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Michelle Obama, seen in New Orleans in June.

‘I am frustrated too’: Michelle Obama urges voters to register ahead of midterms

By News & Current Affairs

When We All Vote kicks off in Las Vegas with a nonpartisan aim – registration and participation – in highly partisan times. By Dan Hernandez, The Guardian — A star-studded voter registration drive launched by Michelle Obama kicked off its national week of action this weekend with events across the country, including a rally by the former first lady on Sunday at Chaparral high school in Las Vegas. The drive, When We All…

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Some Puerto Ricans had to restore downed power lines themselves after Hurricane Maria.

Puerto Rico has not recovered from Hurricane Maria

By News & Current Affairs

By Lauren Lluveras, The Conversation — Puerto Rico was in crisis long before Hurricane Maria hit on Sept. 20, 2017. For years, this U.S. territory had been struggling with debt, economic crisis and drought. In May 2017, the government defaulted on US$73 billion in loans and declared bankruptcy. Then Hurricane Maria slammed the island with 155-mph winds and coastal flooding that rose to 6 feet within 30 minutes of landfall. The storm caused the longest power blackout in…

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Jair Bolsonaro is seeking to lead the world’s fourth-biggest democracy. Photograph: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

Trump of the tropics: the ‘dangerous’ candidate leading Brazil’s presidential race

By News & Current Affairs

Jair Bolsonaro has openly cheered dictatorship and publicly insulted women. Now he’s deploying Trump-like tactics in his race for the presidency. By Tom Phillips, The Guardian — Jair Bolsonaro’s disciples had packed the arrivals hall of this far-flung Amazonian airport, united by their contempt for the left and an unbreakable determination to score a selfie with the man they call “the Legend”. “He’s Brazil’s hope! A light at the end…

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Black Space, White Blindness

By Commentaries/Opinions

Why white Americans have such a hard time picturing a middle-class black neighborhood. By Henry Grabar, Slate — In John Sayles’ 1984 movie The Brother From Another Planet, a card shark is riding a northbound A train that is about to make the 66-block jump from Midtown to Harlem. “I have another magic trick for you,” he says. “Wanna see me make all the white people disappear?” The conductor announces the train…

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The University of Glasgow has examined the historical slave-holding record of benefactors. Photograph: University of Glasgow

Glasgow University to make amends over slavery profits of past

By News & Current Affairs, Reparations

University received ‘significant financial support’ from slavery in 18th and 19th centuries. By Martin Belam, The Guardian — Glasgow University has announced a programme of “reparative justice” after a year-long study discovered that the university benefited from the equivalent of tens of millions of pounds donated from the profits of slavery. The report states that although the university itself “adopted a clear anti-slavery position”, during the 18th and 19th centuries…

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Stacey Abrams is running in Georgia to become America’s first black female governor.

In Georgia governor’s race can a black woman make history?

By Editors' Choice

Progressive Democrat Stacey Abrams is taking on Trump-style Republican Brian Kemp in a state where all 82 of its governors have been white men. By David Smith, The Guardian — In “Sweet Auburn”, a short walk from the birthplace and stone tomb of Martin Luther King Jr, salon owner Terrica Jones is silking hair with a ceramic iron and contemplating an opportunity that once seemed unthinkable: to vote for a black woman…

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“Ayanna Pressley (January 10, 2014–Boston Convention and Exhibition Center)

The Rise of the Black, Left Candidate

By Editors' Choice

By Cyndi Suarez, Nonprofit Quarterly — Last week, Boston enacted its own version of what may be a national trend—black progressive candidates, many of them women, beating centrist incumbents and challenging traditional ideas about viability, strategy, and some would even say the soul of the Democratic Party. Before I go on, we should acknowledge that we are seeing a challenge to the disproportionally high rate of white leadership in many aspects…

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The purse of an attendee at a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee rally addressed by President Barack Obama, Anaheim, California, September 8, 2018.

Resistance Means More Than Voting

By Editors' Choice

By Garry Wills, NYR Daily — When former president Barack Obama called on the nation to oppose Donald Trump at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign last week, he said there was only one way to do it, by voting. This was a criticism of the internal resistance supported by the anonymous op-ed writer in The New York Times. Obama said that people who “secretly aren’t following the president’s orders” are not defending democracy: “These…

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