When I learn that an acquaintance supports stripping my rights away, I distance myself from them. Because of this, I've received some comments like, It's such a shame that you can't even be friends with me because we disagree on politics.
On Tuesday morning, a cohort of Democratic lawmakers reintroduced the Artificial Intelligence Civil Rights Act, a bill that would establish protections for individual civil rights when someone's personal data is processed by algorithms for a diverse range of consequential life decisions. Spearheaded by Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., along with Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Reps. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., and Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the AI Civil Right Act's comes as Markey asserts tech companies are lobbying to include a recently defeated moratorium on AI regulations at the state level in this year's National Defense Authorization Act.
Ellis began Thursday's hearing by describing Chicago as a vibrant place and reading poet Carl Sandburg's famous poem about the city. Ellis said it is simply untrue that the Chicago area is a violent place of rioters. I don't find defendants' version of events credible, Ellis said. She described protesters and advocates facing teargas, having guns pointed at them and being thrown to the ground, saying that would cause a reasonable person to think twice about exercising their fundamental rights.
Michael Mangan, who once led the Lawrence Police Department's Special Operations division, was indicted Tuesday on two counts of deprivation of rights under color of law and two counts of false report, according to the indictment. The accusations stem from a 2023 incident in which Mangan allegedly attacked Sodiq Amusat, 29, as he was being booked. Amusat filed a civil rights lawsuit following the alleged assault, which was captured on a surveillance video recording, according to the complaint filed in federal court.
On a sunny afternoon in Harlem, judges, political figures and community organizers gathered to present the late Franklin H. Williams with a gift for his 108th birthday: the dedication of a street corner just outside the housing complex where he spent much of his life one built in response to segregation he'd help to dismantle in his storied career as a civil rights attorney and diplomat.
In 1707, the British Parliament met for the first time after the Treaty of Union dissolved both the Parliaments of England and Scotland and created a new Kingdom of Great Britain. The Parliament of Great Britain eventually became the Parliament of the United Kingdom. In 1915, an estimated 25,000 women marched in New York City demanding the right to vote throughout the United States.
Democracy flourishes when Black Americans advance. The evidence is clear: birthright citizenship, constitutional due process, anti-discrimination laws from education to housing to employment and equitable small business investments, are all byproducts of the systemic corrections known today as DEI. Yet, in recent years, DEI has been used as a smokescreen by cynical politicians and activists to roll back progress and consolidate power.
Before the ruling was issued, the layoffs had wiped out the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, including its Office of Special Education Programs, which ensures children with disabilities receive a free, quality education under federal law and oversees around $16 billion in special education funding. Nearly 500 education department employees were let go, including more than 100 staffers who worked in the special education division.
The heart that beats in my chest today is the same one that quickened when, at 11 years old, I stood with my father along Union Avenue waiting to catch a glimpse of John F. Kennedy-the young senator from Massachusetts running for president. The photograph I snapped that day-now framed on my office wall in Washington-isn't sharp, but the moment was. It captured something lasting: a call to public service that has guided me ever since.
Border patrol officers have become ubiquitous footsoldiers in Donald Trump's mass deportation plan, and lawyers and human rights advocates worry that the agency is expanding its aggressive tactics into cities far from its conventional range. Led by Gregory Bovino, a particularly hardline Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sector chief from southern California, border patrol agents have become a daily presence in several major cities across the US.
"It was about faith in action," Thompson, who is now the church's senior pastor, told The Oaklandside. "It wasn't just about belief, it wasn't just about church attendance, but that to be a Christian meant you ought to be doing something to make the world better."
"For decades, the guiding tenet for those working at the department was to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons. Many believe that's no longer possible," Stacey Young, executive director and founder of Justice Connection, which organized the letter, said in a news release on Monday. "They're being asked to put loyalty to the President over the Constitution, the rule of law, and their professional ethical obligations," she said. "We're seeing the erosion of the Justice Department's fabric and integrity at an alarming pace. Our democratic system cannot survive without the primary institution that enforces the law."
Today in history: On Sept. 25, 1957, nine Black students who had been forced to withdraw from Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, because of unruly white crowds were escorted to class by members of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division and the National Guard. Also on this date: In 1513, Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and sighted the Pacific Ocean.
Amid a funding blackout at one of California's largest universities, a San Francisco federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore more than $500 million in research grants to UCLA. The decision was made Monday by U.S. District Judge Rita Lin after U.S. President Donald Trump cut off $584 million in funding to the university at the end of July over allegations of antisemitism and civil rights violations.
But the Trump administration has been systematically destroying these federal protections for renters and homeowners, and now new internal documents shared with my office from whistleblowers inside the Department of Housing and Urban Development show the extent of the Trump administration's attack on civil rights and show how the administration appears to be ignoring the law.
In 1806, the Lewis and Clark expedition returned to St. Louis, more than two years after setting out for the Pacific Northwest. In 1955, a jury in Sumner, Mississippi, acquitted two white men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, of killing Black teenager Emmett Till. (The two later admitted to the crime in an interview with Look magazine.) In 1957, nine Black students who entered Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas were forced to withdraw because of a white mob outside.
Filed Tuesday, the complaint accuses the Rhode Island Department of Education and the state-run Providence Public School District of "blatant race discrimination." The lawsuit specifically takes aim at the "Educators of Color Loan Forgiveness Program," which offers up to $25,000 in student debt repayments for new teachers in Providence. "The catch: white teachers are not eligible," the complaint notes. With a student body that is more than 90% non-white, Providence has long sought to recruit more teachers of color.
