Poll: Black Americans see racism as a persistent challenge, and few say the country's racial reckoning has brought change

Jennifer Agiesta - Yesterday 

Two-thirds of Black Americans say that recent increased focus on race and racial inequality in the US has not led to changes that are improving the lives of Black people, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.

The finding marks a pessimistic turn: In September of 2020, a majority of Black adults (56%) felt the added attention to issues of race and equality following a summer of protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd would lead to changes that improved the lives of Black people.

In the new survey, however, 65% of Black adults say that such changes haven’t materialized. Just 13% see it as extremely or very likely that Black people in the US will achieve equality, with little variation in that figure by age, gender, region or education level.

The survey – which included interviews with more than 3,000 Black Americans nationwide conducted last fall – finds 82% consider racism a major problem for Black people in the US. About 8 in 10 Black Americans report having personally experienced discrimination because of their race or ethnicity (79%) – including 15% who say they experience such discrimination regularly. And roughly 7 in 10 (68%) say racial discrimination is the main reason why many Black people can’t get ahead these days.

“Overall, Black Americans are clear on what they think the problems are facing the country and how to remedy them,” write Kiana Cox and Khadijah Edwards, the report’s authors. “However, they are skeptical that meaningful changes will take place in their lifetime.”

A broad majority (85%) of Black adults say Black people in the US today are significantly affected by the legacy of slavery, and 77% say descendants of people enslaved in the US should be repaid in some way. But just 7% of Black adults see the payment of reparations as very or extremely likely in their own lifetimes. Among the overall US adult population, just 30% favor such reparations.

Racism ranks as the most pressing problem for Black people living in the US out of six issues tested in the survey. Almost two-thirds of Black adults, 63%, say it is an extremely big problem for Black Americans, while 60% say the same of police brutality, 54% of economic inequality, 47% affordability of health care, 46% efforts to limit voting and 40% the quality of K-12 schools.

Related video: Factoring in racial demographic information in election predictions, as the U.S. becomes a minority-majority nation       Duration 3:46  View on Watch

A narrow majority of Black adults say that racism in the law is a bigger problem than racism by individual people (52%), while 43% feel individual racism is a bigger issue than that built into the law. Opinions are polarized, with 56% of Black Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents saying racism in the law is the bigger issue, while 59% of Black Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say racism by individuals is a bigger problem.

Most Black Americans say that major changes are needed in American institutions to enable Black people to be treated fairly. That sentiment is strongest when it comes to the criminal justice system, where about half or more say the prison system (54%), policing (49%) or courts and the judicial process (48%) need to be completely rebuilt for Black people to receive fair treatment. Fewer feel a complete rebuild is in order for the political system (42%), the economic system (37%) or the health care system (34%), even though most say those systems merit major changes or more. Across each of these areas, few who think changes are needed expect to see them happen in their own lifetime.

Black Democrats and Democratic-leaners are more likely to say that the policing system needs to be rebuilt than Black Republicans and GOP-leaners are to say the same, 52% to 29%. But there’s less of a partisan divide over police funding. A modest 39% plurality of Black adults say funding for police departments in their area should stay about the same, with 35% wanting to see the funding increased, and 23% wanting it to be decreased. Those numbers are close to identical across party lines.

Black Americans see heading to the ballot box as the most effective strategy for helping Black people in the United States move toward equality. All told, 63% call voting an extremely or very effective tactic in the effort to achieve equality for Black Americans, including 43% who say it is extremely effective. Supporting Black businesses is the only other tactic rated as deeply effective by most Black Americans (58% call that extremely or very effective). About half (48%) say it is effective to volunteer with organizations dedicated to Black equality, 42% say the same about protesting and 40% about contacting elected officials.

But the survey finds broad differences by age when it comes to views on voting. Overall, only about half of Black adults younger than 30 say that voting is an extremely or very effective path toward equality, compared with 77% of Black adults age 65 or older. There is also a sharp drop-off between older and younger Black adults in the level of concern they express about efforts to limit voting. While 61% of Black Americans age 65 or older say those efforts are an extremely big problem, that drops to just 32% among those younger than 30. Age differences are less pronounced across the other issues and political actions tested in the survey.

A plurality (39%) of Black Americans overall choose Black Lives Matter as the organization they feel has done the most to help Black people recently, topping the NAACP (17%), Black churches or other religious organizations (13%), the Congressional Black Caucus (6%) and the National Urban League (3%). Another 14% named another organization not included in the question.

About three in 10 Black Americans say that establishing a national Black political party would be an effective strategy for helping Black people move toward equality in the US, while slightly fewer see it as effective to have all Black officials governing Black neighborhoods. About 4 in 10 say all businesses in Black neighborhoods being Black-owned would be an effective way to improve equality for Black Americans.

The Pew Research Center surveyed a random national sample of 3,912 Black Americans online from Oct. 4-17, 2021. The sample was drawn from probability-based panels, and the results for the full sample of Black adults have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points. It is larger for subgroups.

Governments let 'once-in-a-generation opportunity’ to protect high seas sail by, Greenpeace says

Two weeks of United Nations negotiations for a high seas treaty have ended in failure, with wealthy countries slowing down the process and Russia acting as "a key blocker" in the discussions, says Greenpeace.

This will jeopardize ambitions to protect 30 per cent of the world’s oceans by 2030, according to a press release from the environmental non-profit.

Roughly two-thirds of the world’s oceans fall outside the jurisdiction of any nation and are largely unprotected from pressures like overfishing, pollution and resource extraction. A UN high seas treaty has been in the works for more than a decade and would be the first legally binding framework to protect these waters.

This latest round of negotiations showed countries like Canada, the United States, Australia, the U.K. and the European Union let a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to protect half the planet” pass them by, Sarah King, Greenpeace Canada’s head of oceans and plastics, said in a press release. The negotiations concluded on Friday.

A coalition of more than 50 countries — including Canada — pledged to push to finalize a strong high seas treaty this year, but unless ministers call an emergency meeting to finish the negotiations, the talks will likely drag into 2023.

“Apparently, two decades of talks alongside catastrophic losses across marine food chains, ecosystems and to front-line communities aren’t enough motivation for governments to agree [on] a blueprint for ocean recovery,” said King.

While the Pacific islands and Caribbean groups pushed hard to finalize the treaty from the get-go, Global North countries waited until the 11th hour to work towards compromises, Laura Meller of Greenpeace’s Protect the Oceans campaign said in the press release.

The Pacific islands region is threatened by myriad climate impacts, from dangerous sea-level rise to coral reef degradation. Fisheries are a key source of food, employment and economic development for the region, and climate change’s lesser-known threats like ocean acidification can, and will, hurt the health of marine species. At the same time, these small island states are responsible for only a tiny fraction of climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

“Failure to deliver a treaty at these talks jeopardizes the livelihoods and food security of billions of people around the world,” said Meller. “While countries continue to talk, the oceans and all those who rely on them will suffer.”

Natasha Bulowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada's National Observer

Last chance to offer input on caribou recovery proposal



There is still time to provide your feedback toward Parks Canada’s caribou conservation proposal, but you have to act fast. The deadline is Friday, Sept. 2.

Jean-François Bisaillon, project manager for the Jasper Caribou Recovery Program, said that there have been more than 200 comments, questions and feedback submissions that have been received from members of the public as of Monday morning.

“That’s pretty good actually,” he said.

Those comments were submitted via the online portal found at www.letstalkmountainparks.ca as well as by email and during the virtual and in-person public input sessions that were held in June.

“We’re really pleased with the level of comments and engagement so far,” Bisaillon said.

The proposal considers the very precarious status of Jasper National Park’s two remaining caribou herds: the Tonquin and Brazeau herds. Combined, they have barely more than a dozen breeding females.

“Without intervention, the Tonquin and Brazeau herds will eventually disappear from Jasper National Park,” reads a statement found on the online portal.

The Maligne herd was considered to be extirpated two years ago after several years of aerial surveys returned with zero sightings.

The proposal comes with a $24-million commitment from the federal government. That funding would go toward the construction and management of an enclosed and fully staffed breeding facility close to the Tonquin Valley.

Female caribou would be relocated there for breeding by 2025. Their first young would ideally be ready for release into the wild the following year.

The proposal is open to all Canadians to contribute feedback on.

Along with those comments from the general public (as well as comments from its Indigenous and stakeholder partners), Parks Canada’s decision will also consider scientific research, the results of a Detailed Impact Assessment and discussions with provincial jurisdictions including both the Government of Alberta and British Columbia, as well as Environment and Climate Change Canada.

“Lots of discussion, lots of engagement about this project. This is pretty exciting,” Bisaillon said, adding that he still hopes that more people will inform themselves about the project and why it is necessary before offering their own comments on both their level of support for it and whether it can be improved.

“The more, the better,” he said. “It’s important to say that these comments will be carefully analyzed. It is really important that we get comments from anyone interested.”

Bisaillon added that a decision would likely be expected later in the autumn.

Scott Hayes, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Jasper Fitzhugh

Scientists in China created the first-ever mammal with fully reprogrammed genes

Joshua Hawkins - 

testing age reversing therapy on mice© Provided by BGR

Scientists have been messing around with genetics for years now. One of the most powerful gene-editing tools, CRISPR, has even allowed them to create genetically modified mosquitos and could let us make hypoallergenic cats sometime in the future, too. Now, scientists in China have made a massive breakthrough, creating the first genetically modified mammal to sport fully reprogrammed genes.

Breaking chromosomes


A simulated strand of DNA© Provided by BGR

The researchers published a paper in the journal Science detailing the process by which they made the first genetically modified mammal with fully reprogrammed genes. The team took each chromosome from a mouse and then broke them down. They reorganized them into a new combination, creating what they call Xiao Zhu, or “Little Bamboo.”

The new genetically modified mouse is a first for science, as the mammal is made up of completely reprogrammed genes. This is the first time that the modification of mammalian genes has been carried out on a scale of this magnitude, the scientists note in their paper.

Chromosomes are essentially the building blocks of evolution. It is these threads that hold DNA in a cell’s nuclei. Normally, chromosomes break apart and recombine naturally. That’s what helps drive organic evolution. It’s an extremely delicate and complicated process, and we’ve struggled to pull it off for years. That’s why this genetically modified mammal with fully reprogrammed genes is such a big piece of news.


scientists edited chromosomes to create a genetically modified mammal© Provided by BGR

Not only is this a huge milestone for genetic modification, but it also proves that humans can genetically modify animals at a chromosome level and still create living creatures. It’s also scary to think about the possibilities this could unlock. Mammalian genes are very complex, too, which makes this success even sweeter.

Of course, mistakes can happen during these processes, too. The scientists even encountered some errors when recombining chromosomes, which led to some of the genetically modified mammals dying shortly after modification (via South China Morning Post). However, Xiao Zhu’s existence proves that a little trial and error paid off in the long run. All of this research will further how humans study genetics, too.

Proving that we can create a genetically modified mammal with fully reprogrammed genes could also help spurn other research using CRISPR and genetic modification. And it could allow for new breakthroughs in synthetic biology as a whole.

Edmonton may be known for winter chill, but heat islands on the rise, researchers say

EDMONTON — Researchers at the University of Alberta say a city known for its bone-chilling winter temperatures also has potentially dangerous heat islands that have been getting hotter for the last two decades.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The heat-island effect measures the difference in surface temperature between urban and rural areas, said Sandeep Agrawal, a professor in the university's Faculty of Science.

It has been closely investigated in eastern cities such as Montreal and Toronto, he added.

"A winter city like Edmonton has not been studied for this phenomenon and we did not know if it was occurring here," Agrawal said in a recent interview.

"The big takeaway is Edmonton also experiences urban heat-island effect. This could be deadly for people during summer months, from headaches, to heatstroke, to even heat-related mortality like what we saw in B.C. last year where hundreds of people died.

"The deaths are attributed to heat islands."

The research, co-authored by post-doctoral researcher Nilusha Welegedara, is under review for publication.

Agrawal said Edmonton has numerous areas where the temperature of the ground has jumped by between 6 C and 12 C overall compared to rural areas over the past 20 years — and it's due to global warming and a loss of vegetation.

"Cities are getting more and more paved over with concrete and surfaces that absorb heat at the expense of vegetation," he said.

Agrawal and his team analyzed satellite images between 1999 and 2021 and examined 402 neighbourhoods, including industrial areas, residential areas and the North Saskatchewan River Valley, which stretches through the city and is one of largest urban parks in North America.

The study found the north side of the city and some downtown areas with low vegetation had higher temperatures than the south side, which was cooler because of the river valley and older neighbourhoods with features such as boulevard trees.

"Literature does say that heat exposure is much more pronounced among people who are marginalized and vulnerable, " he said.

"What we saw was that the neighbourhoods along the River Valley are cooler, and they're also occupied by people of a higher socio-economic status. So you can say that … it's the lower-economic status people who are a lot more affected by it."

Agrawal said the city's urban planning needs to take into account the hot summers that are becoming common along with cold winter weather.

“Cities like Edmonton have long focused on their identities as winter cities. I believe Edmonton’s identity is changing as the temperature rises over the years,” Agrawal said.

"When we are building new neighbourhoods, there needs to be some way of preserving vegetation and trees so that we can mitigate this effect as much as we can," he said.

The study also discourages the use of materials such as concrete and asphalt because it absorbs more heat.

"There are alternate material pavers available that can help," he said.

Agrawal said his team is now researching a similar trend in Calgary and Vancouver.

"Canada is supposedly a winter country. Edmonton especially is considered a winter city, but that's not the case anymore when you're talking about the urban heat-island effect."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 31, 2022.

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This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press

Glencore Canadian mine workers reach 'tentative agreement' that could end three-month strike

Naimul Karim - 1h ago

Glencore's Raglan mine in Nunavik, Que., produces 40,000 tonnes of nickel annually. Six-hundred and thirty workers at the mine have been on strike since the end of May.

© Provided by Financial Post

Workers at Quebec’s largest nickel mine this week reached a “tentative agreement” with owner Glencore PLC that could restart production more than three months after 630 union members went on strike demanding better working conditions.

The work stoppage began on May 27 after 98 per cent of union workers agreed to push for a better work culture and criticized the increased use of subcontracting. In July, Glencore offered workers a new deal, which included a yearly compensation of at least $130,000, twice the average pay in Quebec, but 77 per cent of the workers rejected it.

“The 630 union members who work at the Raglan mine in Nunavik will be called upon to vote over the next two weeks,” the United Steelworkers Union said about Glencore’s latest offer in a press release on Monday.

A union official refused to disclose the terms of the offer, but on Wednesday said the strike would continue until the result of the vote is known. Meetings will be held next week so that members can better understand the new agreement.

Glencore wasn’t immediately available for a comment.

The Raglan mine in northern Quebec has been in operation since 1997 and annually produces about 40,000 tonnes of nickel. It includes four underground mines called Kikialik, Qakimajurq, Katinniq and Mine 2. Production at the mine has largely been on hold since the strike began.

As one of the largest producers of nickel in Canada, a prolonged closure of the mine could hurt global supplies of Class 1 nickel, which is needed to manufacture electric vehicles, said Patricia Mohr, a former vice-president of economics at the Bank of Nova Scotia, and now an independent analyst who follows battery metals.

In May, Eric Savard, president of the mine’s union, said in a press release that Glencore had been “continually pushing the limits” and that it had reached a point where those who refused to work overtime were given the “cold shoulder.”

Savard added that the mine often had “many more contractors” at the site than unionized workers, which meant fewer economic benefits for the local economy.

Glencore, however, denied the allegations at the time and said the mine had an 86-per-cent satisfaction rate based on internal surveys.

About 1,000 kilometres to the north, the jobs of more than 1,000 workers at a mine in Nunavut remain uncertain as their fortunes depend upon whether Baffinland Iron Mines Corp.’s extraction permit is renewed and enhanced by the federal government.

Workers received termination notices on July 31, but the company said it would rescind them if it gets a permit to increase its annual extraction limit of iron ore to six million tonnes from its original allowance of 4.2 million tonnes.

Some 1,100 workers are scheduled to be let go over two rounds on Sept. 25 and Oct. 11.

The federal government is waiting on a report by the Nunavut Impact Review Board (NIRB), the territory’s environmental assessment agency. The feds asked the board to provide its recommendation by late August, but the NIRB on Aug. 25 said it intends to submit its report on Sept. 19, which is a week before the terminations begin.

“While the board understands that this timeline is greater than what was requested by the minister and urged by Baffinland and several parties, the board has balanced the urgency of the decision, with the board’s obligation to conduct a thorough assessment in the circumstances of each proposal,” NIRB’s chairperson Marjorie Kaviq Kaluraq, said in a letter .

Peter Ackman, a spokesperson for Baffinland, said the company was “optimistic” its permit would be renewed and the jobs “will be saved.”

But the union representing the workers say that the delay has disrupted the lives of the miners. “Its not realistic to issue a decision a few days before mass layoffs are about to start,” said Mike Gallagher, business manager for the International Union of Operating Engineers.

“It’s not like throwing a switch on or off. People have to plan. They start to make other arrangements. This erodes the workforce.”

Gallagher added that he wrote to the Ministry of Northern Affairs on Tuesday asking the federal government to exercise its authority by renewing the permit and “saving the jobs.”

• Email: nkarim@postmedia.com | Twitter: naimonthefield

US court dismisses Nazi-era Guelph Treasure art dispute


BERLIN (AP) — An American court has thrown out a lawsuit against a German museum foundation over a medieval treasure trove that was filed by heirs of Nazi-era Jewish art dealers, saying that the U.S. lacked jurisdiction to hear such a lawsuit.


Provided by The Canadian Press

The foundation that oversees Berlin’s museums said in a statement Tuesday that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last week granted the foundation's motion to dismiss the 2015 restitution lawsuit that was brought against it, bringing the case to an end in the U.S., absent an appeal by the plaintiff.

The Welfenschatz, or Guelph Treasure, which is at the center of a long-running ownership dispute, includes silver and gold crucifixes, altars, intricate silverwork and other relics worth more than 200 million euros (dollars).

The collection, which has been on display in Berlin since the early 1960s and is currently at the city’s Bode Museum, is considered the largest collection of German church treasures in public hands.

The heirs maintained that their ancestors had no choice but to sell the Christian artifacts in 1935 to the Nazi government for less than their value.

The state-run foundation that owns the collection has said the collectors weren’t forced to sell the treasures, arguing among other things that the collection was not even in Germany at the time of its sale.

On Tuesday, the president of the museum foundation, also known as the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz or SPK, Herrmann Parzinger, welcomed the court decision.

“SPK is pleased with the district court’s ruling, which affirms SPK’s long-held assessment that this lawsuit seeking the restitution of the Guelph Treasure should not be heard in a U.S. court," Parzinger said.

“SPK has also long maintained that this lawsuit lacked merit, as the Guelph Treasure’s sale in 1935 was not a forced sale due to Nazi persecution," he added.

The heirs originally pressed their claims in Germany, but a German commission found the artworks’ sale was made voluntarily and for fair market value. A suit was then filed in the United States. Germany and the SPK foundation argued the case did not belong in American courts.

The U.S. District Court’s ruling follows a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in February 2021 that had overturned a lower court’s denial of the Berlin foundation's previous motion to dismiss this lawsuit.

Kirsten Grieshaber, The Associated Press

Trump's Truth Social not approved for Google Play store over content moderation concerns


“On August 19, we notified Truth Social of several violations of standard policies in their current app submission and reiterated that having effective systems for moderating user-generated content is a condition of our terms of service for any app to go live on Google Play,” Google said in a statement, according to multiple reports.


Donald Trump launches Truth Social app© Provided by USA TODAY

“Last week Truth Social wrote back acknowledging our feedback and saying that they are working on addressing these issues,” Google added.

USA TODAY has reached out to Google for more information.

The delay was first reported by Axios.

Politics: Lawmakers press Meta, TikTok, Truth Social over threats to FBI after Mar-a-Lago search

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The app launched on Apple’s App Store in February. Android users make up approximately 40% of smartphone users in the United States, according to multiple reports.

Trump Media & Technology Group, Truth Social’s parent company, in a press release said it has “worked in good faith with Google to ensure that the Truth Social Android App complies with Google’s policies without compromising our promise to be a haven for free speech.”

Trump announced last October that he would launch Truth Social, which made its debut in February. The former president was barred from Twitter and Facebook following the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, that attempted to disrupt Congress’s certification of the 2020 presidential election.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY

Student loan relief limited for many by US drug war's legacy

President Joe Biden says he hopes his proposal to forgive federal student loans will narrow the nation's racial wealth gap. But a generation of Black and Hispanic Americans was disproportionately shut out of one of the keys to Biden's plan: the Pell Grant program.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

As part of the “war on drugs” — a consequential, anti-crime legislative agenda that Biden championed as a U.S. senator — an estimated hundreds of thousands of convicted drug offenders had their access to federal financial aid delayed or denied, including Pell Grants and student loans. If they wanted to go to college after their prison terms ended, these offenders had to take on larger, often predatory, private student loans.

Some were discouraged from seeking federal aid by a requirement to disclose their drug record on financial aid applications, while others put off attending college or dropped out entirely.

The people most harmed by these policies: Black and Latino men, thanks to drug laws in the 1990s with harsh punishments for crack cocaine and marijuana offenses. Incarceration rates for men of color skyrocketed. The policies remained in place for 25 years, until Congress repealed the Pell Grant ban in 2020.

America’s student loan debt burden, which now tops $1.6 trillion, “is especially heavy on Black and Hispanic borrowers, who on average have less family wealth to pay for it,” Biden said last week as he announced the forgiveness plan.

The administration has offered to forgive up to $10,000 in student debt for individuals earning annual incomes of less than $125,000, or less than $250,000 for families. And its offer doubles the debt relief to $20,000 for borrowers who also received Pell Grants, a federal program that gives the neediest undergraduates aid that they don’t have to repay.

Studies show that Pell Grants — one of the nation’s most effective financial aid programs — routinely help more than half of Black students and almost half of Hispanic students afford college. According to the White House, among the 43 million borrowers who are eligible for debt relief under Biden’s plan, more than 60% are Pell Grant recipients.

The White House said in a statement to The Associated Press that the student debt relief plan will wipe away about half of the average debt held by Black and Hispanic borrowers, not counting the additional $10,000 cancellation for Pell Grant recipients.

In a speech Tuesday, after the AP story published, Biden said people leaving prison need help to successfully reenter society.

“If you served your time, you shouldn’t be deprived of being able to get a Pell Grant to go to school,” Biden said in remarks at Wilkes University in Pennsylvania on his administration’s plans to prevent crime. “You should be able to get a degree -- that’s the best thing you can do.”

Amid debate over whether Biden’s forgiveness plan goes far enough for disproportionately indebted communities, criminal justice reform advocates say the president’s solutions to the student debt crisis must be as comprehensive as the anti-drug laws were.

“I think there’s a particular onus on this administration and on this president to be part of the solution for issues that he was very deeply involved in,” said Melissa Moore, the director of civil systems reform at Drug Policy Alliance.

There’s a generation of former drug offenders who borrowed to pay for school, but don’t have Pell Grants or federal loans, and won’t have any of their student debt forgiven. According to a Student Borrower Protection Center report on private loan debt, Black students are four times as likely as white students to struggle in repayment of private loans.

“For people who previously would have had to check that box, there should be some mechanism by which, if you were excluded in the past, you are prioritized now for relief,” Moore said.

An AP review last year of federal and state incarceration data showed that, between 1975 and 2019, the U.S. prison population jumped from 240,593 to 1.43 million Americans, as a result of the war on drugs that President Richard Nixon declared in 1971. About 1 in 5 people were incarcerated with a drug offense listed as their most serious crime.

Nixon’s Democratic and Republican presidential successors would go on to leverage drug war policies, responding to an alarming national surge in violent crime linked to the illegal drug trade, cementing the drug war’s legacy.

Following the passage of stiffer state and federal penalties for crack cocaine and other drugs, the incarceration rates for Black and Hispanic Americans tripled between 1970 and 2000. By comparison, the white incarceration rate only doubled in that same timespan.

Biden's Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 put in place the ban on Pell Grants and other federal financial aid for people incarcerated in federal or state prison. However, then-Sen. Biden reportedly opposed the amendment that added the ban to his bill. At the time, his spokesperson said Biden believed education programs could break the cycle of recidivism among formerly incarcerated individuals.

Ultimately, Biden worked passionately to pass the crime bill he sponsored. Academic programs in federal and state prisons, which had been robust, dwindled severely nationwide.

Later, in 1998, Congress expanded the ban to exclude any student with a state or federal drug conviction from receiving Pell Grants and federal student loans, for as little as one year or indefinitely, depending on the number of convictions. Biden voted in favor of the measure, although his opinion on the Pell Grant provision was unclear.

In just the five years after the expanded ban took effect, the measure cost more than 140,000 would-be college students between $41 million and $54 million in Pell Grants per year, and between $100 million and $164 million in federal student loans per year, according to an estimate by the federal Government Accountability Office.

However, in 2006, Congress changed the ban on grants to drug offenders. It applied only to students whose convictions happened while they were receiving federal student aid, narrowing its effect significantly, although experts say the law still forced hundreds of enrolled students to drop out of college when they lost their aid. The ban on Pell Grants for incarcerated individuals was fully repealed when Congress passed the omnibus spending and COVID-19 relief legislation in December 2020.

Drug convictions no longer affect a student’s financial aid eligibility, although the question still appears on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. In April, the U.S. Department of Education expanded its Second Chance Pell Program, which provides grants to incarcerated students to help them enroll in academic programs. A further expansion of Pell Grants to incarcerated students begins in July 2023, according to the Department of Education.

For DeAnna Hoskins, the legacy of the war on drugs nearly cost her much-need Pell Grants and student loans. She attended college after her incarceration and, by happenstance, just after Congress lifted the ban on aid to people with drug convictions.

“The ’94 crime bill was so comprehensive in the destruction that it did," said Hoskins, the president of JustLeadershipUSA, a criminal justice reform group. She questions how Biden’s debt relief plan was crafted. “I feel like you’re piecemealing our liberation back to us.”

There are tens of thousands of people who had to get private student loans at high interest rates, because of the ban on Pell Grants, Hoskins added.

“This is why it’s so important, when decisions like this are being made, that the voices of people with lived experiences are present,” she said. “We can help you obtain the equity you’re seeking.”

___

Associated Press news researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed.

Justice Department memo exonerating Donald Trump was a 'fundamental betrayal': former solicitor general

AlterNet - Yesterday 
By Alex Henderson

Justice Department memo exonerating Donald Trump was a 'fundamental betrayal': former solicitor general© AlterNet

Since leaving the White House, former President Donald Trump hasn’t been shy about lambasting former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr— who he now despises for refusing to go along with the Big Lie and Trump’s false, totally debunked claim that widespread voter fraud occurred in the 2020 presidential election. Trump now views Barr as a Republican who, like former Vice President Mike Pence, didn’t have the courage to stick by him.

But before the election, Barr’s critics often slammed him for being a Trump loyalist who defended Trump vigorously after former Special Counsel Robert Mueller delivered his final report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Attorney Neal Katyal, in an op-ed published by the New York Times on August 30, offers some reasons why a recently released March 24, 2019 memo paints such a troubling picture of Barr and his relationship with then-President Trump.

The memo, released by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on August 21, details Barr’s justifications for the DOJ clearing Trump of obstruction charges. These days, Trump views Barr as a traitor to the MAGA cause. But in 2019, he praised Barr as someone who had the backbone to come through for him in a way that former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions didn’t.

READ MORE: Justice Department releases memo explaining why it declined to prosecute Donald Trump for obstruction

“The memo released last week by the Justice Department closing the book on the report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election is a frightening document,” explains Katyal, a former solicitor genreal who is often featured as a legal expert on MSNBC. “Critics have rightly focused on its substance, slipshod legal analysis and omission of damning facts. But the process by which that memo, sent in March 2019, came to be is just as worrisome.”

Related video: John Dean on DOJ memo: No question Barr let Trump off the hook

Duration 1:13  View on Watch

The attorney continues, “Delivered to the attorney general at the time, Bill Barr, the memo was written by two political appointees in the Justice Department. Mr. Barr used the memo to go around the special counsel regulations and to clear President Donald Trump of obstruction of justice. If left to fester, this decision will have pernicious consequences for investigations of future high-level wrongdoing.”

Katyal goes on to offer some more reasons why he finds the March 24, 2019 memo so troubling. As Katyal sees it, the memo is an example of the United States’ system of checks and balances being undermined during the Trump years.

“The 2019 memo tendentiously argued that Mr. Trump committed no crimes — leaving the final decision on the matter to Republican-aligned appointees instead of to the independent special counsel,” Katyal notes. “The challenge in devising the regulations was to develop a framework for the prosecution of high-level executive branch officials — which is harder than it sounds, because the Constitution requires the executive branch to control prosecutions. So, we are left with one of the oldest philosophical problems: Who will guard the guardians?”

READ MORE: Appeals court orders release of memo Bill Barr used to justify not prosecuting Donald Trump

During Mueller’s investigation, many MAGA Republicans tried to paint him as a Democratic partisan — even though the former FBI director was a conservative and a lifelong Republican who had been on very friendly terms with the George W. Bush Administration. But during the Russian investigation, Mueller’s admirers often praised him for valuing country over party. When Democrats and Never Trump conservatives used the word “institutionalist” to describe Mueller in 2017 or 2018, it was meant as high praise.

A special counsel in a federal investigation, Katyal stresses, needs to be someone who is independent rather than partisan — which Special Counsel Mueller was. But Barr, Katyal laments, undermined Special Counsel Mueller’s work in the end.

“We created the role of special counsel to fill a void — to concentrate in one person responsibility and ultimate blame so that investigations would not be covered up from the get-go and to give that person independence from political pressure,” Katyal writes. “It is outrageous that Mr. Barr acted so brazenly in the face of this framework. The point of requiring a special counsel was to provide for an independent determination of any potential criminal wrongdoing by Mr. Trump. But the political appointees in his Justice Department took what was the most important part of that inquiry — the decision of whether he committed crimes — and grabbed it for themselves. This was a fundamental betrayal of the special counsel guidelines not for some principle, but because it protected their boss, Mr. Trump.”

READ MORE: The FBI's Mar-a-Lago search was Donald Trump's 'Al Capone moment'

 A dozen different Trump administration memoirs reveal how they were 'uniquely unsuited' to handle crisis: reporter

Raw Story - Yesterday 
By Travis Gettys

President Donald Trump looks on as White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx delivers remarks during a coronavirus update briefing© provided by RawStory

More than a dozen former officials in Donald Trump's administration have revealed in their memoirs how the former president and his team were "uniquely unsuited" to handle the coronavirus pandemic.

The Washington Post reviewed more than 4,000 pages from those publications written by health leaders, White House advisers and other Trump officials that, taken together, show an administration where top appointees and career scientists fought for the attention of an easily distracted and temperamental president and his deputies -- and their quarrels continue in print.

“What I see now mostly is political scapegoating and blaming,” Brett Giroir, the administration’s coronavirus testing coordinator whose own book is due next year, told the Post in an email. “My book is VERY different."

Dr. Deborah Birx, a career civil servant who served as the White House pandemic coordinator, admits she sometimes concealed her long-term goals in hopes of persuading Trump on short-term policies, but she detailed how Scott Atlas, a Stanford radiologist who won favor with the former president, provided hopeful but misleading data minimizing the risks.

IN OTHER NEWS: Trump is losing it on Truth Social as his legal troubles continue to mount

"‘We will never shut down the country again. Never,’ ” Trump told her in April 2020, according to Birx's own memoir.

However, most of these books have been harshly criticized as self-serving and misleading, and critics say those Trump officials should have spoken out when they were serving in the administration instead of waiting until they had a book deal.

“This is my first call to ban a book,” said Sheila Kaplan, a former New York Times reporter who covered the coronavirus response, after Birx’s book was announced. “When Birx was in office, she hung up on me when I called from NYT to ask what was happening. At this point, who cares what she has to say?”