December 7, 2020 The Park Center for Independent Media circulates the Indy Brief. Subscribe for a weekly selection of news stories from journalists operating outside traditional corporate systems. Subscribe The Headlines U.S. Politics In Historic...
Month: December 2020
Recognition of Native Treaty Rights Could Reshape the Environmental Landscape
Last month, Michigan officials announced plans to shut down a controversial oil pipeline that runs below the Great Lakes at the Straits of Mackinac. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel, both Democrats, cited several reasons for...
New CDC Data Confirms the Pandemic’s Outsize Impact on People of Color
As coronavirus case rates and deaths reach record highs and ICUs across the country near capacity, new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirms the pandemic’s disproportionate toll on people of color. Black, Native,...
NYPD Cops Cash In on Sex Trade Arrests With Little Evidence, While Black and Brown New Yorkers Pay the Price
One summer night in 2015, a community college student was driving home through East New York in Brooklyn when two women on a street corner waved for him to stop. He thought they might need help, so he pulled over and cracked his window. But the pair had something else...
What’s At Stake in Julian Assange’s Extradition Trial
Julian Assange’s extradition trial in London this fall revealed the lengths to which the US government was willing to go to secure the return of the WikiLeaks founder to America. It also threw light on a disturbing abuse of process in the English courts. Assange was...
Trump Has Pushed Ahead With Drone Strikes, Putting US Citizens in the Crosshairs
President Donald Trump is (almost) out of office. Yet, there still needs to be reckoning with his record on drone strikes, assassination and militarism. As Trump plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, some may imagine Trump is a...
‘Money For War’: US Arms Sales Soar and Bipartisan Militarism Thrives Amid Covid-19 Pandemic
The United States sold more than $175 billion in military equipment to foreign governments in the fiscal year that ended September 30, Pentagon and State Department officials announced Friday—a 2.8% increase compared to 2019, when weapons exports totaled...
Black Voters Matter: Group Sues Georgia for Purging 200,000 Voters Ahead of 2020 Election
On the voter registration deadline for Georgians who want to vote in two Senate runoff elections on January 5, we speak with Cliff Albright, co-founder and executive director of Black Voters Matter, about why the state is “ground zero” for Republican voter suppression...
In Historic First, House Votes to Decriminalize Marijuana
In a historic vote, House Democrats passed legislation that would decriminalize marijuana on the federal level and begin to address the harms caused by drug policing in lower-income neighborhoods and communities of color. The House voted 228-164 on Friday to pass the...
Pollinator-Friendly Solar Could be a Win-Win for Climate and Landowners, but Greenwashing is a Worry
Between a colorful array of wildflowers and the harmonious buzz of bees and butterflies circling overhead, the aesthetics alone of so called pollinator-friendly solar farms may intrigue developers—making for easy marketing. But proponents say the incentives for...