When Marielle Franco, a Rio de Janeiro city councilwoman, was shot to death in downtown Rio on March 14, her killing moved the world. Protesters took to the streets in New York, Paris, Buenos Aires and elsewhere, pledging to continue Franco’s fight against racism, poverty, inequality and violence. Elected in 2016 after serving 10 years...
Many commentators have pointed out the hypocrisy of Christian leaders who claim a moral high ground while supporting President Donald Trump. The latest scandal involving an alleged extramarital affair with pornographic film star Stormy Daniels proves no exception. The Christian right that supports Trump has found ways to justify their support of the president, for...
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced last week that the 2020 census will include a question about citizenship. Ross argued that such a question is required for a “complete and accurate” count of Americans. Others in the Department of Justice have argued that the knowledge produced would be useful in ensuring against voter fraud. Much recent...
On 20 April an Aston Martin 2014 Centenary Edition Vanquish, numbered 007 and belonging to actor Daniel Craig, will be offered in The Exceptional Sale at Christie’s in New York. All proceeds will benefit The Opportunity Network, a non-profit organization that provides young people with pathways to career development. The limited-edition car was further customised by Craig in partnership with...
For years, Martin Luther King Jr. and poet Langston Hughes maintained a friendship, exchanging letters and favors and even traveling to Nigeria together in 1960. In 1956, King recited Hughes’ poem “Mother to Son” from the pulpit to honor his wife Coretta, who was celebrating her first Mother’s Day. That same year, Hughes wrote a...
In 2017, just a few days after Donald Trump was sworn in as president, a freshman GOP lawmaker with only a few days on the job of his own, proposed House Resolution 861. Its language was ominous: “The Environmental Protection Agency shall terminate on December 31, 2018.” I was in my sixth year on the...
On March 31, Deadspin produced a video showing a chorus of local news anchors delivering the exact same scripted speech to viewers. The message – denouncing media bias and fake news, calling it a problem that is “neither politically ‘left nor right’” – might seem innocuous enough. But I study the media industry, and it...
Facebook has had a bad few weeks. The social media giant had to apologise for failing to protect the personal data of millions of users from being accessed by data mining company Cambridge Analytica. Outrage is brewing over its admission to spying on people via their Android phones. Its stock price plummeted, while millions deleted...
Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that Earl Simmons, known professionally as “DMX” and “X,” was sentenced today in Manhattan federal court to one year in prison for tax fraud in connection with evading the payment of income taxes in the period from 2010 through 2016. ...
When we first visited the school that is the focus of our forthcoming book, “Navigating Conflict: How Youth Handle Trouble in a High-Poverty School,” back in 1995, students were free to move about campus during lunch and other free periods and a culture of trust prevailed. All that changed during the 1999-2000 school year. That’s...