Washington Post- When Starbucks opened here in 2016, politicians celebrated, predicting that the coffee chain would revitalize a city marred by violent protests over Michael Brown’s killing two years earlier. Other corporations jumped in with multimillion-dollar commitments to help rebuild the majority-black town that became a global symbol of racial and economic inequality. But four years […]
New York Times- President Trump unleashed an aggressive attack Sunday on unauthorized immigrants and the judicial system that handles them, saying that those who cross into the United States illegally should be sent back immediately without due process or an appearance before a judge. “We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country,” Trump […]
Philly.com- When an unarmed black American dies at the hands of police, the emotional impact reverberates so widely that black Americans who don’t even know the victim report distress, anxiety and depression, creating a national mental health burden nearly comparable to the stress caused by a chronic illness like diabetes, a new study has found. […]
Philly.com- City Council passed a $4.7 billion budget that spares Philadelphia property owners a tax hike but is still expected to help the school district avoid a deficit in the near future. Mayor Kenney failed to get support for the 4.1 percent property tax increase he initially proposed but will sign the amended budget. Council agreed […]
Philly.com- The executive order President Trump signed to end his own administration’s policy of forcibly separating families at the border does nothing to address the 2,300 children who have already been taken from their parents since April. What happens next is unclear. Officials from the Administration for Children and Families gave contradicting statements to CBS News, […]
The Hill- Kansas officials are continuing to enforce a proof of citizenship law that a federal judge recently deemed unconstitutional. The Topeka Capital-Journal reported Wednesday that staff for Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has directed county clerks to continue requiring voters to present documentary proof of citizenship. One county clerk said she was instructed […]
CBS News- President Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday to solve the issue of family separation at the border. The policy keeps in place key components of the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy of prosecuting illegal border crossings along the U.S-Mexico border. While the administration will continue prosecuting crimes of “improper entry,” the administration will “maintain […]
By: Solomon Jones On Tuesday, as we commemorated Juneteenth, the day that enslaved Africans in Texas learned that the Emancipation Proclamation had freed them, should have been reflecting on freedom. Instead, I was seeing images of caged brown children crying out for their parents, and listening to government officials trying to justify this cruelty. I […]
CNN- More than 600 members of the United Methodist Church have issued a formal complaint against Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a fellow church member, charging that his “zero tolerance” policy on immigration violates church rules and may constitute child abuse. Officially, the complaint charges Sessions with violating the United Methodist Church’s Book of Discipline, its code […]
The Washington Post- The Trump administration withdrew from the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday in protest of what it perceives as an entrenched bias against Israel and a willingness to allow notorious human rights abusers as members. U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said the council had become a “protector of human rights abusers and […]
CNN- On this day in 1865 — commemorated now as Juneteenth — news of emancipation reached the enslaved people of Texas. The complete abolition of slavery, which became irrevocable later that year with the ratification of the 13th Amendment, meant the end of involuntary servitude and the beatings, assaults and torture that often accompanied it. It […]
Philly.com- The judge who sent Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill to prison last fall for violating the terms of his probation stemming from his 2008 conviction on drug and gun charges said Monday that she needs more time to decide whether he should get a new trial. She gave no date by which she would make a […]