Progressive Briefing for Wednesday, August 22
Paul Manafort found guilty, Michael Cohen pleads guilty, EPA admits Trump would sacrifice lives for coal, and more.
Facial recognition tech perpetuates racial bias. So why are we still using it?
In this ever-evolving technological world, it is time for both grassroots solutions and federal regulation.
Congressman’s wife pleads guilty to misusing campaign funds
Margaret Hunter recently pleaded guilty in federal court to her and her husband using their campaign funds as their private bank account for years.
Outrage and calls for justice after Sonya Massey’s fatal shooting by police in Illinois
Campaigners and political leaders across the United States respond with outrage and calls for justice after the release of body camera footage showing the deadly police shooting of Sonya Massey, an unarmed 36-year-old Black woman from Springfield, Illinois.
Why the way we measure poverty matters
A national panel is recommending changes to a key poverty measurement. It might sound technical, but the stakes are high.
Necropolitics and the language of death: How military talk turns recruits into killers
From boot camp battle cries to euphemisms on the battlefield, the U.S. military relies on “kill talk”—a robust linguistic infrastructure to strip individuality, suppress empathy, and normalize violence, long before they ever fire a shot.
After a spike in anti-Asian hate crimes, the government response stalls
The Biden administration has not delivered on one of the main mandates of the COVD-19 Hate Crimes Act.
University of California next in line to dump Wells Fargo contracts
The UC system is severing $475 million in contracts with Wells Fargo over, among other things, the bank’s ties to private prison corporations.
‘Unbelievable’: Half of new drugs launched in 2020-2021 cost $150,000 or more per year
"Big Pharma's yearly price hikes have pushed already sky-high drug prices into the stratosphere," said one advocacy group.
It’s time to restore and strengthen the Voting Rights Act
On the 52nd anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, 31 states with histories of racial discrimination no longer have federal oversight of their voting process.