The fight over who gets poisoned so Silicon Valley can train smarter chatbots has landed in federal court. The NAACP is suing Elon Musk’s xAI for allegedly skirting permits and running gas turbines that are spewing formaldehyde and smog‑forming pollution into Black communities already scoring failing grades for air quality. To keep its “Colossus” data […]
Memphis
Posted inPolitics & Policy
A City-by-City Breakdown of Trump’s Immigration Raids and Troop Deployments
The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis is finally coming to an end after two fatal shootings and thousands of arrests. Border czar Tom Homan said coordination with local law enforcement and the success of immigration enforcement have contributed to the end of Operation Metro Surge. “I have proposed and President Trump has concurred that […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Partner Content, Politics & Policy
‘I Don’t Feel Safe’: Black Memphis Residents Report Harassment by Police Task Force
This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published. When Reggie Williams turned 18 two decades ago, his mother entrusted him with his birth certificate. Keep it on you at all times, […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Juvenile Justice, Partner Content, Public Safety
Juvenile Detention Centers: No School, No Fresh Air and Isolated
This story was originally published by MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Subscribe to their newsletter here. In the hours after 17-year-old David was locked in housing unit H, voices filtered into his cell. The sound came from multiple places at once: the seams of the door, the vent by the ceiling, the walls themselves. They knew he’d just […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Partner Content
Inside the Memphis Chamber of Commerce’s Push for Elon Musk’s xAI Data Center
This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with MLK50. Sign up for Dispatches to get our stories in your inbox every week. Marilyn Gooch was already skeptical about one of her newest neighbors, xAI’s supercomputing facility, when her cousin walked across the street in June with a blue mailer from the […]
Posted inAir Pollution, Environmental Justice, Politics & Policy
A Historic Black Community Takes On the World’s Richest Man Over Environmental Racism
Last summer, Elon Musk quietly transformed a portion of a South Memphis, Tennessee, community established by a group of formerly enslaved people in 1863 into what the world’s wealthiest man called “Colossus” — the planet’s most powerful supercomputer. The artificial intelligence venture turned an old manufacturing plant into a powerful 550-acre supercomputer designed to train […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
Tyre Nichols Died. A Tennessee Jury Didn’t Convict Three Ex-Officers for His Death.
Just days after the controversial acquittal of three former Memphis, Tennessee, police officers in the death of Tyre Nichols, his family is condemning the “wanted” posters showing the men involved in his brutal beating that are appearing across the city. Since the verdict, the family has been “made aware of posters in public places around […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
Split Verdict Closes One Chapter for Tyre Nichols’ Family, Yet The Fight Isn’t Over
It’s been a grief-stricken road for RowVaughn Wells nearly two years after the fatal beating of her son Tyre Nichols. On Thursday, the Memphis, Tennessee, mother was able to close one chapter after three of the five former police officers were found guilty of federal witness tampering charges in the fatal beating. But they were […]
Posted inHistory, Politics & Policy
Black Residents Battle Against Tennessee GOP’s Effort to Ban Reparations
The Rev. Earle J. Fisher, an activist and longtime resident of Memphis, Tennessee, is battling against yet another assault on Black economic and political progress by state Republicans. Since the murder of George Floyd in 2020, these efforts have ramped up, particularly in majority-Black Shelby County, the largest county in the state. Just last month, […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
What Happened to Jaylin McKenzie? His Mom Demands Police Transparency
A week before Christmas last year, Jaylin McKenzie was visiting family in Memphis, Tennessee, when he was shot and killed by a police officer following a traffic stop. For nearly nine months, his mother, Ashley McKenzie-Smith, says she has been trying every avenue possible to get the truth about what happened to her only son […]