International
Black men sue American Airlines for racial discrimination
Black men sue American Airlines for racial discrimination
Three black men have filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against American Airlines, alleging that the carrier briefly removed them from a flight after a complaint about body odour.
The men, who were not seated together and did not know each other, say that every black man was removed from the 5 January flight from Phoenix, Arizona, to New York.
“American Airlines singled us out for being Black, embarrassed us, and humiliated us,” the men said in a joint statement on Wednesday.
The Texas-based airline said it was investigating the matter as the allegations did not align with its values.
According to a federal lawsuit filed by consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, the men had already taken their seats and were preparing to depart Phoenix when a flight attendant approached each of them and asked them to exit the plane.
Alvin Jackson, Emmanuel Jean Joseph, and Xavier Veal allege that, as they were leaving, they realised that “every Black man on the flight was being removed”.
Each of the men had flown from Los Angeles earlier that day, with no issue.
At the flight gate, the three men, along with five others, were told by an airline agent that they had been “removed because a white male flight attendant had complained about an unidentified passenger’s body odour”.
“There is no explanation other than the color of our skin,” the men said in a statement on Wednesday, adding: “Clearly this was racial discrimination.”
READ ALSO:
- ADC confirms talks with 23 parties, civil society to oust APC
- Influencer Saida banned from social media after controversial comments
- IPOB’s Biafra Day creates panic in South-East states
American Airlines employees tried to re-book the men on other flights, but there were no other services to New York that night. The group was at that point allowed to re-take their seats on their original flight.
American Airlines said in a statement: “We take all claims of discrimination very seriously and want our customers to have a positive experience when they choose to fly with us.
“Our teams are currently investigating the matter, as the claims do not reflect our core values or our purpose of caring for people.”
The lawsuit adds that while the men waited outside the plane, the pilot made an announcement telling passengers that there was a delay due to an issue with “body odour”. The plaintiffs say the claim about odour was false.
“Throughout the flight – from the moment of their reboarding, in each interaction with the white male flight attendant, and continuing until landing – Plaintiffs experienced profound feelings of embarrassment, humiliation, anxiety, anger, and distress,” the lawsuit states.
“The act of returning to their seats after the unwarranted delay, navigating past the predominantly white passengers, several of whom eyed them with anger and undue suspicion, compounded their humiliation.”
The lawsuit says that the airline should be forced to pay unspecified damages for the “trauma” the men endured.
One of the men suing, Mr Joseph, told the BBC that the “alienating” experience reminded him of Civil Rights hero Rosa Parks being forced to move to the back of an Alabama bus in 1955 due to state-sanctioned racial discrimination.
“It’s a strange, crazy story that in 2024 we are still going through stuff like this,” said Mr Joseph.
He added that the lawsuit is necessary to make sure American Airlines does not end up “with a slap on the wrist”.
In 2017, the NAACP, a civil rights group, issued a travel advisory telling black Americans to avoid American Airlines due to discrimination.
They lifted the advisory the following year after the carrier announced it had made changes to its operations.
Black men sue American Airlines for racial discrimination
BBC
International
Israeli strike kills senior Hezbollah commander in Lebanon
Israeli strike kills senior Hezbollah commander in Lebanon
Hezbollah has said one of its senior commanders was killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon, with the Iran-backed armed group retaliating with a barrage of rockets against Israel.
Mohammed Nimah Nasser is the latest senior member of Hezbollah to be targeted by Israel during almost nine months of cross-border violence which have raised fears of an all-out war.
Hezbollah said it had launched 100 rockets and missiles at Israeli military positions “as part of the response to the assassination”. The Israeli military said a number of projectiles which fell in open areas sparked fires, but no injuries were reported.
The military said Nasser commanded Hezbollah’s Aziz Unit, which is responsible for launching rockets from south-western Lebanon, and accused him of directing a “large number of terror attacks”.
It also described him as “the counterpart” of Taleb Sami Abdullah, the commander of another unit whose killing last month prompted Hezbollah to launch more than 200 rockets and missiles into northern Israel in a single day.
Since then, there has been a flurry of diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions, with the UN and US warning of the potentially catastrophic consequences of a war that could also draw in Iran and other allied groups.
READ ALSO:
- JUST IN: After flood wreaked havoc in Lagos, state govt says more buildings will go
- Biden vows to stay in US presidential race, governors offer support
- Heavy fighting rocks Gaza, thousands flee war zone
There have been almost daily exchanges of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since the day after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza on 7 October.
Hezbollah has said it is acting in support of the Palestinian group that is also backed by Iran. Both groups are proscribed as terrorist organisations by Israel, the UK and other countries.
In recent weeks, Israeli officials have repeatedly warned that they will use military force to restore security along the northern border if diplomacy fails.
“We are striking Hezbollah very hard every day and we will also reach a state of full readiness to take any action required in Lebanon, or to reach an arrangement from a position of strength,” Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday. “We prefer an arrangement, but if reality forces us we will know how to fight.”
Hezbollah, heavily armed and long seen as a significantly superior foe to Hamas, has said it does not want a full-out war with Israel and that it will observe in Lebanon any ceasefire in Gaza.
“Israel can decide what it wants: limited war, total war, partial war,” the group’s deputy leader, Naim Qassem, said in an interview with the Associated Press on Tuesday. “But it should expect that our response and our resistance will not be within a ceiling and rules of engagement set by Israel.”
So far, more than 400 people have been reported killed in Lebanon, the vast majority of them Hezbollah fighters, and 25 people in Israel, mostly soldiers.
Tens of thousands from communities on both sides of the border have also been displaced.
Israeli strike kills senior Hezbollah commander in Lebanon
International
Biden vows to stay in US presidential race, governors offer support
Biden vows to stay in US presidential race, governors offer support
United States President Joe Biden has pledged to continue his re-election campaign “to the end”, as the embattled Democrat fights to keep his candidacy alive amid growing alarm over his physical and mental fitness.
Biden, 81, on Wednesday insisted that he would keep running despite growing pressure from within his party to step aside following last week’s disastrous debate performance against his Republican challenger Donald Trump.
“Let me say this as clearly as I possibly can, as simply and straightforward as I can: I am running … no one’s pushing me out,” Biden said on a call with campaign staffers.
“I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end, and we’re going to win.”
Biden’s defiant remarks came after US media reports indicated that the president and his team have acknowledged that his candidacy is at risk of collapsing within days if he cannot convince the public of his fitness for office.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre denied those reports, insisting Biden was “clear-eyed, and he is staying in the race”.
Concerns about Biden’s age and condition have boiled over since last Thursday’s debate, when the president gave several answers that meandered into incoherence.
International
Heavy fighting rocks Gaza, thousands flee war zone
Heavy fighting rocks Gaza, thousands flee war zone
GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Israeli forces bombed and battled Hamas in Gaza City on Wednesday as tens of thousands of Palestinians scrambled for a safe haven after the army issued an evacuation order for a vast swathe in the territory’s south.
Apache helicopters and Israeli quadcopter drones flew above Gaza City’s Shujaiya district as heavy gunfire echoed through the streets, said AFP reporters.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a US media report saying his generals were urging a Gaza truce even with Hamas undefeated, stressing on Tuesday that “this will not happen.”
Military chief Herzi Halevi meanwhile said Israel is engaged in “a long campaign” to destroy Hamas over the October 7 attack and to bring home the hostages held by Palestinian militants.
The United Nations warned that the almost nine-months-old war had “unleashed a maelstrom of human misery” and that the latest evacuation order had plunged yet more Palestinians into “an abyss of suffering.”
Ten days after Netanyahu said the war’s “intense phase” was winding down, the Israeli military again rained down air strikes and artillery fire on militants in the Shujaiya district.
The air force struck “over 50 terror infrastructure sites” across Gaza in 24 hours while ground troops “eliminated terrorists,” located tunnels and found weapons including AK-47 assault rifles, the military said.
The Israeli army — which issued an evacuation order for Shujaiya a week ago — on Sunday did the same for a larger area near Khan Yunis and Rafah in the south, raising fears of renewed heavy battles there.
READ ALSO:
- We can’t pay minimum wage without increased allocation – Ekiti gov
- Lagos state govt seals house over emptying of waste into flood
- JUST IN: Senate holds executive session over FCT Senator Ireti Kingibe/Wike dispute
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have again taken to the road there, many bundling their scant belongings on top of cars or donkey carts as they sought safety elsewhere in the bombed-out wasteland.
The UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said 250,000 people had been impacted by the latest evacuation order that covers southern areas bordering Israel and Egypt.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the order covers 117 square kilometers (45 square miles), or “about a third of the Gaza Strip, making it the largest such order since October.”
The UN humanitarian coordinator for Gaza, Sigrid Kaag, told the UN Security Council in New York on Tuesday that the war had now displaced 80 percent of Gaza’s population.
She also said not enough aid was reaching the besieged territory and that crossings must be reopened, particularly to southern Gaza, to avert a humanitarian disaster.
“Palestinian civilians in Gaza have been plunged into an abyss of suffering, their home lives shattered, their lives upended,” she said. “The war has not merely created the most profound of humanitarian crises. It has unleashed a maelstrom of human misery.”
Amid the war, siege and mass displacement, more than 150,000 people have contracted skin diseases in the squalid conditions, said the World Health Organization.
Wafaa Elwan, a Palestinian mother of seven who now lives in a tent city by the sea, said: “We sleep on the ground, on sand where worms come out underneath us.”
She said her five-year-old son, much of whose body was covered in rashes and welts, “can’t sleep through the night because he can’t stop scratching his body.”
The bloodiest ever Gaza war broke out after Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive since then has killed at least 37,925 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
The Israeli military said Wednesday that “operational activities continue throughout the Gaza Strip.”
The Gaza civil defense agency said seven people were killed when a strike hit a family house north of Gaza City.
Another strike killed three people in a car at Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Deir Al-Balah area, said an AFP reporter.
Air strikes also hit homes in Rafah, according to Gaza’s government media office.
The New York Times has quoted Israeli security officials as saying top generals see a truce as the best way to secure the release of the remaining hostages, even if that meant not achieving all of the war goals.
Netanyahu, who heads a government including hard-line right-wing parties, strongly rejected this on Tuesday and vowed Israel would not give in to the “winds of defeatism.”
“The war will end once Israel achieves all of its objectives, including the destruction of Hamas and the release of all of our hostages,” he said.
Heavy fighting rocks Gaza, thousands flee war zone
ARAB NEWS
-
Entertainment10 hours ago
Ibadan politician Adeojo demands N58m from Wasiu Ayinde over breach of contract
-
metro1 day ago
Updated: One feared dead, seven rescued in Lagos two-storey building collapse
-
metro4 hours ago
JUST-IN: Many feared dead as two-storey building collapses in Anambra market
-
Auto2 days ago
Nigeria loses out as Volkswagen takes auto assembly plant to Egypt
-
Business1 day ago
Ibadan, Kaduna DisCos hike Band A electricity tariffs, after NERC approval
-
Auto2 days ago
Carloha takes Chery Showroom to Ikeja City Mall, heart of Lagos, opens Thursday
-
Auto2 days ago
Lagos will support innovative investors to develop automotive industry – Commissioner
-
Sports2 days ago
Updated: Amuneke set to be announced new Heartland head coach