National News - Page 32

St. Paul’s All-female City Council is also Young and Racially diverse

By Kendra Lee When all the ballots were tallied on Friday, St. Paul, Minnesota, voters had done something remarkable: They had elected the first all-female council in the city’s history. According to the Star Tribune, the incoming council is historic for its youth and racial diversity, too. All seven members are younger than 40, and six are women of color. The City Council has not seen this much change at one time since the 1990s. It only makes sense that city leaders look like the people they serve. The makeup of the new council reflects demographic shifts in St. Paul’s population.

House Republicans Tried to Go After Karine Jean-Pierre’s Pay

By Angela Johnson Conservative Republicans stay coming for White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Back in June, ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson hurled a series of insults her way, calling her “the dumbest, nastiest, most dishonest” person that President Joe Biden could find for the job. Name-calling, while disrespectful, is something that comes with the job. But this time, they took it too far when they tried to go after her pockets. Representative Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) introduced an amendment to reduce Jean-Pierre’s salary to $1. But it didn’t get the backing it needed to pass, as 54 Republicans sided with all Democrats against the

Philadelphia’s new mayor — its 100th — makes history with her election

By Donna M. Owens In one of her campaign ads, Cherelle Parker, then the Democratic nominee for mayor in Philadelphia, speaks candidly about the power of representation. “We’ve had 99 mayors and not one of them looks like you or me,” she told voters. “Let’s just say that I’ll bring a different touch.” Indeed, Parker was handily elected Philadelphia’s 100th mayor on Tuesday, with 73.8% of the vote against Republican David Oh. The win is historic, with Parker shattering barriers to become both the city’s first woman and first Black woman in its executive seat. Born to a single teenage mother who died during Parker’s

Exonerated ‘Central Park Five’ member Yusef Salaam wins New York City Council seat

Exonerated “Central Park Five” member Yusef Salaam won a seat Tuesday on the New York City Council, completing a stunning reversal of fortune decades after he was wrongly imprisoned in an infamous rape case. Salaam, a Democrat, will represent a central Harlem district on the City Council, having run unopposed for the seat in one of many local elections held across New York state Tuesday. He won his primary election in a landslide. The victory comes more than two decades after DNA evidence was used to overturn the convictions of Salaam and four other Black and Latino men in the 1989 rape

HBCU coalition receives $124M gift from nonprofit funder Blue Meridian Partners

BY Thalia Beaty  The HBCU Transformation Project, a coalition of 40 historically Black colleges and universities, on Wednesday announced a $124 million gift from philanthropic funders Blue Meridian Partners to increase enrollment, graduation rates and employment rates for the schools’ graduates. Michael Lomax, president and CEO of UNCF, which is acting as an intermediary overseeing the funding, called the donation a vote of confidence in the coalition, which includes public and private schools. “This very significantly scaled grant from them signals to the philanthropic community that this is a really good investment to make,” he said of the Blue Meridian gift.

How Evictions Haunt Thousands of Black Pennsylvanians

By Jessica Washington A brightly colored eviction notice plastered on the door frame is an image most of us can easily conjure. But what happens after the bags are packed, and all that remains from the place you once called home is a scarlet E on your record? A recent report from Policy Link, a non-profit research group, is shedding light on the aftermath of evictions in Pennsylvania. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of thousands of evictions have been filed in the Commonwealth. And just in the last year, 114,000 evictions were filed in Pennsylvania, a disproportionate number of which

Philadelphia picks winning design for Harriet Tubman statue after controversy over original choice

The city of Philadelphia has picked the winning design for a Harriet Tubman statue outside City Hall after facing criticism over its original choice of a white artist who’d been selected without competition. Alvin Pettit beat out four other semifinalists with a design called “A Higher Power: The Call of a Freedom Fighter.” His nearly 14-foot bronze statue — the first of a Black woman who is a historical figure in the city’s public art collection — will portray Tubman as a military leader and freedom fighter. The famed abolitionist — who escaped slavery and led other enslaved Black women and men

Few transplant surgeons are Black. Giving medical students a rare peek at organ donation may help

By Lauren Neergaard It’s long after midnight when the bustling operating room suddenly falls quiet — a moment of silence to honor the man lying on the table. This is no ordinary surgery. Detrick Witherspoon died before ever being wheeled in, and now two wide-eyed medical students are about to get a hands-on introduction to organ donation. They’re part of a novel program to encourage more Black and other minority doctors-to-be to get involved in the transplant field, increasing the trust of patients of color. “There are very few transplant surgeons who look like me,” said Dr. James Hildreth, president

Latino, Black enrollment in advanced math shot up after states made this change. Should it be a model?

By Suzanne Gamboa  In a state that has passed anti-diversity laws and tried to squelch instruction on systemic racism, a new law could open doors for Latino and Black children long shut out of advanced math courses. Just a handful of states have taken the step Texas did this year. Under a law signed by Gov. Greg Abbott in May, school districts and open-enrollment charter schools must automatically enroll in an advanced math course sixth graders who score in the top 40% of the math portion of the state standardized test known as STAAR. Texas school districts can also consider class

A new cure for sickle cell disease may be coming. FDA advisers will review it next week.

The only cure for painful sickle cell disease today is a bone marrow transplant. But soon there may be a new cure that attacks the disorder at its genetic source. On Tuesday, advisers to the Food and Drug Administration will review a gene therapy for the inherited blood disorder, which in the U.S. mostly affects Black people. Issues they will consider include whether more research is needed into possible unintended consequences of the treatment. If approved by the FDA, it would be the first gene therapy on the U.S. market based on CRISPR, the gene editing tool that won its inventors the Nobel Prize in 2020. The

1 … 30 31 32 33 34 … 140

Covering HBCUs and the African American Community

Quick Link

Home
About Us
Sports
Entertainment

Gallery

© 2024 HBCU News Corporation – ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.