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Jury Acquits Man Who Offered $500 to ‘Anyone Who Kills an ICE Agent’ on Twitter, but Questions About ‘True Threats’ Remain
A federal jury found a man who tweeted an offer of $500 to kill an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer was apparently just joking on Friday. The case revisits the issue of what is deemed a credible threat at a time when so much of what we say is online and therefore, searchable and…
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Hate-Crime Trial Begins in Killing of Black Student on University of Maryland Campus
Jury selection will begin today in the trial of Sean Urbanski, the Maryland man accused of fatally stabbing Bowie State University student Richard Collins III at a bus stop on the University of Maryland campus two years ago. The 23-year-old Collins was a freshly-commissioned U.S. Army lieutenant just days away from graduating. Urbanski will be…
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Three Queens to Rule Them All: South Side Chicago School Crowned State Chess Champs
Ten years ago, St. Ethelreda, a majority-black co-ed Catholic school on Chicago’s South Side, was close to being shuttered due to low enrollment. Now, the school is sitting on top, thanks to the performance of three chess champions. Shakira Luster, Trechelle Williams, and Imani Hall were greeted with raucous cheers from their fellow students this…
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Revisionist History X: Nikki Haley Claims Dylann Roof ‘Hijacked’ Meaning of Confederate Flag
For the better part of this year, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley was blessedly irrelevant. That changed Friday, after a clip of a recent interview with Glenn Beck went viral. In the snippet, Haley appears to suggest the Confederate flag was not a symbol of racism until Dylann Roof made it so.…
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Study Shows Link Between Police Shootings of Unarmed Black People and Health of Black Babies
Fatal police encounters are devastating for the communities in which they occur: families are irreparably ripped apart; trauma spreads through neighborhood institutions like schools and churches; and trust between the community and law enforcement (and, oftentimes, other branches of local government) is broken. Any one of these problems present tremendous challenges to the health and…
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A 'War on the Poor': Amid Avalanche of Criticism, Trump Administration Restricts Food Stamps for Hundreds of Thousands
A controversial new Trump administration rule finalized Wednesday would cut nearly 700,000 people from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. The decision, part of a larger-scale effort to push millions of people off SNAP benefits, comes despite vehement and bipartisan opposition to the rule. The new rule applies changes to an existing restriction, which requires…
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Man Kills Chicago College Student Because She Ignored His Advances, Police Say
It’s an experience not unfamiliar to many women: walking past, and ignoring, a stranger’s catcalls. It’s so common that our responses are automatic—a sharp retort, maybe, or an exasperated eye roll. Many of us show no reaction at all, turning up the music in our headphones or continuing to stare straight ahead at the path…
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3 Teenage Boys Were Wrongfully Convicted for Murdering Another Teen Over a Jacket. 36 Years Later, They're Finally Free
Alfred Chestnut knew he was innocent, and after more than thirty years behind bars, he had faith that he could convince others to see it, too. Now, thanks in part to his efforts, he and Andrew Stewart and Ransom Watkins, all wrongfully convicted for the 1983 murder of a 14-year-old Baltimore boy, are free men.…
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Chilling Video Shows What a Young Michigan Woman Saw Just Moments Before Her Boyfriend Allegedly Shot Her
You may not know India Mackey (in fact, chances are you don’t), but you know exactly what the young Michigan woman saw in the moments before her death. We know because she filmed it: She, in the driver’s seat of her boyfriend’s van on Nov. 19, her phone trained on her 18-year-old boyfriend, Kevin Dixon,…
