, Confederate statues. The removals have even attracted some bipartisan support. Larry Hogan, Maryland’s Republican governor, called for the removal of a statue honoring a Supreme Court Justice who voted to affirm slavery in a crucial 1857 case. “While we cannot hide from our history – nor should we – the time has come to make clear the difference between properly acknowledging our past and glorifying the darkest chapters of our history,” he told Reuters. While a growing number of cities appear resolved to take down the statues, where they go after they are removed remains undecided in some cases.

04  Chinese police evicted artists from their homes and studios in Beijing’s Caochangdi art district.

(via Art Asia Pacific)

Chinese dissident artists Ai Weiwei and Wu Yuren, who spent years under state surveillance, uploaded footage showing the forced removal of artists from the district’s beloved co-op, Iowa, as construction workers wait to begin demolition. In late July and early August, residents were served eviction notices citing illegal construction and land-use. And last Friday, police officers arrived to remove residents, in some cases forcibly. Several of the videos show police handing artists bags filled with money, which some outraged artists then threw or emptied. Mass evictions had also occurred in Beijing’s Chaoyang art zone seven years ago, and more recently when China’s largest artist colony, Songzhuang, was demolished in March. Yet still, many artists reportedly revived a “utopian spirit” in Caochangdi, where they had, until now, sought refuge from rising rents in central Beijing.

05  The International Criminal Court in Brussels ruled that an extremist responsible for the destruction of cultural sites in Mali must pay $3.2 million in reparations.

(via US News)

Thursday’s ruling comes after Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, the first person to be tried for cultural destruction as a war crime before the ICC, pleaded guilty to destroying World Heritage sites in Timbuktu. The court fined al-Mahdi $3.2 million, on top of sentencing him to a nine-year prison term, for the physical, economic, and moral damage done by rebels he led during June and July of 2012. Arrested in 2014 after his forces were routed by French troops, al-Mahdi pleaded guilty and expressed remorse for his role in the destructions, urging Muslims around the world not to commit similar acts. Prosecutors charged that al-Mahdi was a member of Ansar Dine, an Islamist extremist group with links to al-Qaeda. In levying the judgment against al-Mahdi, the court stated that despite his economic hardships, the reparations are reasonable and would not preclude his reintegration into society.

06  A de Kooning painting stolen over three decades ago has been returned to its museum after surfacing in a New Mexico antique shop.

(via the New York Times)

Two thieves stole Woman-Ochre, a 1950s abstract canvas by Willem de Kooning, from the University of Arizona Museum of Art in 1985, in a swift heist that lasted less than 15 minutes. Buck Burns and David Van Auker, proprietors of a furniture store in Silver City, New Mexico, bought it as part of a recent estate sale. They thought it was “cool and unique,” but realized it might have a little more going for it after visitors to their shop noticed it on the floor and asked whether it was by de Kooning. They researched de Kooning’s work online and found a story about the stolen piece. Once they concluded it was in their hands, they promptly returned it to the museum, comparing their accidental treasure with “finding a lost wallet.” The museum’s interim director, Meg Hagyard, had a different analogy: “The best way I can think to describe it is that it’s sort of like Cinderella’s glass slipper,” she told the Times.

07  Boston’s Holocaust Memorial has been vandalized for the second time in two months.

(via the New York Times)

Designed by Stanley Saitowitz and dedicated in 1995, the memorial features black granite ramps adorned with the word “REMEMBER” and six glass towers etched with numbers, evoking the numbers tattooed on victims of concentration camps. The design incorporates and centers around the number six—representing the six million Jews killed, the six deadliest years of the Holocaust (1939–45), and its six main death camps. The most recent vandalism of the museum was perpetrated by a 17-year-old from a town six miles north of Boston. The unnamed teenager shattered glass with a rock and was subsequently detained by bystanders. He was charged with willful and malicious destruction of property. James R. Isaac, the 21-year-old who previously vandalized the museum, was similarly charged. While police did not specify a motive for Monday’s event (which occurred three days after last weekend’s neo-Nazi and white supremacist rally in Virginia), police commissioner William B. Evans said that “in light of the recent events and unrest in Charlottesville, it’s sad to see a young person choose to engage in such senseless and shameful behavior.” The executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, Jeremy Burton, reportedly informed local Holocaust survivors and their families of the event in “indescribably painful” conversations.

08  Scotland Yard’s “Art and Antiques” unit may be headed towards closure.

(via The Art Newspaper)

Detectives from London’s Metropolitan Police have been temporarily reassigned to work on the Grenfell Tower investigation, which is looking into the fire that killed more than 80 people in June. Police authorities, however, have not given assurance on if or when the detectives will be returned to the unit, which was set up in 1969 to document and combat art crime. Vernon Rapley, who headed the department until 2010, voiced concern over the effects of the unit’s potential closure—especially in London, the world’s second largest art market. He warned, “Losing it now, when cultural heritage is under threat in so much of the world, would represent a very serious loss.”

09  Billionaires Poju and Anita Zabludowicz’s plan to demolish part of a 19th-century London church to create expanded space for their art collection is facing challenges.

(via Business Insider)

In January, the couple announced their plans to knock down the church’s two-story former Sunday school to expand collection space and add a café. The church is next to the Zabludowicz Collection in north London’s Belsize Park, which opened in 2007 and has since hosted exhibitions for artists such as Tracey Emin. The couple first revised plans for the expansion after receiving a letter from Historic England, a public organization that aims to catalogue and preserve old buildings, in February. But those plans also attracted controversy, with Historic England stating it was “disappointed to note that the revisions include a great degree of demolition to the middle gallery.…The justification for this change is not clear.” The collection has reportedly not immediately responded to inquiries for comment. The pair also owns galleries in New York and Finland, and supports artists around the world. Awarded Officer of British Empire (OBE) in 2015 for her services to the arts, Anita has claimed to have two galleries at the Tate named in her honor.

10  Thomas Heatherwick’s controversial “Garden Bridge” project in London has officially been canceled, despite the disbursement already of $48 million in public money.

(via the New York Times & The Guardian)

The $260 million project was meant to span the banks of London’s River Thames, offering pedestrians a stretch of urban greenery akin to New York’s popular High Line. But the bridge, designed by Heatherwick, faced criticisms of spiraling costs, prompting London mayor Sadiq Khan to order a review of the bridge project, which had been supported by his predecessor Boris Johnson since 2012. The resulting report found that the project didn’t result in value for public funds, and advocated its cancellation. This week the Garden Bridge Trust announced the cancellation in a letter published in The Guardian, citing a lack of political and financial support by the public, which has made it impossible to raise the additional money needed to finance construction.

—Artsy Editors

Cover image: Gerhard Richter, Dϋsenjäger, 1963. Image courtesy of Phillips.

from Artsy News