The Trump administration took aggressive new steps on Tuesday to shut down the Department of Education. Through agreements with other federal agencies, the administration announced that it would give the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) oversight of some of the Education Department’s key functions. HHS will oversee special education and…
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There are moments when history moves so fast that distraction becomes dangerous. Last week was one of those moments. While much of Memphis and Shelby County were pulled into the familiar rhythms of election analysis, political frustration, and personality-driven debate, something far more consequential was unfolding in Nashville. Tennessee’s recent congressional redistricting effort…
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Lawmakers and privacy advocates are demanding answers from the Trump administration about its weaponization of digital tools and popular web platforms to spy on critics and activists. Targets have included a student who attended a pro-Palestine protest and anonymous web users posting about President Donald Trump’s violent immigration crackdown, but the administration’s secret systems of…
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Nearly a dozen agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) surrounded Muslim community leader Salah Sarsour on March 30 after he left his home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Born in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and serving as president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, the city’s largest mosque and Muslim institution, Sarsour is a husband, father, and grandfather described as a pillar of…
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The second Ramadan under Trump 2.0 has come with new denials of rights for Muslims detained in the administration’s fast-growing network of immigration jails. Ramadan, which began in mid-February and will end this week, is one of the holiest months in the Islamic calendar. Muslims observe it as a month of fasting each day from sunrise to sunset, engaging in communal prayer, studying the Quran…
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Lydia Romero strained to hear her husband’s feeble voice through the phone. A week earlier, immigration agents had grabbed Julio César Peña from his front yard in Glendale, California. Now, he was in a hospital after suffering a ministroke. He was shackled to the bed by his hand and foot, he told Romero, and agents were in the room, listening to the call. He was scared he would die and wanted…
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