Featured
A History of National Guard Deployments in Heavily Black U.S. Cities. By Brandon Tensley / Capital B
Omar Wasow was studying race and politics at Stanford University when on April 29, 1992, a jury acquitted the police officers who beat Rodney King of almost all charges. For nearly a week, Los Angeles was on fire, as people raged against a verdict they viewed as unjust.
Within a day of the decision, President George H.W. Bush brought in the National Guard, a reserve U.S. military force that state governors and presidents can summon to respond to certain situations, including domestic emergencies. By the time the uprising ended on May 3, 63 people had been killed — nine by police — and more than 1,500 had been injured. Read more
Related: Trump Is Targeting Cities With Large Black Populations. By Tiffany Hamilton / Newsone
Related: Blue city mayors beyond D.C. decry Trump’s takeover threats. By Rachel Treisman / NPR
Three Republican-led states to send hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington. By AP and NPR
Three Republican-led states said Saturday that they were deploying hundreds of National Guard members to the nation’s capital to bolster the Trump administration’s effort to overhaul policing in Washington through a federal crackdown on crime and homelessness.
West Virginia said it was deploying 300 to 400 Guard troops, while South Carolina pledged 200 and Ohio says it will send 150 in the coming days, marking a significant escalation of the federal intervention. Read more
Related: The Dangers and Absurdities of Trump’s DC Occupation. By Dave Zirin / The Nation
Political / Social
Trump’s Selective Stance on Justice: Redemption for Some, Scorn for Others. By Erica L. Green / NYT
President Trump, himself a felon, has shown particular leniency to criminals he seems to identify with — people who are white or wealthy, or who rioted in his name on Jan. 6, 2021. Federal agents patrolling Washington.
As President Trump made the case for militarizing the streets of Washington, he used pictures of “homegrown terrorists” to illustrate his point that crime in the nation’s capital was out of control. “Look at these people here,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference last week, flipping through a handout from the White House containing five mug shots, all people of color. “They will never be an asset to society,” he said. “I don’t care. I know we all want to say, ‘Oh, they’re going to be rehabbed.’ They’re not going to be rehabbed.” Read more
The GOP plot to gain 40 seats without winning any more votes. By Russell Payne / Salon
Party operatives think gerrymandering, a new Census and a friendly Supreme Court can help keep Republicans in power
With Republicans and Democrats embroiled in a fight over redistricting around the country, GOP operatives are beginning to openly discuss their plan to leverage institutional power — from statehouses to the Supreme Court — to usher in a near-unbreakable House majority. Read more
Related: Texas Democrats signal likely end of gerrymander battle. By Russell Payne / Salon
Related: Trump, Abbott and the GOP bring Orbán-style autocracy to Texas. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
Trump Administration Scraps Research Into Health Disparities. Roni Caryn Rabin and Irena Hwang / NYT
In its campaign against “woke” science, the N.I.H. has closed down studies and programs focused on the gaps between racial and socioeconomic groups.
The federal government has for decades invested vigorously in research aimed at narrowing the health gaps between racial and socioeconomic groups, pouring billions of dollars into understanding why minority and low-income Americans have shorter lives and suffer higher rates of illnesses like cancer and heart disease. Spending on so-called health disparities rose even during the Trump administration’s first term. But in its second, much of the funding has come to a sudden halt. Read more
Education
Columbia Will Make Direct Payments to Jewish Employees. Not All of Them Are Happy About It. By Sonel Cutler / Chronicle of Higher Ed.
When Columbia University announced last month as part of its deal with the Trump administration that it would establish a $21-million fund to compensate employees who have been victims of campus antisemitism, Bruce Robbins, a Columbia English professor, said his first reaction was shock. His second reaction, he said, was, “If that’s really what they’re doing, then what about me?”
Robbins, who is Jewish and critical of the Israeli government, says he feels he has experienced antisemitism from supporters of Israel since October 2023. He recalled being labeled a traitor to his race for supporting pro-Palestinian students and told he was not a real Jew because his father changed the family’s surname. Read more
Related: Thousands Ask Harvard Not to ‘Give in’ and Pay Fine to Trump. Vimal Patel / NYT
Judge Halts White House Effort to Defund Schools With D.E.I. Programs. By Dana Goldstein / NYT
The Trump administration had asked states to certify that their schools did not practice “illegal D.E.I.” and threatened to cut off billions of dollars from schools that did not comply. Alabama students rally against bill to defund D.E.I.
A federal judge dealt a sweeping setback on Thursday to President Trump’s education agenda, declaring that the administration cannot move forward with its plans to cut off federal funding from schools and colleges with diversity and equity programs. Read more
Oklahoma to begin controversial test to weed out ‘woke’ teacher applicants today. By Sunlen Serfaty / CNN
Teachers from “liberal” states who have relocated to Oklahoma and are seeking to work there must take a controversial new assessment, to be given for the first time today, that “keeps away woke indoctrinators,” according to Oklahoma’s top education official.
Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s superintendent for public instruction, told CNN that if applicants do not pass the test, they will not earn a teaching certificate to be able to teach in public schools in the state this school year, which begins for some Oklahoma districts on Monday. The superintendent’s office notified CNN on Friday that it had not yet been released as of noon, but that it was coming soon. Read more
Trump killed affirmative action. His base might not like what comes next. By Noel King and Gabrielle Berbey Vox
The alternative to affirmative action is now under attack.
Because class-based affirmative action still might mean a college is admitting more Black and Hispanic students. And what the Trump administration seems to have the issue with is that fact. But Americans also support the idea of racially integrated student bodies, they just don’t like racial preferences as the means for getting there. So, if Trump says, no matter how you achieve this racial diversity, I’m just opposed to racial diversity, he’ll have lost the public. Read more
World
In Alaska, Trump gifts Putin more time to grind down Ukraine. By Nick Paton Walsh / CNN
It was not the applause, or the red carpet, or the ride in the Beast, or speaking first on the podium, that were the biggest gifts offered up to Vladimir Putin at the Alaska summit. President Donald Trump’s greatest favor to his Russian counterpart was time.
Russian success or failure on the front line will be measured in a matter of weeks. Putin has until mid-October until the weather cools, ground softens, and advances become harder. That is a full two months. His forces are on the brink of turning painfully incremental and costly micro-advances into “nowhere” villages in eastern Ukraine into a more strategic gain. Read more
Related: Trump Has No Cards. By Anne Applebaum / The Atlantic
Related: No deal in Alaska: Trump, Putin talk peace, with no resolution. By CK Smith / Salon
Israeli Plan to Expand Settlements and “Bury” Palestinian State Draws International Condemnation. By Amy Goodman / Democracy Now
Israeli forces are carrying out raids across the occupied West Bank, with at least 20 Palestinians arrested since last night. Separately, Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian village of Atara north of Ramallah, setting fire to several vehicles. Another attack by settlers targeted the village of Susya south of Hebron.
The surge of violence came amid international condemnation of remarks by Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who on Thursday announced plans for the construction of more than 3,000 new homes on illegal settlements that would bisect land Palestinians want for a future state. Read more
Blackwater founder to deploy nearly 200 personnel to Haiti. By AP and NPR
The security firm of former U.S. Navy Seal Erik Prince will soon deploy nearly 200 personnel from various countries to Haiti as part of a one-year deal to quell gang violence there, a person with knowledge of the plans said Thursday.
The deployment by Vectus Global is meant to help the government of Haiti recover vast swaths of territory seized in the past year and now controlled by heavily armed gangs, said the person, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the plans. Read more
Related: Why Is the U.S. Offering a $5 Million Reward for a Haitian Gang Leader? Frances Robles / NYT
The Future of Immigration in America—After Trump Is Gone. By
Today, it seems the term immigrant is now more a pejorative than a compliment. To be a noncitizen at any point means facing the risk of detention and deportation. To be among those tired, poor, huddled masses today means being the first target in a new deportation regime engineered by the Trump administration to strike fear.
The question that Americans need to ask themselves is what immigration will look like after the Trump administration. If Handlin once described the immigrant as the cornerstone of “American history,” what will be immigrants’ future in a xenophobic America? Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
Pete Hegseth’s Pastor Wants ‘Spiritual Warfare’ Waged On All. By Josh Kovensky / TPM
The man who led a congregation that gave birth to the religious movement Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth now follows has a few principles for you to understand.
At Christ Church, what’s contemplated is a single-minded effort to Christianize America, and then the world: decisions around where to plant churches, who to recruit, and how to communicate are all, in theory, envisioned in the same way that one might plan a military operation. The elder Wilson laid this out in “The Principles Of War,” explaining the goal of proselytizing as a directive from “our commander in chief,” a reference to Jesus Christ. Read more
Related: Pete Hegseth Is Creating a Patriarchal Pentagon to Fight Domestic Foes. By Jeet Heer / The Nation
Related: Why a ‘Paleo-Confederate’ Pastor Is on the Rise. By David French / NYT
100 days of Pope Leo XIV: An early test for the first American pontiff. By Claire Giangravé / RNS
In his first 100 days, Pope Leo XIV has balanced tradition and reform, emerging as an unlikely unifier in a divided U.S. church.
Leo’s unifying message has been consistent across his public appearances, from his first address to a recent speech for a crowd of 120,000 young people during a Mass at the Jubilee of Young People. In rare off-the-cuff remarks, Pope Leo urged the next generation of Catholics gathered there to “be agents of communion, capable of breaking down the logic of division and polarization, of individualism and egocentrism.” Read more
Hundreds of Catholic sisters walk Atlanta streets to pray for social, environmental justice. By Fiona Murphy / NCR
Catholic nuns walk through downtown Atlanta for the Leadership Conference of Women Religious’ “Outdoor Pilgrimage of Hope.”
As the sun rose Thursday morning (Aug. 14), hundreds of Catholic sisters walked through downtown Atlanta as part of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious’ “Outdoor Pilgrimage of Hope.” From 7 to 8 a.m., approximately 470 participants prayed in unison along a 1.2-mile route, guided by readings, music and periods of contemplative silence. Read more
Historical / Cultural
A new reading of Sherman’s march shows how enslaved people sought to free themselves. By Adria R. Walker / The Guardian
The version of the march that was popularized in the book and film Gone With the Wind doesn’t tell the full, or even a partially accurate, story, despite it being perhaps the most prominent understanding in the American zeitgeist of Sherman’s actions.
In the common understanding of the march, enslaved people are an afterthought, affected by Sherman’s actions by happenstance and largely rendered voiceless and without agency. But the historian Bennett Parten is adding to that notion. In his latest book, Somewhere Toward Freedom, Parten, an assistant professor of history at Georgia Southern University, seeks to add to the common understanding of Sherman’s march by presenting it as an emancipatory movement led by formerly enslaved people. Read more
At Alabama plantation, families of enslavers and enslaved strike a deal. By Emmanuel Felton / Wash Post
White and Black descendants have come together where their ancestors once lived, working to address the plantation’s legacy and promote healing. Will McGinnis, Perkins’s great-uncle, holds Bill Parker in his arms at the plantation.
For decades, the Black families maintained their portion of the private cemetery and the White descendants of the Wallace family took care of theirs. But in the early 2000s, Parker put up a fence that blocked access to the Black portion of the cemetery, local residents say,though none know exactly why. Read more
North Carolina Confederate Monument Goes Too Far, Lawsuit Says. Audra D. S. Burch / NYT
A long battle over the pro-slavery words on a Tyrrell County statue intensifies as the Trump administration reclaims Confederate imagery.
The first time Sherryreed Robinson remembers noticing the words — “IN APPRECIATION OF OUR FAITHFUL SLAVES” — etched on a Confederate monument in Columbia, N.C., she was a teenager performing with her high school band on the steps of the Tyrrell County courthouse. About three decades later, with the 123-year-old monument still overlooking the historic town’s Main Street, she joined a federal lawsuit calling for the “faithful slaves” inscription to be removed or covered. Read more
As civil rights books are pulled from school shelves, one Alabama town is refusing to forget its story. By Annabel Grossman / Independent
The Scottsboro Boys Museum tells the story of nine African American men who were falsely accused of the rape of two white women in 1931. The Scottsboro Boys with lawyer Juanita Jackson Mitchell in 1936. The men and boys spent combined total on 102 years in jail – for a crime that never happened.
The small city of Scottsboro in Northeastern Alabama is home to a store selling unclaimed luggage, a pretty park filled with geese, and a classic American diner serving some of the best grilled cheeses and soda floats in the South. It was also the location of one of the most significant events in civil rights history – an event that directly impacted the Movement of the 1950s and 60s and had ramifications that are still felt in the United States today. Read more
Magic City docuseries highlights strip clubs’ influence on hip-hop. By
For rappers — household names and aspiring stars alike — strip clubs can be more than dens of debauchery according to a new docuseries on Atlanta’s famed Magic City.
In the early 1980s, Michael Barney and his wife left his hometown of Camden, N.J., and relocated in Atlanta, where he started working in telecommunications and earned the nickname “Mr. Magic” from colleagues. One night out with friends at a popular strip club, he got the inspiration for what would become a cultural hotspot in the heart of the city. Read more
Sports
ESPN will not air Spike Lee’s docuseries on quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Guardian Staff
Multi-part series on ex-NFL player who protested racial injustice will not continue over ‘creative differences’
Director Spike Lee’s multi-part documentary series for ESPN Films about former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who sparked a national debate when he protested racial injustice nearly a decade ago, will not be released, the filmmaker and ESPN said. Read more
Related: Brian Flores gets a victory against NFL, but faces more legal battles. By Jason Reid / Andscape
The shooting at NFL headquarters raises hard truths, but no easy answers. By Jerry Brewer / Wash Post
Football didn’t turn Shane Tamura into a murderous gunman, but we need to take some time to wrestle with why he thought it did. After driving from Las Vegas to New York, he stormed into a Manhattan skyscraper toting an AR-style gun, seeking to access NFL headquarters. He opened fire in the lobby. He took an elevator to the 33rd floor. Along the way, he killed four people and injured an NFL employee. Then he fatally shot himself.
He left behind a three-page, handwritten letter addressed to the NFL in which he blamed the league for destroying his brain. He never played in the NFL. He didn’t even finish his senior year of high school because of academic problems. But Tamura, 27 and with a history of mental health problems, believed he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, commonly referred to as CTE. Read more
Travis Hunter’s GPA Proves His Academic Commitment Is As Strong As His NFL Aspirations. By Kandiss Edwards / Black Enterprise
Travis Hunter’s final GPA reveals he is who he thinks he is, a former student and rookie NFL player reaching for excellence.
He graduated in May 2025 with a degree in anthropology and a perfect 4.0 GPA. He finished his college career as the first player in Colorado history to be a unanimous First-Team All-American and First-Team Academic All-American. His first-team Academic All-America honors was earned for the second consecutive year. Read more
Coco Gauff lets frustration out with racket smash in error-heavy Cincinnati Open loss. By Rory Robinson / The Mirror
During a particularly off-kilter performance, the world No. 2 – who had complained about “super light” tennis balls during the tournament – could be seen tossing her racket and smashing it on the ground as errors mounted before suffering a disappointing defeat at the hands of world No. 9 Jasmine Paolini.
Despite her serving woes and unique ball-striking style, Gauff remains among the elite in tennis. She currently holds the No. 2 ranking worldwide and clinched her second Grand Slam title at the 2025 French Open by defeating Sabalenka in the final. Like Stubbs, Macci believes that while she has tasted success, her potential will be limited unless she improves her serve. Read more
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