The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday issued a number of blockbuster rulings that have implications for everything from President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order to the future of LGBTQ books in schools. The justices punted a major Voting Rights Act case until next term, allowing time for further argument in the fall. In the […]
Supreme Court
Posted inHigher Education, Politics & Policy
Harvard Fights Trump in Court. Black Students and Academics Say The Real Battle Is on Campus
A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration’s attempts to revoke Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students. The move comes after the nation’s oldest institution of higher learning requested a temporary restraining order against the federal government’s action. Harvard filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration earlier Friday. In the suit, the school […]
Posted inReproductive Health
Abortion Saved Her. Now It Could Cost Her Freedom.
Kneeling on the cold bathroom floor of her apartment, Kisha clutched the pregnancy test she had just picked up from the Walgreens down the street. She waited for a single blue line to appear. Instead, there were two. “When I looked down at that test, I didn’t believe it,” she said. “I told myself there […]
Posted inHealth, Health Equity
What Happens If a Highly Effective HIV-Prevention Drug Is No Longer Free?
Black queer activist Preston Mitchum has been on PrEP — pre-exposure prophylaxis, a medication used to reduce the risk of getting HIV — since around 2014, just two years after its approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The Washington, D.C., resident remembers the barriers he and many others faced when trying to secure […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Louisiana’s Brand New Majority-Black Congressional District Is in Peril
ST. LANDRY PARISH, La. — Observing a joyous children’s holiday parade in the Louisiana parish she calls home, Clara LaFleur said that she isn’t surprised that the political power of Black Louisianans in her congressional district is in peril. After all, she told Capital B, it’s long seemed as if no one has been a […]
Posted inHealth, Health Equity, Maternal Health
The Post-Dobbs Reality for Black Maternal and Infant Health
To reproductive justice activist Renee Bracey Sherman, theirs are the forgotten names. Women like Amber Thurman, a 28-year-old medical assistant from Georgia, who suffered a rare complication from a medication abortion in August 2022 and died after waiting 20 hours for an emergency surgery to remove fetal tissue from her body. Thurman’s physicians worried that […]
Posted inCourts, Housing, Policing, Politics & Policy
Black Unhoused Communities Targeted After Supreme Court Ruling
LOS ANGELES – On a dirt pocket between a sidewalk and freeway in the Wilmington neighborhood in South Los Angeles, roughly half a dozen people lived in tents for most of the summer. But by 7 a.m. on Sept. 24, three police SUVs and a bright orange truck lined the street next to the freeway […]
Posted inCourts, Gun Violence, Public Safety
‘Ghost Guns,’ Black Communities, and the Case That Could Alter a Crisis
Two years ago, 16-year-old Angellyh Yambo was leaving her favorite bodega in the Bronx borough of New York City when she was struck and killed by a stray bullet. That bullet came from a 9 mm pistol that lacked a serial number, which most guns have. But this wasn’t a traditional firearm. It was a […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Partner Content, Politics & Policy
She Was Accused of Murder After Losing Her Pregnancy. This South Carolina Woman Now Tells Her Story.
ORANGEBURG, S.C. — Amari Marsh had just finished her junior year at South Carolina State University in May 2023 when she received a text message from a law enforcement officer. “Sorry it has taken this long for paperwork to come back,” the officer wrote. “But I finally have the final report, and wanted to see […]
Posted inNews, Partner Content, Politics & Policy
What the Supreme Court’s Immunity Ruling Means for Trump’s Cases and, Potentially, Future Presidents
In a landmark ruling with potentially major impact on the 2024 presidential campaign, a U.S. Supreme Court majority ruled that presidents — including former President Donald Trump — have immunity from prosecution when carrying out “official acts.” “Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute […]