Author: Reporter

It is normally a moment of pure joy for the Rev. Khader Khalilia, the excitement, the giggles, the kisses, as his young daughters in their Christmas pajamas open their gifts. But this year, just the thought of it fills Khalilia with guilt. “I’m struggling,” said the Palestinian American pastor of Redeemer-St. John’s Lutheran Church in New York. “How can I do it while the Palestinian children are suffering, have no shelter or a place to lay their heads?” Thousands of miles away, near Jesus’ biblical birthplace of Bethlehem, Suzan Sahori has been working with artisans to bring olive wood...

It could be a cold, grim New Year for thousands of migrant families living in New York City’s emergency shelter system. With winter setting in, they are being told they need to clear out, with no guarantee they’ll be given a bed elsewhere. Homeless migrants and their children were limited to 60 days in city housing under an order issued in October by Mayor Eric Adams, a move the Democrat says is necessary to relieve a shelter system overwhelmed by asylum-seekers crossing the southern U.S. border. That clock is now ticking down for people like Karina Obando, a 38-year-old...

The Federal Communications Commission has enacted new rules intended to eliminate discrimination in access to internet services, a move which regulators are calling the first major U.S. digital civil rights policy. The rules package, which the commission ratified in November, would empower the agency to review and investigate instances of discrimination by broadband providers to different communities based on income, race, ethnicity and other protected classes. The order also provides a framework for the FCC to crack down a range of digital inequities including the disparities in the investment of services for different neighborhoods, as well as the “digital...

America’s Black and Latino students are at a disadvantage in nearly every measure of educational opportunity, with less access to advanced classes, counselors and even certified teachers, according to data released in November by the U.S. Education Department. The findings reflect inequities that have lasting implications for students’ ability to learn effectively, go on to college, and earn degrees. “We view education as the springboard that puts the American dream within reach. Yet access to educational opportunity in this country remains unequal,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said. The data was released as part of the Civil Rights Data Collection,...

A Confederate memorial will be removed from Arlington National Cemetery in northern Virginia, part of the push to remove traumatic symbols that commemorate the Confederacy from military-related facilities. The decision ignores a recent demand from more than 40 Republican congressmen that the Pentagon suspend efforts to dismantle and remove the monument that celebrated White Nationalism from Arlington cemetery. Safety fencing was installed around the memorial, and officials anticipated completing the removal by December 22. But a federal judge on December 18 issued a temporary restraining order that halted its removal. A lawsuit was filed on December 17 by Defend...