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 […]
naacp
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Don Lemon and Black Critics of the Trump Administration Released
The fallout from a Jan. 18 protest at a Minnesota church continues following the arrests of Black journalists and activists critical of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on X on Friday morning that, at her direction, federal agents had arrested former CNN anchor Don Lemon, independent journalist Georgia Fort, […]
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 inPolitics & Policy
Black Residents Liken Mississippi’s New Court System to ‘Modern Day Slavery’
This story originally published in 2024, but has been updated to reflect that three judges and a clerk have been sworn in. Jackson, Mississippi, resident and organizer Rukia Lumumba is frustrated with a federal appeals court decision that allows Mississippi to move forward with its separate, state-run court system in her hometown. Backed by a […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Jackson Residents Join Fight to Stop Law That Strips Away Voting Power
Mere days after the NAACP sued Mississippi state officials over two new laws the civil rights organization says are discriminatory, three Jackson residents are following a similar course, arguing in a lawsuit filed on Monday that one of the laws is a violation of the Mississippi Constitution. “State lawmakers have said that this takeover of […]
Posted inHealth, Health Equity
A Nationwide Ban on Menthol Cigarettes Could Be Coming, and It’s Dividing Racial Justice Advocates
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to introduce a nationwide ban on the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars this spring, a move intended to reduce racial health disparities in tobacco-related diseases and death. But the proposal has divided racial justice advocates who debate whether the health benefits would come at the […]