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#NoDAPL: Facebook Users Check in at Standing Rock in a Rousing Show of Solidarity
A post that went viral on Facebook beginning Sunday evening urged users to check in at Standing Rock Reservation in Cannonball, N.D. The post said that users would be helping to thwart law-enforcement officers who were using social media to track protesters of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The post instructed users to make a public…
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Calif.'s 1st Female Black Judge and Longtime Jurist Dead at 96
The first female black judge in California, and one of the state’s longest-serving jurists in state history, has died at the age of 96, the Associated Press reports. Vaino Spencer died in her sleep of natural causes Oct. 25 at her home in Los Angeles, her niece, Fatimah Gilliam, said. Spencer was born July 22, 1920,…
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#NoDAPL: Amnesty International Sending Human Rights Delegation to Standing Rock
In a press release issued Oct. 28, Amnesty International USA announced that it will be sending a delegation of human rights observers to monitor the response of law enforcement to protests by indigenous communities. As previously reported on The Root, tensions rose at a #NoDAPL resistance camp Oct. 27 when more than 100 militarized police…
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Judge Rules Flint Residents Can Sue State of Mich. Over Water Crisis
A judge in the Michigan Court of Claims ruled Thursday that residents of the city of Flint, Mich., have the right to sue the state and state officials for the decisions that led to the city’s lead-contaminated-water crisis. The Detroit News reports that Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Mark T. Boonstra, who presides over the…
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Supreme Court to Rule on Va. Teen’s Bathroom-Access Lawsuit
The U.S. Supreme Court announced Friday that it would decide in in Gloucester County School Board v. G.G. whether a transgender boy may use the boys’ bathroom in a Virginia high school. The high court will decide whether the Obama administration may require public school systems to let transgender students use bathrooms that align with their…
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More Than 140 #NoDAPL Water Protectors Arrested Overnight
Police and National Guard troops arrested more than 140 water protectors near a Dakota Access Pipeline construction site in Cannon Ball, N.D., on Thursday. The Morton County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement that authorities had arrested 141 protesters by midnight local time after a more than six-hour standoff, NBC News reports. As previously reported…
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President Obama Grants Another 98 Commutations for October
President Barack Obama made a commitment to use his clemency authority through the remainder of his time in office, and on Thursday he honored that commitment by granting another 98 commutations. Combined with the 102 commutations he granted at the beginning of October, that brings his total for the month to 200, and his total…
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Report: More Than 100 Militarized Police Raid #NoDAPL Resistance Camp
Hundreds of militarized police were deployed Thursday to a resistance camp built by Native American water protectors in the path of the proposed $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline in Cannonball, N.D. Democracy Now! reports that photos and multiple videos posted to Facebook Live show over 100 officers in riot gear—flanked by multiple mine-resistant ambush-protected military…
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#CoatSwitching Is Trending Nationally on Twitter, and This Is Why
As a native and current resident of Los Angeles, I have no idea what #CoatSwitching is. I don’t even own a coat. I have a nice, warm hoodie and a cute sweater collection, and that’s about it. I do, however, know what code-switching is. I am a code-switching master. I can go from that Valley…
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New Prince Album Coming in November
It has been exactly seven months since the world lost the Purple One, otherwise known as Prince. In memoriam, his music, both classic and unreleased, is being repackaged and reissued to a nation of fans still in disbelief. According to the Los Angeles Times, Warner Bros. and NPG Records have announced a 2017 release of…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
