National News - Page 137

Jackson, MS Water Crisis Prompts State of Emergency

By Bracey Harris and David K. Li  Gov. Tate Reeves declared a state of emergency Tuesday, saying a water crisis in Mississippi’s largest city threatens “critical needs” and has no end in sight. While residents are accustomed to water challenges, the current shortage of safe running water is particularly dangerous, he said. “The is a very different situation from a boil water notice — which is also a serious situation which the residents of Jackson have become tragically numb to,” Reeves said in a statement. “Until it is fixed, it means we do not have reliable running water at scale. It means the city cannot

Black August Honors George Jackson, Black Freedom Fighters

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First celebrated in 1979, Black August was created to commemorate famed Panther George Jackson’s fight for Black liberation. For Jonathan Peter Jackson, a direct relative of two prominent members of the Black Panther Party, revolutionary thought and family history have always been intertwined, particularly in August. That’s the month in 1971 when his uncle, the famed Panther George Jackson, was killed during an uprising at San Quentin State Prison in California. A revolutionary whose words resonated inside and out of the prison walls, he was a published author, activist and radical thought leader. To many, February is the month dedicated to celebrating Black

Vanessa Bryant Wins $16M in Crash Photo Lawsuit Verdict

By Alicia Victoria Lozano  A federal jury awarded the widow of NBA superstar Kobe Bryant $16 million in damages over leaked photographs of the site of the helicopter crash that killed her husband and one of their daughters in 2020, which first responders snapped and shared with members of the public. The nine jurors who returned the unanimous verdict agreed with Vanessa Bryant and her attorneys that deputies and firefighters who took and shared photos of the remains of Kobe Bryant and their 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, invaded her privacy and caused her emotional distress. The federal jury deliberated for 4½ hours before it reached the

Morgan State Interns Propose Reforms for Baltimore Police

By Lea Skene During an internship with the Baltimore Police Department this summer, Yasmine Bryant met the mother of a city homicide victim struggling with acute grief and growing frustration: Despite repeated attempts to contact detectives about their open investigation, she heard nothing from law enforcement in more than five months. “Her only child was killed … and she had no updates on the case of her baby boy,” said Bryant, a junior at Morgan State University. “This is a problem.” At the completion of her 10-week internship, Bryant proposed a solution: Ask victims of Baltimore gun violence how their police

Minneapolis Teacher Layoff Policy Sparks Legal Debate

When Minneapolis teachers settled a 14-day strike in March, they celebrated a groundbreaking provision in their new contract that was meant to shield teachers of color from seniority-based layoffs and help ensure that students from racial minorities have teachers who look like them. Months later, conservative media outlets have erupted with denunciations of the policy as racist and unconstitutional discrimination against white educators. One legal group is looking to recruit teachers and taxpayers willing to sue to throw out the language. The teachers union paints the dispute as a ginned-up controversy when there’s no imminent danger of anyone losing their job. Meanwhile,

Montgomery Marks 67th Anniversary of Bus Boycott

Montgomery, Alabama, is marking the 67th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott with a series of celebrations and events. Rosa Parks, an African American woman, was arrested Dec. 1, 1955, after refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery. Her action helped ignite the yearlong boycott of the bus system by Black passengers and ushered in the civil rights movement. Browder v. Gayle, a lawsuit filed on behalf of women who had also been mistreated on city buses, led to the court ruling that the segregated bus system was unconstitutional. The events

Dr. Fauci Urges Black Americans to Get COVID Booster Shot

By Clarretta Bellamy Dr. Anthony Fauci has an important message for Black Americans: get a booster shot. In a recent interview with TheGrio, Fauci, who is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, urged the Black community to get a Covid booster shot in preparation of the fall surge, when the Covid infection rates are expected to rise. He said that the Food and Drug Administration will soon authorize an updated booster shot, known as the bivalent BA.5 vaccine, which is a closer match to the circulating Omicron variants of Covid. “If the African-American population… want to diminish their risk

Black History Teaching Faces Growing Scrutiny in U.S. Schools

By Joe Heim and Lori Rozsa Jamarah Amani insists that her four children, ages 8 to 21, learn Black history. “There’s not very much incorporated into public school education, which is why I have done a combination of home schooling and public schools over the years,” said Amani, 41, a Miami-area midwife. Now, she believes, a bill before Florida legislators — one that bars material causing students “discomfort,” “guilt” or “anguish” — would limit the accurate teaching of Black American history in schools. “If this law passes, kids won’t be able to see themselves reflected at all within their own

Inflation Hits Black and Latino Families Hardest in U.S.

By Carmen Sesin  Higher prices for housing, food and gas are hitting Americans throughout the United States, but Latinos and Blacks are affected more by the current rise in inflation than the overall population, according to an analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The growing cost of living has made it difficult for Cynthia Fabian, 48, of Miami, to get back on her feet after she lost her job at a major retailer at the beginning of the pandemic. She lost her home and then exhausted her savings paying for a motel room. Fabian eventually turned to a

Black HBCU Students Soar Toward Aviation Careers

By Curtis Bunn At Florida Memorial University, a small historically Black university in Miami Gardens, Tremaine Johnson is training to become one of the country’s few Black pilots. Less than 2% of commercial airline pilots are Black, according to one report, making Johnson’s decision to become a pilot — rather than an air traffic controller, as he’d originally intended — notable. His choice also comes at a particularly crucial time, as airlines around the country experience a pilot shortage due to cutbacks during the pandemic. At 20-years-old Johnson still remembers the exact moment that inspired his career change: It was when he flew

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