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Thursday, June 22nd, 6:00PM-9:00PM, Cocktails & Culture: Celebrate Pride at Museum of the City of New York, 104th Street and Fifth Avenue. Celebrate Pride at our June edition of Cocktails & Culture! Dance the night away to the sounds of veteran New York DJ Chauncey D, spinning a versatile selection of house and dance beats throughout the evening. Catch exciting drag performances from Hibiscus and Mary Muscles. Enjoy themed cocktails cocktails and other libations from the MCNY Bar, plus delicious light bites from our pop-up cafe. Museum galleries will be open during the event so everyone can check out the latest exhibit New York Now: Home. Online tickets now available: LINK
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The Trust for Governors Island today announced the launch of THIRD Saturdays, a Governors Island Arts initiative celebrating the Organizations in Residence program. THIRD Saturdays programming will run every third Saturday of the month from May through October and will feature special indoor and outdoor programs from the two dozen organizations presenting free activities and…
The post Governors Island Arts Launches THIRD Saturdays Residence Program From Harlem To Hollis appeared first on Harlem World Magazine.
Earlier this month, New York City high schoolers teamed up with The Bell, a journalism nonprofit, to report on and investigate their schools and the education system, releasing their podcast series “Miseducation.”
All ten episodes of the “Miseducation” series are expected to be fully released on June 16, while the first six episodes are now available on The Bell’s website. Two student podcasters in schools in the Bronx and Queens gave their take on the school system and were excited to tell their stories.
Jose Santana, a student in the Bronx, reported the first story in the series entitled “Wake Up Call ––School Should Start Later.” He spoke to sleep experts, school staff and his classmates to gather information on his topic and record his episode with no previous experience in journalism.
“I don’t think I’ve ever interviewed a person in my life,” Santana said. “And [The Bell] really showed us how to do that and gave us the knowledge, the info that we needed to basically get everything done. It’s been a really rewarding experience.”
The Bell’s goal as an organization is to introduce and train New York City students in audio journalism through internships, professional development, and facilitating different journalism programs around the city.
Students in the podcast series also presented topics on school lunches, exit exams, sexual education curriculum and policies prohibiting phone usage. Students also shared experiences of racism perpetuated in their schools.
New York is the largest public school district in the country, with nearly a million students enrolled. At the same time, it is the most segregated school district nationwide, according to a report from the UCLA Civil Rights Project cited by The Bell.
Bree Campbell, a student in Queens, said her peers heard racially insensitive remarks during class and felt someone needed to speak out about the issue other than faculty. She interviewed affected students, a guidance counselor and her vice principal to address her and her classmates’ concerns.
She said the production effort was flexible. She navigated through interviewing sources on her own devices and recording narration for the episode in a podcasting studio. The Bell also had producers and audio editors that aided both students through the entire process.
The response from her episode was widely positive, she said. She saw the episode’s favorable impact on the student body and the staff’s extensive support. Even those that may have been criticized in the episode.
“I’m really grateful that they are so supportive, and they’re so glad that the report has been published and … put out in the public so people can perceive it,” Campbell said. “I would say now, there’s definitely a space where everyone can acknowledge the culture at my school, and now we can find ways to go about it and spread awareness about it and find a proper way to combat it.”
Campbell and Santana said they both received positive responses from their peers and educators and would hope to create another episode on a different topic. The two also said they were grateful for the opportunity to work on a long-form project from scratch.
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The Harlem-based national media arts nonprofit Black Public Media (BPM) has received a $40,000 award from the National Endowment for the Arts’ Grants for Arts Projects program. The award will support its fellowship and residency program for new works in immersive, interactive and emerging media at the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts at the University…
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI investigators who searched Harold Martin’s Maryland property in the fall of 2016 found classified documents — including material at the top secret level — strewn about his home, car and storage shed.
Unlike former President Donald Trump, the former National Security Agency contractor didn’t contest the allegations, ultimately pleading guilty in 2019 and admitting his actions were “wrong, illegal and highly questionable.” But his expressions of contrition and guilty plea to a single count of willful retention of national defense information didn’t spare him the harsh punishment of nine years in prison.
The resolution of that case looms as an ominous guidepost for the legal jeopardy Trump could face as he confronts 37 felony counts — 31 under the same century-old Espionage Act statute used to prosecute Martin and other defendants alleged to have illegally retained classified documents. Even many like Martin who have pleaded guilty and accepted responsibility have nonetheless been socked with yearslong prison sentences.
“When they decide to pursue a willful mishandling case, it’s to send a message: that we take these cases very seriously,” said Michael Zweiback, a defense lawyer and former Justice Department prosecutor. “They almost always are seeking jail time.”
How much prison time the former president could face in the event of a conviction is impossible to say, with such a decision ultimately up to the trial judge — in this case, a Trump appointee who has already demonstrated a willingness to rule in his favor. It’s also hard to know the extent to which other factors — including the logistical and political complications of jailing a former president — might play a role.
The Espionage Act offense is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, though it’s rare for first-time federal offenders to get close to the maximum. But beyond the retention, prosecutors have also identified multiple aggravating factors in Trump’s alleged conduct, accusing him of seeking to enlist others — including a lawyer and aides — to hide the records from investigators and showing off some to visitors. Some of the other counts in the indictment, including conspiracy to obstruct justice, call for up to 20 years in prison.
Justice Department prosecutors in recent years have used the Espionage Act provision against a variety of defendants, including a West Virginia woman who retained an NSA document related to a foreign government’s military and political issues. Elizabeth Jo Shirley pleaded guilty in 2020 to a willful retention count and was sentenced to eight years in prison.
This month, a retired Air Force intelligence officer named Robert Birchum was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to keeping classified files at his home, his overseas officer’s quarters and a storage pod in his driveway.
Many defendants have pleaded guilty, rather than face trial, though not all have gone to prison. Trump — who also faces charges related to hush-money payments in New York state court — has shown no signs that he could be headed toward a plea deal, vigorously insisting he is innocent and personally attacking Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith hours after appearing in Miami federal court Tuesday.
Despite the details in the indictment, Trump does have some avenues to try to contest the charges.
For one thing, he’s drawn Judge Aileen Cannon, who sided with Trump last year in the former president’s bid to appoint a special master to conduct an independent review of the seized classified documents. Citing the “stigma” she said was associated with an FBI search of Trump’s home, she said a “future indictment” based on items that should’ve been returned to Trump “would result in reputational harm of a decidedly different order of magnitude.”
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit unanimously overturned her ruling, which was widely criticized by legal experts as extraordinary and unusually broad.
Over the next several months, Cannon will make decisions that will shape the trial, including how quickly it will happen and whether any evidence will be kept out.
Prosecutors also face the challenge in Florida — where Republicans have made steady inroads in recent years — of a jury pool likely to be more favorable to Trump than if the case were tried in overwhelmingly Democratic Washington, D.C.
Still, “I think that it might very well be that Jack Smith welcomes a Florida jury because if there is a conviction, it will be much harder to say, ‘Well, that jury was somehow anti-Trump,’” said Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law school professor and former Justice Department official.
Experts anticipate Trump’s lawyers to echo the former president’s public remarks in trying to get the case dismissed by arguing he was entitled to have the documents and is the victim of prosecutorial overreach. Trump could also try to block prosecutors from being able to use key evidence, such as notes from his lawyer detailing conversations with the former president.
If the case gets to trial, experts say Trump’s attorneys may attempt what’s called “jury nullification” or try to convince jurors that he should be acquitted even if they believe Trump broke the law because the violation wasn’t serious enough to warrant charges and he is being singled out.
“The theme of the defense can be riddled with suggestions of unfairness and selective prosecution — basically trying to convince a jury that even if the former president did what the government says he did, none of this should have ever ended up in a criminal prosecution,” said Robert Mintz, a defense attorney and former Justice Department prosecutor.
Robert Kelner, a Washington criminal defense lawyer, said while an outright acquittal seems unlikely given the volume of evidence, a pathway for a mistrial exists if Trump attorneys can persuade even one juror to acquit on grounds that the president enjoyed the absolute authority to declassify information.
That authority ended the moment Trump left the presidency, but even so, “some jurors will likely find it hard to rationalize convicting him for something that he previously had the absolute authority (to do) simply because he didn’t file the right forms and do it at the right time,” Kelner said.
In the end, facing a mountain of evidence and the prospect of years in prison, Trump’s best hope may be a tactic he often pursues: Delay, delay, delay, said Cheryl Bader, a former federal prosecutor and head of Fordham University Law School’s Criminal Defense Clinic.
“His best defense may be to try to ride out the election cycle, be elected as president and therefore be in charge of the Justice Department before the case goes to trial,” she said.
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Richer reported from Boston.
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An annual study reviewing diversity hiring for Major League Baseball reported a record low of Black players on opening day rosters for the second straight year.
Thursday’s report card from The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at Central Florida issued an overall grade of C-plus, with a B for racial hiring and a C for gender hiring. The report examined a range of positions at MLB’s headquarters and within franchises using data collected by the league from March shortly before the start of the 2023 season.
Those grades were similar to the previous year, when the league had a B-minus overall, a B for race and a C-plus for gender.
But the study found Black players represented just 6.2% of players on opening day rosters, down from last year’s previous record low of 7.2%. Both figures are the lowest recorded in the study since it began in 1991, when 18% of MLB players were Black.
TIDES director and lead study author Richard Lapchick noted the decline comes despite MLB’s implementation of numerous programs to increase Black youth participation in the U.S. that could ultimately move the numbers down the line.
“I think the trend might continue another year or two until all the programs they’ve put in place have that type of impact,” Lapchick said in an interview with The Associated Press.
“It’s hard to say. I think eventually it’s going to turn around in the direction that baseball wants. Will it ever get back to where it was? I’d be surprised if it does.”
Billy Bean, MLB’s senior vice president of diversity, equity & inclusion, said in a statement that addressing the issue is a priority — and not a fleeting one.
“We have extensive programs through all stages of player development to increase Black participation in baseball,” Bean said. “We are encouraged by the progress being made at various levels of the pipeline. Diversity remains a top priority for our entire industry and we are committed to this as a long-term effort.”
The study’s findings come after last year’s World Series marked the first time there were no U.S.-born Black players since 1950, shortly after Jackie Robinson broke the MLB color barrier.
“I think that if it’s possible that the player number is going to be reversed, then it’s going to happen because of the efforts (MLB is) putting into it,” Lapchick said. “But there are other factors at play. If you’re a 13-year-old Black kid growing up and you look at Black role models in other sports and in baseball, you’ve got to believe your best chance is not in baseball.”
Still, there are indications of potential improvement.
Four of the first five players picked in last summer’s amateur draft were Black for the first time ever. Those four, and more than 300 MLB players, had participated in diversity initiatives such as the MLB Youth Academy, DREAM Series and the Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) program.
MLB also has pledged $150 million in a 10-year partnership with the Players Alliance. That nonprofit organization of current and former players works to increase Black involvement at all levels.
The study awarded MLB with an A-plus for diversity initiatives, and not all are focused solely on players. It referenced the newly created MLB University program, a 10-month career-development course to prepare diverse candidates for front office or on-field roles. The study also highlighted the Diversity Pipeline Program to grow the pool of qualified women and others for operations and on-field roles.
Another example: the league has conducted in-person and virtual recruiting efforts with students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) as outreach for summer internships, the study reported.
It’s all part of what Lapchick described as baseball “putting out a maximum effort” in diversity efforts.
TIDES issues annual report cards on racial- and gender-hiring practices in professional leagues and for college sports. Thursday’s MLB release is the first of the 2023 season reports.
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Follow Aaron Beard on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/aaronbeardap
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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With roughly a year and a half until the 2024 presidential contest, the field of candidates is largely set.
Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have dominated the early Republican race as the other candidates look for an opening to take them on. President Joe Biden faces a couple of Democratic challengers but is expected to secure his party’s nomination.
Here’s a look at the candidates competing for the Republican and Democratic nominations:
REPUBLICAN PRIMARY FIELD
The former president announced his third campaign for the White House on Nov. 15 at his Mar-a-Lago resort, forcing the party to again decide whether to embrace a candidate whose refusal to accept defeat in 2020 sparked the U.S. Capitol attack and still dominates his speeches.
The GOP front-runner remains hugely popular in the Republican Party, despite making history as the first president to be impeached twice and inciting the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. Referring to himself as America’s “most pro-life president,” Trump’s three nominations of conservative judges to the Supreme Court paved the way for the reversal of Roe v. Wade, which had legalized abortion nationwide for nearly 50 years. Sweeping criminal justice reforms he signed into law in 2019 eased mandatory minimum sentences and gave judges more discretion in sentencing.
In March, Trump became the first former U.S. president to be criminally charged, facing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records as part of a hush money scheme. He is now under indictment on dozens of charges related to alleged mishandling and retention of classified documents.
The Florida governor officially launched his 2024 presidential campaign on May 24 in a glitch-marred Twitter announcement, casting himself as Trump’s only legitimate Republican rival.
Heralding his state as a place “where woke goes to die,” DeSantis has framed his campaign around a desire to bring the conservative policies he championed in Florida to the national stage. He has made a name for himself battling with Disney over the entertainment giant’s opposition to a bill dubbed by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, which bans instruction or classroom discussion of LGBTQ issues in Florida public schools for all grades.
Under his governorship, the state has also banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy and blocked public colleges from using federal or state funding on diversity programs
The former vice president opened his White House bid on June 7 in Iowa with forceful criticism of Trump, accusing his onetime boss of abandoning conservative principles and arguing Trump’s Jan. 6 action and inaction amounted to a dereliction of duty.
While lauding the accomplishments of the “Trump-Pence administration,” Pence has said Trump endangered the vice president’s family and the lives of everyone at the U.S. Capitol by falsely insisting that Pence had the power to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
He faces an uphill battle in a party in which Trump remains the most dominant figure.
The South Carolina senator launched his campaign May 22 in his hometown of North Charleston with what he’s casting as an optimistic and compassionate message that can serve as a contrast with the rest of the field.
The Senate’s sole Black Republican, Scott has rejected the notion that the country is inherently racist and repudiated the teaching of critical race theory. He has said his party and the country are at a crossroads and must choose between “victimhood or victory.”
The former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina governor became the first major GOP challenger to Trump when she kicked off her campaign on Feb. 15 in Charleston. She is the only woman in the GOP field.
The former Trump Cabinet official once said she wouldn’t challenge her former boss for the White House in 2024. But she changed her mind, citing the country’s economic troubles and the need for “generational change,” a nod to the 77-year-old Trump’s age.
The wealthy biotech entrepreneur and author of “Woke, Inc.” kicked off his presidential campaign on Feb. 21 with a video and op-ed.
The son of Indian immigrants, he has gained stature in conservative circles for his criticism of the environmental, social and corporate governance movement that aims to promote socially responsible investing. He has largely self-funded his campaign so far.
The former two-term New Jersey governor went after Trump when announcing his presidential campaign on June 6 in New Hampshire, calling the former president a “lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog” and arguing that he’s the only one who can stop him.
Christie, a 2016 presidential candidate and former Trump adviser, has said that others may be afraid to challenge the former president, but he has no such qualms. “The reason I’m going after Trump is twofold,” Christie said. “One, he deserves it. And two, it’s the way to win.”
The former two-term Arkansas governor launched his presidential campaign on April 26 in Bentonville, pledging to “bring out the best of America” and to reform federal law enforcement agencies.
He announced his campaign shortly after Trump was indicted by a grand jury in New York and has called for the former president to drop out of the race, saying, “The office is more important than any individual person.”
The two-term North Dakota governor announced his candidacy on June 7 in Fargo. A former computer software entrepreneur, he is known to few outside his home state but portrays himself as a commonsense, rural-state conservative experienced in energy policy.
The conservative talk radio host announced his campaign on April 20 on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” He made his first bid for public office in 2021 in a failed effort to replace California Gov. Gavin Newsom in a recall election.
The Miami mayor announced his presidential bid on June 15 on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Suarez, a two-term mayor first elected in 2017, is also president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. He is the only Hispanic candidate in the race.
DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY FIELD
President Joe Biden formally announced his reelection campaign on April 25 in a video, asking voters for time to “finish this job.”
Biden, the oldest president in America history, would be 86 at the end of a second term, and his age has prompted some of his critics to question whether he can serve effectively. A notable swath of Democratic voters has indicated they would prefer he not run, though he is expected to easily win the Democratic nomination.
Biden, who has vowed to “restore the soul of America,” plans to run on his record. He spent his first two years as president combating the coronavirus pandemic and pushing through major bills such as the bipartisan infrastructure package and legislation to promote high-tech manufacturing and climate measures.
The bestselling author and environmental lawyer launched a long-shot bid to challenge Biden on April 19 in Boston.
A nephew of President John F. Kennedy and son of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, he has emerged as one of the leading voices of the anti-vaccine movement, with public health experts and even members of his own family describing his work as misleading and dangerous. He has also been linked to far-right figures in recent years.
Self-help author Marianne Williamson entered the Democratic primary on March 4 in Washington, calling for “a vision of justice and love that is so powerful that it will override the forces of hatred and injustice and fear.”
During her unsuccessful 2020 presidential campaign, she proposed the creation of a Department of Peace and argued the federal government should pay large financial reparations to Black Americans as atonement for centuries of slavery and discrimination.
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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP
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Environmental racism against Black Americans has been at the forefront of many of the disparities and health issues the community has faced throughout history. It is also a conversation that Alicia White, founder of Project Petals, says needs to be strengthened this Juneteenth.
Project Petals is an environmental, climate and community development organization founded in 2014 to combat issues of climate justice affecting Black and BIPOC communities. The group works with community leaders and agencies to find ways to fight environmental injustice and implement new ways to sustain the health of the people in these communities.
“The environmental injustices that have happened in the United States of America, historically, have been egregious,” White, whose grandmother was a sharecropper from Alabama, said.
As a native of Jamaica, Queens, White highlighted some of the environmental issues that Back and brown communities in New York face including a lack of access to green spaces, air pollution, and lack of fresh produce.
“In our outer boroughs, there are a lot of green spaces that exist. Instead of kids and children having access to that land to play or seniors having access to take a walk, we were diverted to just using concrete streets and concrete sidewalks for those daily activities,” White said.
“Many of the Black communities throughout New York City are positioned in places that are highly trafficked, sometimes trucks are diverted through Black communities and communities of color. Our green spaces are used as dumping grounds instead of places where people can have a green space to go. And, so my organization really works with environmental leaders and community leaders throughout NYC to create those green spaces, and then also write letters to politicians, connecting with city agencies to make those green spaces available and accessible to us,” White continued.
The impact of these challenges and not having clean spaces to meet and congregate affects not just the physical health but the mental health of these communities, according to White.
Project Petals helps to create green spaces in the different communities with resources like gardening and composting spaces. They also provide climate and environmental education in areas like growing their own food and preparing for the effects of climate change.
The group has worked throughout the boroughs in areas like the South Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens, where White’s first major project involved the restoration of Railroad Park, which would eventually grow to be renamed Gwen Ifill Park in the Jamaica neighborhood.
“We’ve connected with community leaders and environmental leaders. We’ve connected them with everything from tools and resources like solar power. This has improved the environment for the communities overall. It has given people access to public green spaces that they have not had before. It has given them access to fresher produce, healthy food, and places that are food deserts. We teach people how to compost and overall live healthier lives and how much a healthy environment can help improve the communities in which we live,” White explained.
This year Project Petals is expanding outside of New York to work with environmental leaders in states like New Jersey, Atlanta, and Florida so that they’re able to follow the same model of the organization.
Last week, as the Canadian Wildfire smoke engulfed New York, White says she immediately thought of how it would impact Black and brown communities.
“We have Black and brown communities that are living in air qualities that are already horrible. So now we add climate change on top of that, it exacerbates whatever the air quality originally was… While we look at the index for what the air quality is for New York City, let’s times that by two or three for Black and brown communities,” White said.
The Amsterdam News previously reported on the concern about heat temperatures, and the impact of the heat island effect on New Yorkers in communities of color. Solutions that White says are needed include making utilities such as electricity public in order to prevent air conditioners from being cut off for non-payment and to keep people from having access to cooler air.
In addition to public utilities, White says that creating more green spaces, parks and planting more trees and greenery will keep Black and brown communities cooler in the summer months.
Project Petals also has a Youth Builders Program designed to connect young people with careers like environmental scientists, architects, engineers, urban planners and designers, etc.––jobs that White notes Black people have historically been kept out of and that she says are the “building blocks to our climate and environment.”
For Juneteenth, White is hoping for the community to rally around fighting for climate justice and environmental justice.
“If we do not have a habitable planet, we will not be here. Black communities have been bearing the brunt of environmental injustice for as long as I can remember. Having this conversation on Juenteenth is crucial for policy, and really getting our demands and our concerns out there when it comes to our environments, our health and where we fall because as the climate conversation moves on, our communities are getting left behind.”
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