Author: Reporter

Widespread opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine demonstrates the strength of a unified response against human rights abuses, and there are signs that power is shifting as people take to the streets to demonstrate their dissatisfaction in Iran, China and elsewhere, a leading rights group said in late January. A “litany of human rights crises” emerged in 2022, but the year also presented new opportunities to strengthen protections against violations, Human Rights Watch said in its annual world report on human rights conditions in more than 100 countries and territories. “After years of piecemeal and often half-hearted efforts on...

The discovery in central Poland of hundreds of objects that were most likely hidden by their Jewish owners during World War II provided a rare and precious find, officials said on January 11. Around 400 items, including silver-plated menorahs, hanukkiahs, tableware and daily use items were uncovered in the city of Lodz last month during the renovation of a house and yard. “Those residents who buried these items did so most likely thinking that they would one day return for them, that they would be able to retrieve them,” Lodz Deputy Mayor Adam Pustelnik said. “Most likely, these people...

Around some of their precious transformers, the ones that still work and buzz with electricity, the power plant workers have built protective shields using giant concrete blocks. The protection gives them a better chance of surviving the next Russian missile bombardment. Blasted out windows in the power plant’s control room are patched up with chipboard and piled-up sandbags, so the operators who man the desks 24/7, keeping watch over gauges, screens, lights and knobs, are less at risk of being killed or injured by murderous shrapnel. “As long as there is equipment that can be repaired, we will work,”...

An unarmed Black man dies after a videotaped beating by police. The officers involved are fired. After a thorough review of the evidence, criminal charges are swiftly filed against the offending officers. Investigation, accountability and charges. This is often the most Black citizens can hope for as the deaths continue. Nationwide, police have killed roughly three people per day consistently since 2020, according to academics and advocates for police reform who track such deaths. Tyre Nichols’ fatal encounter with police officers in Memphis, Tennessee, recorded in video made public Friday night, is a glaring reminder that efforts to reform...

On the eve of the funeral for Tyre Nichols, who died days after a brutal beating by Memphis police officers just minutes from his home, his family was sharing remembrances and expressing grief. Nichols’ older brother, Jamal Dupree, lamented he was not there to save his brother from the attack he suffered at the fists and feet of the five officers, who have been charged with second-degree murder and other offenses. “I’ve been fighting my whole life and the one fight I needed to be here for, I wasn’t here,” said Dupree, adding that violence was against his brother’s...