Barring a stunning upset Keith Ellison will next year become the first ever Muslim member of the US
Barring a stunning upset, Keith Ellison will next year become the first ever Muslim member of the US Congress. First, of course, Mr Ellison, 43, has to win the election on 7 November to claim his seat. But after his hard-fought, yet convincing, win in Tuesday’s Democratic primary here, this is almost a foregone conclusion. Minnesota’s 5th District, covering the thoroughly liberal metropolis of Minneapolis, is one of the party’s safest seats in the House of Representatives. Its loss would be the equivalent of Labour being defeated in the mining valleys of Wales.
In the primary, Mr Ellison, a black lawyer and member of the state legislature, saw off the challenges of two eminently qualified rivals, the chief of staff of the former long-serving Democrat congressman for the district, and a female state senator supported by America’s most influential women’s groups.
The general election pits him against a Republican, an independent and a Green candidate, but none is expected to run him close. Across the country, there were a host of significant results this week in the last major batch of primaries before the mid-term elections, in which Democrats are hoping to capture control of the House, and – if all goes perfectly for them – the Senate in Washington as well.In perhaps the most closely watched contest, Senator Lincoln Chafee, the ultra-moderate Republican incumbent from Rhode Island, defeated an insurgency by an “unelectable” conservative – thus preserving his party’s chances of hanging on to a seat that the Democrats have high hopes of winning in eight weeks’ time.In New York state, Hillary Clinton scored a crushing victory in her Senate primary against an anti-Iraq war candidate, while Eliot Spitzer steamrollered aside his opponents for the Democratic nomination for governor. It was the offer of a workshop back in Aubervilliers, in the northern suburbs of the French capital, that prompted Terrasson to choose photography over painting. We’d talk about painting, and he’d play Chopin on the piano while looking over the latest photographs that I’d taken of him.”Pierre Terrasson started taking photographs at 15, and continued to do so while studying painting at the prestigious Ecole nationale sup?eure des Beaux-arts in Paris, followed by a year working as an art restorer in Switzerland. He was an all-round artist, a musician and painter, a director and actor, and a photographer, too. My assistant photographed the cheque before he paid it in, but the signature was probably worth more than the sum itself!”And his wicked sense of humour: “He loved to provoke – he used to go around with handcuffs in his pocket, and would have the same handcuffed pose of himself shot by different photographers, without them realising what he was up to.”But there was nothing dismissive or inaccessible about Serge.
“He replied that he couldn’t afford to, at which point Serge wrote out a cheque for the 10,000 francs it would cost. Having photographed dozens of musical legends (the theme of the exhibition of the photographer’s work that opens tomorrow in London), Terrasson remembers Gainsbourg with a special fondness, in particular, his generosity:
“During one of the last sessions before he died, Serge noticed that my assistant had two teeth missing and asked him why he didn’t get them fixed,” Terrasson recalls. But this was just one side of the complicated character affectionately known as “Gainsbarre”, according to the man who took the iconic photograph, Pierre Terrasson. His relationship with Gainsbourg began with a photography assignment for the 1979 reggae-inspired album Aux armes et caetera (Gainsbourg’s first No 1, after two decades of trying), and lasted over a decade, until the star’s death in 1991.
Louche, provocative, oozing attitude – the image is quintessential Serge Gainsbourg, the poet, singer-songwriter, actor and director, husband of Jane Birkin and father of Charlotte, who, since the Sixties, made a habit of scandalising French polite society. Even the photographs of himself tacked on to the wall behind him are a witty nod to his notorious image-consciousness and self-publicising tendencies. But they were positively alarmed when they realised the shrieks were coming from the PlayStation Portable games console he was playing as he drove.. * Steve Allcock The 50 passengers being driven from Accrington to Blackburn by Steve Allcock, bus driver, may have been worried when they heard screams coming from the driver’s seat. * Andrew KitchCrisps may be bad for your health but they can also be hard on your wallet, as Andrew Kitch, a lorry driver, found out this year.
He was fined £250 for eating a packet of crisps while trying to negotiate a roundabout using his elbows. Despite howls of protest from road-safety advisers, Maddock said she couldn’t see what the fuss was about. * Frank Benson Nobody likes being caught by a speed camera and Benson is no exception. In April he flashed a V-sign at a speed camera after having been flashed himself. He was then fined a further £100 for failing to be in control of his car. * Donna MaddockDesperate to arrive at work with her war paint on, Maddock (above) from Mold, Flintshire, was recorded on a police video applying make-up while driving at 32mph in March 2006.