While most of the crowd at a Stop Sexual Violence rally in New York City was women, men of all ages were in attendance too

Tens of thousands of protesters gathered at city halls and college campuses across the country on Thursday to demand an end to sexual violence. The nationwide rallies followed weeks of public outcry over the mishandling of campus sexual assault cases at Cornell University and Louisiana State University.

The protest organizers – including Women’s March, Feminist Generation and Me Too International – demanded justice for Jane Doe, who said she was drugged and gang-raped by seven students at a Cornell frat party; Kendall Francis, who said she was raped by an LSU football player; and all survivors harmed “from the frat house to the White House”. They also called for reform of Title IX, a set of protections for sexual misconduct victims and LGBTQ+ students that the Trump administration has slowly stripped away.

Artist Deana Lawson uses beauty supply store surveillance images to analyze power and personhood in her exhibition at the Gagosian in New York City

In her essay The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators, writer and philosopher bell hooks explains that the relationship between Black people and the act of “looking” has been traumatic since slavery. Black people, many of whom are still subject to the constant surveillance that originated during enslavement, have historically been punished with severe consequences, such as lynching, for looking back at those who subjugate them. Despite these risks, hooks writes, they rebelled by secretly looking at white people, as well as their surroundings, rejecting the white gaze as the singular framework of reality. We can, as bell hooks writes, “interrogate the gaze of the Other but also look back, and at one another, naming what we see”.

I thought of this analysis when I visited Edge Control, artist Deana Lawson’s latest photography exhibition at the Gagosian gallery in New York City. Edge control refers to the gels and pomades that slick the hairs along the edges of a Black woman’s hairline, but in Lawson’s exhibit, the phrase takes on an additional meaning. It’s at once a styling product for Black haircare devotees as well as a tool to examine the beauty industry, consumerism and how surveillance and race intersect.

Edge Control is on view at the Gagosian in New York City until 24 October

Jane Doe wurde an der Cornell University mutmaßlich von mehreren Männern vergewaltigt. Manche werfen ihr vor, „widersprüchlich“ gehandelt zu haben. Doch gibt es überhaupt ein typisches Verhalten in solchen Fällen?

Immigration officer shot man in car where five-year-old child was sitting, sparking fierce protests

Leading New York Democrats expressed anger and demanded curbs on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) violence after a federal officer shot a man driving a car in which his five-year-old son was sitting, sparking fierce protests.

At least seven shots were reportedly fired and the man was hit in the neck late on Thursday afternoon as children were coming home from school in the busy Marble Hill neighborhood of New York City. Marble Hill is considered part of Manhattan, but is physically located in the Bronx.

Manhattan prosecutors say murder case over 2024 killing can proceed under ‘exception’ to state double jeopardy law

Manhattan prosecutors filed paperwork on Friday opposing Luigi Mangione’s arguments for dismissing his state-level case in the killing of the UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson.

Mangione on 14 August pleaded guilty to federal charges in Thompson’s 4 December 2024 killing outside a Midtown hotel – weeks before his scheduled 8 September New York state murder and weapons trial. The killing prompted an intense manhunt but also sparked an outpouring of rage against the practices of the for-profit US healthcare industry.