National News - Page 7

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin treated for prostate cancer, severe infection: Pentagon

By Rebecca Picciotto Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was hospitalized on Jan. 1 for complications following surgery nearly two weeks earlier to treat prostate cancer, doctors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center revealed Tuesday. The disclosure of Austin’s diagnosis and cause of his hospitalization came amid controversy over the Pentagon’s failure for days to inform the White House or the public that the Defense secretary had been admitted to Walter Reed, where he ended up in the intensive care unit. Pentagon officials also failed for two days last week to notify Austin’s second-in-command that he had transferred authority to her while he was in the ICU, and

The U.S. Mint releases new commemorative coins honoring Harriet Tubman

By Jonathan Franklin Three commemorative coins featuring famed abolitionist and human rights activist Harriet Tubman have now been released to the public, the U.S. Mint said. The coins, which were released Thursday as part of the Harriet Tubman Commemorative Coin Program, include $5 gold coins, $1 silver coins and half-dollar coins that honor the bicentennial of her birth. The designs featured on the coins follow the three periods of Tubman’s life and her work as an abolitionist and social activist. “Every coin produced by the United States Mint helps to tell a story that teaches us about America’s history or connects us to

South Carolina is getting its only civil rights museum thanks to photographer Cecil Williams

Much of how South Carolina has seen its civil rights history has been through the lens of photographer Cecil Williams. From sit-ins to prayer protests to portraits of African Americans integrating universities and rising to federal judges, Williams has snapped it. After years of work, Williams’ millions of photographs are being digitized and categorized and his chief dream of a civil rights museum marking how Black Americans fought segregation and discrimination in the state is about to move out of his old house and into a much bigger, and more prominent, building in Orangeburg. “Images can be very powerful storytelling,” said Williams,

Claudine Gay, Harvard University’s embattled president, resigns

By Daniel Arkin and Adam Reiss Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned Tuesday after facing intense scrutiny for equivocal testimony she gave at a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism as well as widening allegations of plagiarism in her academic work. “It is with a heavy heart but a deep love for Harvard that I write to share that I will be stepping down as president,” Gay said in a letter to the Harvard community. “This is not a decision I came to easily. Indeed, it has been difficult beyond words because I have looked forward to working with so many of you to advance the commitment

To tackle poverty, more states will offer bigger child tax credits in 2024

By Jennifer Luden Many Americans took a double whammy to the pocketbook this year: Prices for things like food and rent rose, and federal pandemic aid continued to peter out. But a string of states took a cue from one of those relief measures — the expanded federal child tax credit — and are stepping in to help bridge the gap. That tax credit was a pandemic success story. Enacted in 2021, it cut child poverty in half before it expired at the end of that year, and poverty rates shot right back up. Since then, the number of states that have created their

Reparations gained historic momentum in 2023 because of California’s efforts

By Curtis Bunn For the first time, this year advocates seeking reparations for the harms inflicted on Black people during centuries of slavery in America saw a movement for redress that elicits hope. Many municipalities either started or are forming commissions to address compensation to the descendants of enslaved Africans. California has made the most zealous effort. The state’s reparations task force spent two years researching the impact of the generational damage of the discriminatory practices and produced a 1,100-page report with comprehensive recommendations that it considers to be the blueprint for other cities and states — and the federal government —

Florida school faces backlash after Black 2-year-old was seen being ‘arrested and fingerprinted’ in role-play about Rosa Parks

By Natalie Kainz A preschool in Florida is facing backlash from the NAACP and the parents of a 2-year-old Black girl, who they allege was made to participate in a “racially unethical” Rosa Parks role-play. The incident happened on Dec. 1, when a class of 2- and 3-year-old children were learning about Parks, the civil rights activist, said a spokesperson at Building Brains Academy, a minority-owned and operated preschool in Osceola, Florida. The girl, who the NAACP alleged was the only Black student in the class, played Parks during a re-enactment of her 1955 arrest for refusing to give up her

New York will set up a commission to consider reparations for slavery

New York state will create a commission tasked with considering reparations to address the persistent, harmful effects of slavery in the state, under a bill signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday. It comes at a time when many states and towns throughout the United States attempt to figure out how to best reckon with the country’s dark past, and follows in the footsteps of similar task forces in California and Illinois. “In New York, we like to think we’re on the right side of this. Slavery was a product of the South, the Confederacy,” Hochul, a Democrat, said at

Jonathan Majors Fired By Disney/Marvel Studios After Assault Guilty Verdicts

Written By Anthony D’Alessandro Jonathan Majors is out of the Marvel Studios kingdom. The news comes today in the wake of the Emmy-nominated actor being found guilty of reckless assault and harassment in his domestic violence trial by a six-person NYC jury. A studio rep confirmed the news about their decision to not move forward with Majors in the MCU. Majors played megavillain He Who Remains aka Kang the Conqueror in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phases 4 through 6.   He debuted as the character during Season 1 of Loki in 2021, then continued on in Season 2 this year, as well as the February movie Ant-Man

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