A China policy giving Africa’s biggest economies tariff-free access to its market for the next two years came into effect Friday while its economic rival the United States seeks to impose new import taxes under President Donald Trump’s push for protectionism. The China deal covers Africa’s 20 largest economies, including South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria and Kenya. China had already dropped tariffs on 33 poorer African countries, meaning 53 of the continent’s 54 nations are now eligible for “tariff-free treatment” for their goods, according to China. The country not eligible is the small nation of Eswatini because it is the only one in Africa that maintains formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

The four homicides recorded in April represent the fewest killings in a month in the city since 1970, when police began tracking monthly crime statistics.

A Baltimore County man who for years performed in blackface as the 1920s entertainer Al Jolson is running for the Maryland House of Delegates. He’s listed on the ballot as Bobby Al Jolson Berger. Berger said he stopped performing as Jolson in blackface in 2016. He said people got angry at him, but claimed they misunderstood that what he was doing wasn’t racist. According to the Baltimore Sun, a 2015 fundraiser planned for the six police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray was canceled because Berger was going to be the entertainment. It was called “racist and in poor taste.” In the 1980s Berger was fired as a city police officer because of his blackface performances. He sued and successfully got his job back.

Broadnax, who was convicted of killing two music producers in Garland in a 2008 robbery, is the third inmate executed by the state this year.

Uatsdin has spread amidst a growing interest in pre-Christian religious traditions as an important part of ethnic identity in the North Caucasus.

Isaiah Kirby, a 21-year-old Owings Mills native studying zoology at Michigan State University, was fatally shot by East Lansing Police Department officers.

By the time Maine Gov. Janet Mills launched her Senate campaign in October, Graham Platner was already drawing large crowds and raising impressive amounts of money. Mills supporters – including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer – thought she could prevail with a pitch for electability based on her statewide name recognition, backing from Senate Democratic leadership and a tidal wave of opposition research on Platner. They were wrong, and on Thursday, Mills ended her campaign weeks before the June 9 primary.

Mexican president says she won't arrest officials indicted by the U.S. on drug charges without firm proof.

Scientists knew the stingers and pincers of these arachnids generally contained metals, but a new Smithsonian-led study maps out how these components are distributed

To understand it is to understand the Roberts Court’s decision today in Louisiana v. Callais. The decision purports to uphold Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting, but effectively nullifies it, ruling that a Louisiana redistricting map that created two majority-Black districts out of six, in a state whose population is one-third Black, was an “unconstitutional racial gerrymander.” The majority opinion uses procedural language to obscure what its rewriting of the VRA will allow lawmakers to do: engage in racial discrimination in drawing political districts as long as they say they are doing so for a partisan purpose rather than a racist one—as if the results would not be identical. In states with large Black populations that remain under Republican control—half of the Black American population resides in the South—lawmakers will now be able to draw districts that dilute Black residents’ voting power. In his opinion for the right-wing majority, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that “in considering the constitutionality of a districting scheme, courts must treat partisan advantage like any other race-neutral aim: a constitutionally permissible criterion that States may rely on as desired.” The Court’s decision is consonant with the philosophy, articulated by Kilpatrick in his earlier days, that the state is oppressive when it interferes with the right to discriminate, and respects liberty when it allows discrimination. And the decision fits just as well with Kilpatrick’s later spin on that philosophy: Attempts to ban racial discrimination are themselves discriminatory—against white people.

The Pentagon has formally asked for congressional approval to codify its "Department of War" moniker, estimating it will cost taxpayers around $52 million. The estimate from the Pentagon is significantly lower than what the Congressional Budget Office projected in January, when it estimated the rebranding could cost as much as $125 million if it were adopted "broadly and rapidly" throughout the department.

Lynne Ramsay is not the kind of director to shill for a franchise and then watch the residuals roll in. Her intensely watchable studies of damaged people are big beasts revered by her peers and the actors she works with time and again. Jennifer Lawrence petitioned her to make Die My Love at Martin Scorsese’s suggestion, sowing the seed for a $24 million bidding war, a six-minute Cannes ovation and Lynne’s signing on with Hollywood’s biggest agency. Even with five starry projects in the works, the Glaswegian blue-collar intellectual, 56, swears she is still indie at heart.

Doron Zeilberger is a mathematician who believes that all things come to an end. That just as we are limited beings, so too does nature have boundaries — and therefore so do numbers. Look out the window, and where others see reality as a continuous expanse, flowing inexorably forward from moment to moment, Zeilberger (opens a new tab) sees a universe that ticks. It is a discrete machine. In the smooth motion of the world around him, he catches the subtle blur of a flip-book. To Zeilberger, believing in infinity is like believing in God. It’s an alluring idea that flatters our intuitions and helps us make sense of all sorts of phenomena. But the problem is that we cannot truly observe infinity, and so we cannot truly say what it is. Equations define lines that carry on off the chalkboard, but to where? Proofs are littered with suggestive ellipses. These equations and proofs are, according to Zeilberger — a longtime professor at Rutgers University and a famed figure in combinatorics — both “very ugly” and false. It is “completely nonsense,” he said, huffing out each syllable in a husky voice that seemed worn out from making his point.

UAE signalling intent to pursue independent economic policies and reshape Gulf oil politics.

The ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis—and then called her a “fucking bitch” moments before she died in her car—has been transferred to a different state to continue his work with the agency, as the FBI continues to supress an investigation into him. PunchUp, The Daily Beast’s new Substack, reported that Jonathan Ross, who was only placed on three days of administrative leave for shooting Good in the arm, head, and chest, is back in both an administrative and investigative capacity, facing virtually no consequences for killing an innocent woman in broad daylight.

Justices rule in landmark 6-3 decision that Louisiana will have to redraw its congressional map

California's DMV is sharing data about 1 million unauthorized immigrants so its driver licenses will still be accepted at airports.

Police were questioning a man in Japan on suspicions he disposed of his wife’s body using an incinerator at a zoo he works for, local media have reported.

A cryptosporidium outbreak has been declared at the Butterfield Acres Petting Farm in Calgary. Provincial health authorities released the information Tuesday, saying those who visited the farm on or after April 9 might have been exposed. In a statement on its website, Butterfield Acres said one of two twin calves acquired in late March was carrying cryptosporidium. The farm described cryptosporidium as “a diarrhea-causing parasite common in cattle.” The province says spread occurs “when someone comes into contact with infected feces and then touches their mouth, usually with unwashed hands.”

It was the first thing I said as I lay on the floor. Here’s what I now believe.