Author: Reporter

Less than a week into his presidency, the Trump administration touted deportation efforts and published new rules on January 24 making it easier to remove people, part of a flurry of actions to make good on campaign promises to crack down on illegal immigration. Amid the latest show of force by officials, waves of worry reverberated in parts of the country, with officials in Newark, New Jersey, lashing out over what they called illegal arrests by immigration agents. President Donald Trump’s administration portrayed U.S. military planes carrying migrants that touched down in Central America as a start to deportations...

President Donald Trump said he would like to see Jordan, Egypt, and other Arab nations increase the number of Palestinian refugees they are accepting from the Gaza Strip. The proposal indicated his willingness to “just clean out” most of the population to create a virtual clean slate. During a 20-minute question-and-answer session on January 25 with reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump also said he had ended his predecessor’s hold on sending 2,000-pound bombs to Israel. That lifted a pressure point meant to reduce civilian casualties during Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, which is now halted by a...

More than two decades ago, when gay men and lesbians were prohibited from serving openly in the U.S. military and no state had legalized same-sex marriages, a national LGBTQ+ rights group decided to promote change by grading corporations on their workplace policies. The Human Rights Campaign initially focused its report card, named the Corporate Equality Index, on ensuring that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer employees did not face discrimination in hiring and on the job. Just 13 companies received a perfect score in 2002. By last year, 545 businesses did even though the requirements have expanded. But the...

Cori Bush went from helping to lead an informal movement for racial justice to winning two terms as a congresswoman from Missouri, with an office decorated with photographs of families who lost loved ones to police violence. One picture is of Michael Brown. Brown’s death 10 years ago in Ferguson, Missouri, was a defining moment for America’s racial justice movement. It cast a global spotlight on longtime demands for reforms to systems subjecting millions of people to everything from economic discrimination to murder. Many activists like Bush went from proclaiming “Black Lives Matter” to running for seats in statehouses,...

For four years, the Environmental Protection Agency made environmental justice one of its biggest priorities, working to improve health conditions in heavily polluted communities often made up largely of Black, Latino, and low-income White Americans. Now that short-lived era is over. President Donald Trump in his first week removed a team of White House advisors whose job it was to ensure the entire federal government helped communities located near heavy industry, ports and roadways. Trump eliminated the “Justice40” initiative the Biden Administration had created. It required 40% of the benefits from certain environmental programs go to hard-hit communities. When...