Mudbound works as a thumbnail picture of midcentury American racism and injustice, and as a reminder of how slowly things really change in this country, as much as we like to think of ourselves as progressive thinkers and lovers of freedom. But you can’t just write ideas on the screen: Your performers have to embody them, and there’s not a minute in Mudbound that doesn’t feel deeply felt and believable. Rees, who previously wrote and directed the 2011 coming-of-age drama Pariah, has shaped the material beautifully: This is just a good story, period, and Rees never loses sight of that. It’s told from the shifting points of view of each of its major characters, but it never feels cluttered or confusing. And the movie’s sense of history is woven tightly into its landscape. At one point Mulligan’s Laura reflects, in voice-over, on the muddy bleakness of her surroundings (“I dreamed in brown”), and Rachel Morrison’s cinematography provides the visual evidence. Morrison makes this world look both enduring and unsettling, the kind of place whose spirit creeps into your bones. Although Mudbound is being released in select theaters, it’s also available on Netflix, and its complex visual beauty works even on the small screen.

HELENA, Mont. - Voters in Montana's capital city have elected a Liberian refugee as their next mayor.

Wilmot Collins ousted four-term Helena Mayor Jim Smith 51 percent to 48 percent Tuesday in the mail-in election for the non-partisan post.

Collins campaigned for more affordable housing, addressing homelessness among military veterans and teens and for increasing staffing for the police and fire departments.

Collins is a state child protection specialist and an adjunct instructor at Helena College - University of Montana. He is also a member of the U.S. Naval Reserves. He fled the civil war in Liberia in the early 1990s.

The former US secretary of state and 2016 American presidential candidate will be presented with the award during a ceremony at Swansea University's Bay Campus.

It recognises her commitment to promoting the rights of families and children around the world.

Mrs Clinton's great grandparents were from south Wales.

Vice chancellor Prof Richard Davies said the university was honoured to present the award to the former first lady, the wife of former US president Bill Clinton.

Reportedly a quiet, thoughtful teen, Tiafoe credits much of his development to his father, Constant Tiafoe, an immigrant from Sierra Leone.
The elder Tiafoe helped build, and later became the custodian of, the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Maryland, where Frances has trained since he was a child.
While working around the clock, his father was forced to move into a vacant storage room at the tennis center, where his two boys would stay with him, sleeping on a massage table, while their mother worked night shifts as a nurse.
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At just 15 years old, Tiafoe won the prestigious Orange Bowl, becoming the youngest boys' singles champion in the tournament's history -- a remarkable feat considering the list of previous champions, which includes Roger Federer, Andy Roddick, Ivan Lendl, Jim Courier, John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg.
While many junior prodigies have come and gone, Tiafoe's unique background and work ethic set him apart from the rest. He said of his parents, "with them trying so hard, I felt like I didn't want to let them down. I felt like I didn't want to let the opportunities go for granted."

France’s interior ministry said turnout at midday was 28.54%, a slight increase on the previous poll in 2012 and well up on the record low 21.4% in 2002, when Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie advanced to the runoff in a major upset. Analysts have said the abstention level could play a big part in this year’s vote.

Topless demonstrators from the Femen activist group briefly caused a commotion as they staged a protest against Le Pen outside a polling station in the northern town of Henin-Beaumont where she was heading to vote.

In March, a social media meme went viral stating that 14 Black and Latina girls went missing from the DC area within a 24-hour span. While the statistic was incorrect, it sparked a much-needed conversation about missing girls of color in America, and the overall lack of attention from the media and white communities. This was glaringly obvious at a recent town hall meeting in DC on the missing girls, which was attended almost exclusively by Black folks, and left many women of color wondering where the white women they marched with in January were. For many white women, it may be painful to hear that they have not shown up for their sisters of color; it is also painful for women of color to be ignored by their white sisters when children of color are missing.

While all missing youth face obstacles and are at risk of some kind of violence, girls of color, particularly Black and Indigenous girls, face intersecting threats of gendered violence, racial violence, and mistreatment and violence within systems and institutions that are supposed to serve them. Trans, queer, and gender nonconforming young people, as well as disabled youth, also face intersecting violence and represent a disproportionate share of homeless youth.

The response to #MissingGirlsDC has shown just how pervasive this violence is - and how invisible it is to those who are not directly impacted by it. It is not invisible. We all know it is happening. And we all must act.

Today, Women’s March is launching an awareness campaign to connect people, huddles, and communities, to resources around the issue of the missing Black, Latinx, and Indigenous girls. We are committed to supporting, advocating for, and uplifting the work of local organizations that have long been dedicated to finding and caring for these girls, and for all missing youth - including trans and gender nonconforming youth. Below, we’ve included some organizations based around the country for you to consider supporting - whether by attending meetings and events, volunteering, spreading the word on social media, or through financial support.

... the new ExCom is equally representative of all the regions of Switzerland. This exciting new composition shows how truly energized this membership has become since November! It has been 41 years since DA Switzerland was created (1976) and run primarily from Geneva. Now, the new Chair, Kate Edson, will be running the organization from Basel with members of her committee based in 5 other cities! This means that it will be easier than ever for more members to participate.

This new leadership also brings enormous talent and energy to DA Switzerland at a time when it is most needed, to support political action by our members, and get out the vote for special elections this year and the Senate/House races in 2018.

Thank you to Maya Samara and Peter Butterfield on the nominations committee for all the hard work that went into making this meeting and election such a success. Thank you to the Basel team: Kelli Brouillet, Rosie Pontarelli, Mariah Silkey, Lyndsay Obbarius, Kristen Jafflin, Vivian Beetle, Sara Stewart, Liz Voss and Julie Charubusapayon for finding such wonderful venues for the lunch and meeting, and for the many kind hands that helped with the many thankless tasks that go into such an endeavor.

Thank you to the more than 60 members who took the time to attend (coming from Winterthur, Zurich, Zug, Lucerne, Bern, Lugano, Geneva, and points in between) and the 20 who voted by proxy. Most importantly, thank you to the sixteen candidates for their willingness to run for office.

I am also thrilled to announce the creation of two new chapters: Basel and Geneva. That makes a total of three chapters, along with Zurich (2009). This is wonderful news because while the new Executive Committee is getting cranked up, three additional committees will also soon be elected to join them (Look out for the call for candidates going out very soon!)

Member meetings around Switzerland have helped galvanize members into forming active groups elsewhere too! Thank you to Robin Bognuda and Meghan Jones for taking the lead in Ticino, Margo O'Brien and Pamela Penman in Zug, and Jack Pogany for hosting enthusiastic members in Lausanne. More will follow soon in other venues, so please let the ExCom know if you are interested in hosting or participating in a location near you.

It has been a privilege and an honor to Chair DACH for the last four years, together with such talented and dedicated ExCom team members. My heartfelt thanks go to them all. Special thanks are due to Maya Samara, former Chair, for her wisdom, insight and experience that she generously offered at every critical moment. I would like to express my sincere appreciation and deep gratitude to Peter Butterfield as Vice-Chair, for his steadfast, kind and reliable contributions. My heartfelt thanks and admiration also go to Terri O’Brien and Eileen Weinberg for the many wonderful contributions they made, far beyond their mandates. Further to her role, Emily Benson singlehandedly ran the registration for the Election Night in Geneva, a superhuman task! Christian Jordan (Treasurer) encouraged and supported the team in any way he could. Thank you to Karen Monroe for filling a key role as legal Counsel. I am extremely grateful to Kate Edson for reactivating the Basel team which has become a formidable force under her leadership. Thank you Renee Rousseau for your personable and talented promotion of DACH as Zurich Chair. And not least of all, thank you to the many many volunteers who answered the call to help register voters at the primaries, and all year round countrywide last year.

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We might have lost the Electoral College, but we won the popular vote. The movement that was started in November to counter the current government has already shown promising results and I am sure that with your active participation, here and at home, and with the leadership of this new Executive Committee, American voters in Switzerland will continue to build support and overcome the hurdles to form a Democratic Senate in 2018.

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Montana Democrats brought in one of their national party's rising stars to headline their annual dinner, but the hundreds who gathered Saturday wanted to hear more from one of their own: musician Rob Quist, who must convince fellow Democrats that he can win back the state's only congressional seat and help national Democrats push back against the Republican tide.

He will have to prevail in the May 25 special election against Republican Greg Gianforte, a Bozeman entrepreneur and former gubernatorial candidate with deep pockets and a determination to win public office.

Quist has been traveling the state as he did while on tour with his musical group to win support from voters. He will also have to convince donors to invest in his campaign.

"This House seat should not be his consolation prize," Quist said of his Republican opponent, in a speech meant to energize the 1,200 Democrats from across the expansive state meeting for the Mansfield Metcalf Celebration at the Lewis and Clark County fairgrounds.