Category: Issues

Here’s Everything New on Netflix in January 2020—and What’s Leaving

January, the month for resolutions, is often seen as a time to hit the gym, read that new book and set some 2020 goals—not necessarily for binging Netflix from the couch. But with the number of new seasons of the streamer’s original series set to drop this month, it might be time to make an…

‘The Slaves Dread New Year’s Day the Worst’: The Grim History of January 1

Americans are likely to think of New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day as a time to celebrate the fresh start that a new year represents, but there is also a troubling side to the holiday’s history. In the years before the Civil War, the first day of the new year was often a heartbreaking…

Bill Cosby’s Publicist Hits Back at Eddie Murphy After SNL Jab, Calls Him a ‘Hollywood Slave’

Bill Cosby‘s spokesperson released a lengthy statement criticizing comedian Eddie Murphy, calling him a “Hollywood slave” after mocking the imprisoned Cosby on Saturday Night Live during his opening monologue. In this past weekend’s highly anticipated episode, Murphy — who launched his career on the show, and hosted for the first time in 35 years —…

These 28 Women Broke Major Barriers to Become ‘Firsts’ in 2019

In a year marked by division, women everywhere pushed the world forward—and many made history, shattering long-standing glass ceilings to become “firsts” in their fields. From Zuzana Caputova, the first woman to become president of Slovakia, to Indonesian speed climber Aries Susanti Rahayu, the first woman to climb 15 meters in under 7 seconds, to…

Curtis Flowers Released on Bond After Supreme Court Overturns Death Penalty Conviction for Racial Bias

(LOUISVILLE, Miss.) — A Mississippi man whose murder conviction was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court for racial bias was released from custody Monday for the first time in 22 years. Curtis Flowers walked out of the regional jail in the central town of Louisville hours after a judge set his bond at $250,000. A…

He Attended the March on Washington in 1963. Now He’ll Return to the Scene in Virtual Reality With His Great-Grandson

When the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom came to Washington, D.C., in 1963, it provided the setting for what would become Martin Luther King Jr.’s most iconic speech: “I Have a Dream.” But he was far from the only person there. In addition to a full program of speakers and singers, the day…

TIME Studios to Launch Groundbreaking Experiential Project The March at the DuSable Museum in Chicago, February 2020

(New York, NY, December 18, 2019) — TIME’s Emmy-award winning division TIME Studios will debut its groundbreaking immersive project The March as an experiential exhibit on February 28, 2020 at the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago, IL, the first independent African American history museum in the country. The March brings the 1963…

Low-Dose Aspirin May Not Reduce Heart Risks for Black Americans, Study Finds

It’s fairly established medical science that people who have had heart attacks can take regular low doses of aspirin to significantly lower their risk of having another heart attack, or other heart problems including stroke. But it is still an open question whether or not people who haven’t had a heart event, but are at…

The December Democratic Debate Is Back on After Labor Dispute. Here’s What to Know

After days of tense negotiations, it seems the December Democratic debate will go ahead as scheduled. The last Democratic presidential primary debate of 2019 — and the last before the debates move to early voting states — will air live from the Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles on Thursday at 8 p.m on PBS.…

Mass Opioid Abuse Is ‘Destabilizing’ World’s Poorest Nations

(KAPURTHALA, India) — Reports rolled in with escalating urgency — pills seized by the truckload, pills swallowed by schoolchildren, pills in the pockets of dead terrorists. These pills, the world has been told, are safer than the OxyContins, the Vicodins, the fentanyls that have wreaked so much devastation. But now they are the root of…

Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley Says South Carolinians Saw the Confederate Flag as ‘Service’ Before Dylan Roof ‘Hijacked’ It

Former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley told conservative commentator Glenn Beck Friday that white supremacist Dylan Roof “hijacked” the Confederate flag, which she said South Carolinians saw as representing “service and sacrifice and heritage.” Haley was speaking about the 2015 mass shooting at a church in Charleston, S.C., in which Roof murdered…

House Passes Bill to Restore Key Parts of Voting Rights Act

(WASHINGTON) — The Democratic-controlled House approved a bill Friday that would restore key sections of the Voting Rights Act that once required officials in all or parts of 15 mostly Southern states to receive federal approval before making changes to the voting process. The bill would amend the 1965 law to impose new obligations on…

How Rising Temperatures Due to Climate Change are Shortening Pregnancies

It’s bad enough that adults have made a climatological mess of the world. It’s worse that the mess is having a disproportionate impact on kids—who did nothing to create the problem, but are more susceptible to health issues caused by rising temperatures than adults are. Now, it appears, global warming is doing its damage even…

Report: Black Crime Victims Are Much Less Likely to Have Legislation Named in Their Honor

(CLEVELAND) — The slayings of Reagan Tokes and Alianna DeFreeze had much in common. Both were abducted, raped and killed in Ohio in 2017. Tokes was a 21-year-old college student, DeFreeze a 14-year-old seventh grader. Both their killers were previously convicted sex offenders. Yet only one victim got a law with her name on it…

Massachusetts Becomes the First State to Ban Flavored Tobacco and Vaping Products

BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts became the first state to ban flavored tobacco and nicotine vaping products, including menthol cigarettes, after Republican Gov. Charlie Baker signed into law on Wednesday a bill that’s meant to reduce the appeal of the products to young people amid a rash of illnesses and deaths linked to vaping. Anti-smoking groups…

Chicago Mayor Fires City’s Police Superintendent Over ‘Ethical Lapses’

(CHICAGO) — Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot fired the city’s retiring police superintendent Eddie Johnson on Monday, citing “ethical lapses” that included telling lies about a recent incident in which Johnson was found asleep at the wheel of his car after having drinks. Named to the job in the wake of a police shooting that killed…

Michael Bloomberg Launches Democratic Presidential Bid

NEW YORK — Billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, one of the world’s richest men, has formally launched a Democratic bid for president. Ending weeks of speculation, the 77-year-old former Republican announced his candidacy Sunday in a written statement posted on a campaign website describing himself as uniquely positioned to defeat President…

Noose Found in Locker Brings Unrest to Mississippi Fire Department

(HATTIESBURG, Miss.) — There’s little disagreement that the object found in a white Mississippi firefighter’s locker was a hangman’s noose. But as with many things in America these days, there’s deep disagreement about what it meant. To some it was a reminder of lynchings that took hundreds of black lives in Mississippi, and it had…

How Advocates of Reproductive Justice Found Their Spotlight

The hotel ballroom is packed when the spoken-word poet Staceyann Chin takes the stage on a Saturday morning in late October. At least 1,100 mostly women and nonbinary people of color have filled the vast space in the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta in anticipation of her performance and of Stacey Abrams’ keynote address, which will…

30 Years After the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Russia Is Only Pretending to Be a Major Power

Vladimir Yakunin, the former Russian Railways boss and KGB spy, leaned forward to describe the way the world is going. It was the middle of October, and he had just convened an annual gathering of statesmen from countries that are, as a rule, sympathetic to the Kremlin. Held each fall on the Greek island of…

The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of the 2010s

Many of the best nonfiction books of the decade tap into the lives of individuals to speak to universal human experiences — those of grief and recovery, hubris and failure, dreams and disappointments. Some, in their intimate specificity, open doors to worlds that only few have seen. All employ dazzling prose to draw readers further…

Trump Aims at U.S. Diplomat, Shoots Himself in the Foot

On Nov. 15, the public got to see what it looks like when President Donald Trump attacks someone in public and the cameras are rolling. Weeks of hearings, months of allegations, and more than a year of behind-the-scenes maneuvering by Trump’s allies came to a sharp point today as the ousted U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine,…

10 Candidates Will Take the Stage in November’s Democratic Debate. Here’s Everything to Know

Get ready for heated arguments, political debates and pointed questions. No, it’s not your Thanksgiving dinner — it’s the November Democratic debate. Democratic presidential primary candidates will square off tonight on a debate stage in Atlanta, where the primary debate will be co-hosted by MSNBC and the Washington Post, airing live from 9 p.m. to…

Students Protest a Series of Racist Incidents at Syracuse University. Here’s What to Know

A series of racist incidents at Syracuse University — including derogatory graffiti and the sharing of an alleged white supremacist manifesto — have sparked outrage at the upstate New York school, prompting student sit-ins and demands for action, as well as criticism from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, while authorities continue to investigate. Students have…

16-Year-Old Girl Accused of Planning Attack on Black Church in Georgia

(ATLANTA) — A white 16-year-old girl is accused of plotting to attack a mostly black church in a north Georgia city, where police say she planned to kill worshippers because of their race. Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church has a predominantly black congregation, Gainesville Police Chief Jay Parrish said in a statement Tuesday. “Our investigation…

Nebraska Just Approved More Inclusive Social Studies Guidelines. They’re a Window Into the Changing Way Kids Are Learning U.S. History

JoAnna Wood was in fifth grade when her class watched the movie of The Indian in the Cupboard. At one point in the 1995 film, a cowboy calls an Indian a savage. Her fellow students cracked up. “I didn’t think it was funny,” says Wood, 12, who is a member of the Winnebago tribe and…

Transit System Chief Apologizes to Black Rider Detained for Eating a Breakfast Sandwich

(SAN FRANCISCO) — The head of a San Francisco Bay Area commuter train system apologized to a black rider who was detained and cited by police for eating a breakfast sandwich on a train platform after an outcry from people who assailed enforcement of a no-food rule as racist. More than two dozen people staged…

More People Think It’s Fine for Unwed Couples to Live Together. Here’s Why Many Still Think Marriage Is Better

More Americans have lived with a romantic partner than have married one, a new study from Pew Research shows. And only a small minority of people now see unwed couples living together as anything to get upset about. Despite this, married people still report more satisfaction with their relationship, more closeness to their partner and…

The True Story of Harriet Tubman Shows That Sometimes Running Is as Brave as Fighting

In the early morning hours of Aug. 28, 1955, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam arrived at the Mississippi home of Moses Wright, demanding he turn over his 14-year-old nephew, Emmett Till. Armed with a pistol, the two white men kidnapped the teenager, and then murdered him. Till’s death would become a key turning point in…

Montgomery, Ala., Was a Hub of the Slave Trade and a Center of the Civil Rights Movement. It’s About to Swear in Its First Black Mayor

Hanging on the wall in Steven L. Reed’s old office as Montgomery County’s probate judge was a photo of his father, Joseph L. Reed, sitting next to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. at Maggie Street Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala., in 1967. The two men are not merely sitting together by accident. They…