TRENTON -- Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Monday warned that "radical Islam is coming to our shores" and vowed to temporarily suspend immigration from places that threaten the U.S. in the wake of the Orlando mass shooting. "We have no choice," Trump said during a speech in New Hampshire. The billionaire businessman and former…
The cofounder of Rolling Stone magazine, Jann Wenner, has been ousted from his seat on the board of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation for comments blasted as racist and sexist, US media reported Saturday.
Wenner's removal from the board of the foundation came only a day after his remarks were published in The New York Times, generating wide criticism.
"Jann Wenner has been removed from the board of directors of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation," a short statement from the foundation said, according to industry sheet Variety.
The 77-year-old Wenner cofounded Rolling Stone magazine in 1967, and in subsequent decades he celebrated a multitude of rock legends in its pages in lengthy interviews.
Wenner also set up the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, which selects artists to be honored, and served as its chairman until 2020.
In the Times report published Friday, Wenner was asked why he didn't feature any interviews with people of color or female musicians in his new book, "The Masters," now in print.
Wenner said the seven subjects in the book "were the kind of philosophers of rock" who had deep things to say about the spirit of their generation.
"These are the ones that could really articulate it," Wenner said.
The subjects whom Wenner profiles are Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Pete Townshend, Jerry Garcia, Bono and Bruce Springsteen, all white men.
On women, Wenner said, "Just none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level."
"Of Black artists -- you know, Stevie Wonder, genius, right? I suppose when you use a word as broad as 'masters,' the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn't articulate at that level."
Wenner voiced awareness in the interview that his remarks would grate on some.
"Just for public relations' sake, maybe I should have gone and found one Black and one woman artist to include here that didn't measure up to that same historical standard, just to avert this kind of criticism," Wenner said.
Rolling Stone became the leading music magazine of its time, later expanding into cultural affairs, conducting interviews of top politicians and fostering a style of "new journalism" that brought techniques of fiction writing to the reporting of stories.
Wenner sold a controlling stake in Rolling Stone magazine in 2017 in a deal that valued the publication at a reported $110 million.
High-wire talks between striking US workers and automotive giants are in a "critical phase," Jeep-maker Stellantis said Saturday, as politicians staked out positions on a labor issue that could have national impact.
Stellantis, together with fellow "Big Three" automakers General Motors and Ford, was hit Friday by a limited strike -- but one the United Auto Workers (UAW) warns could spread.
Both sides issued cautious statements Saturday.
"Our bargaining team continues to work days, nights and weekends" in pursuit of a "reasonable" solution, said the statement from Stellantis, which was formed by the merger of Fiat Chrysler and the French PSA Group.
But the automaker warned that if talks took a bad turn, the outcome "will take us backward and endanger the long-term competitiveness of our Company, negatively impacting our workers and our communities."
There was no immediate formal response from the union, but a UAW source told AFP, "we had reasonably productive conversations with Ford today."
Only about 12,700 of the UAW's 150,000 members are currently on strike.
But with workers at all of the Big Three coordinating strike action for the first time -- including a demand for pay increases of 40 percent over a four-year contract -- the automakers could face a far more disruptive stoppage.
Underscoring the political stakes of the moment, President Joe Biden quickly lent his support to the strikers Friday, saying he understood their "frustration."
- Political lines -
And on Saturday, former president Barack Obama lent his backing, with a reference to the 2008-09 financial crisis.
"When the big three automakers were struggling to stay afloat, my administration and the American people stepped in to support them," he said on social media. "So did the auto workers in the UAW who sacrificed pay and benefits to help get the companies back on their feet.
"Now that our carmakers are enjoying robust profits, it’s time to do right by those same workers."
Democratic Senators Gary Peters, from Michigan, and John Fetterman, from Pennsylvania, posted pictures on social media Saturday of the two of them joining UAW workers on a picket line in Michigan.
"Welcome to Michigan @SenFettermanPA," Peters wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
"Great to have you join us... standing in solidarity," he added.
"I will always have your back," Fetterman posted, saying it was an "honor" to walk with the strikers.
But former president Donald Trump, who hopes to face Biden in next year's US presidential election, lashed out at the UAW as over-reaching.
"The auto workers will not have any jobs... because all of these cars are going to be made in China -- the electric cars, automatically, are going to be made in China," he said in an interview to be aired Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."
In its statement, Stellantis said the UAW was misrepresenting its proposals. It said its current offer would give employees a 21 percent pay raise over the term of the contract, with 10 percent coming upon ratification.
General Motors upped its offer Thursday, lifting a proposed wage increase from 18 to 20 percent, according to the UAW.
But hourly workers say the auto giants must produce significantly better packages to make up for what they call meager wages and benefit cuts after the 2008 financial crisis, when both GM and Chrysler, now part of Stellantis, underwent bankruptcy reorganizations.
They also want pay boosts for lower-paid temporary workers.
The goliath grouper, a colossus of a fish that can weigh up to 360 kilograms (nearly 800 pounds), is the delight of divers in Florida, though scientists warn their numbers are down since the US state allowed fishing of the giants to resume.
"There's nowhere else you can have an experience with a fish that big while you're diving -- and being this close to it," Dr. James Locascio, a marine biologist with the Mote Marine Laboratory, told AFP.
"And so, really, we feel that the fish is worth a lot more alive than it is dead."
During a sea trip early this month off Boynton Beach, on Florida's Atlantic coast north of Miami, divers were amazed by these giants, which can measure up to 2.4 meters (eight feet) long.
With naturally down-turned mouths, these creatures may appear cranky, but some actually allow themselves to be brushed by a human hand.
- 'Fewer and fewer' -
"We were totally amazed about the amount of groupers that show up to the Boynton Beach area," diver Ben Galemmo told AFP.
Still, he added, "from talking to the locals, (the population) has actually gone down in numbers" in recent years.
A recent study confirms that trend.
"The diving industry has reported that they are seeing fewer and fewer of these fish," said Locascio, the marine biologist.
That could devastate the local diving business.
Last year, when researchers with the Mote laboratory repeated a census of spawning sites first conducted in 2013, they observed significantly fewer goliath groupers in five of the six locations studied.
Overfishing had left the species near extinction in the 1980s, but conservation efforts saved it. Goliath grouper fishing was banned for more than 30 years.
But in the past year Florida authorities deemed the population had recovered sufficiently, and allowed 200 of the fish to be caught and killed each year in state waters.
Unfortunately, the goliath grouper lends itself to overfishing partly because it grows slowly -- it can live as long as 30 years -- and takes a relatively long time to reproduce.
The goliath is now classed as a "vulnerable" species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, according to Locascio.
Calling the fish "an essential species for maintaining the balance of the ecosystem," he added, "We do not want its population to decline."
The huge fish also lives in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, and off the coast of Brazil.
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