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Image via PBS documentary, Me Facing Life: Cyntoia's Story
Tennessee Gov, Bill Haslam commuted the sentence of Cyntoia Brown Monday morning, the Tennesean reports. Haslam has ordered Brown’s early release set for Aug. 7, after 15 years in prison. Brown is an alleged sex trafficking victim who, at age 16, killed a 43-year-old man who had picked her up and taken her to his home.
Pope Francis attends an audience with members of the Diplomatic Corps at the Vatican, Jan. 7, 2019. Ettore Ferrari/Pool vie REUTERS
Pope Francis warned on Monday against a resurgence of nationalist and populist movements and criticized countries that try to solve the migration crisis with unilateral or isolationist actions.
Members of the U.S. House are administered the oath of office by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) during the start of the 116th Congress, Jan. 3, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
As the Democratic speaker, Pelosi will oversee a sweeping series of investigations of Donald Trump, his business interests and the first two years of his presidency, while pursuing a distinctly Democratic legislative agenda.
The Chesapeake Bay in Md. Shutterstock.
Stormwater pollution is the fastest growing source of pollution in the Chesapeake Bay watershed—a 64,000 square mile drainage basin that sprawls across parts of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, New York, and Washington, D.C. One of the contributors: religious congregations.
“The assumption should be that Christian Americans, along with Americans of all faiths and backgrounds, would of course welcome new members of Congress regardless of their religious affiliations.”
Protesters hold a portrait of Hindu deity “Ayappa” as they take part in a rally called by various Hindu organisations after two women entered the Sabarimala temple, in Kochi, India, Jan. 2, 2019. REUTERS/Sivaram
Two women defied a centuries-old ban on entering a Hindu temple in the Indian state of Kerala on Wednesday, sparking protests and calls for a strike by conservative Hindu groups outraged by their visit.
Pope Francis on World Day of Peace in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Jan. 1, 2019. REUTERS/Tony Gentile
Pope Francis, in his first message of the new year on Tuesday, bemoaned a lack of unity across the world, and warned against a soulless hunt for profit that benefits only a few.
Jail cells are seen in the Enhanced Supervision Housing Unit at the Rikers Island Correctional facility in New York. March 12, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
The U.S. Congress on Thursday gave final approval to bipartisan legislation supported by President Donald Trump that would bring sweeping changes to prison sentencing and the treatment of inmates during incarceration and following their release.
The day before Adam Ward was slated to be executed, he sat in a visitation booth at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas with Rev. DeAnna Golsan, a woman he had never met before. During the months prior, the two — Golsan, a Texan pastor who believed in the merit and morality of the death penalty, and Ward, a man who was sentenced to death — had become unexpected pen pals after being connected by Ward’s mother, an attendee of Golsan’s church. Golsan felt she knew him well, yet, upon meeting Ward, she was forced to confront that the 33-year-old soft-spoken man who cared mostly about his mother was somehow slated for death.
Asylum seekers wait on the Mexican side of the Brownsville-Matamoros International Bridge, July 25, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott/File Photo
A U.S. judge struck down Trump administration policies aimed at restricting asylum claims by people citing gang or domestic violence in their home countries and ordered the U.S. government to bring back six deported migrants to reconsider their cases.
“Justice” was on people’s hearts, minds, and search histories this year. The word was named Merriam-Webster’s "Word of the Year" for 2018 after being consulted by users 74 percent more than in 2017.
A picture of Jakelin is seen during a protest to demand justice for her, in El Paso, Texas, Dec. 16, 2018. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez/File Photo
U.S. Border Patrol agents who detained a 7-year-old Guatemalan migrant girl who later died in federal custody will not speak with U.S. lawmakers investigating her death, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said on Monday, citing their union membership.
On Thursday, Congress passed bipartisan criminal justice reform. As deliberation over the First Step Act continues — the bill proposing multiple reforms to the criminal justice system and currently in the legislative limelight — the 5-year renewal of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act quietly achieved measurable impact for incarcerated juveniles.
A girl walks near her house destroyed in an air strike carried out by the Saudi-led coalition in Faj Attan village, Sanaa, Yemen Dec. 13, 2018. REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi
The U.S. Senate delivered a rare double rebuke to President Donald Trump on Saudi Arabia on Thursday, voting to end U.S. military support for the war in Yemen and blame the Saudi crown prince for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The votes were largely symbolic because to become law the resolutions would have to pass the House of Representatives, whose Republican leaders have blocked any legislation intended to rebuke the Saudis.
Photo courtesy Andrew J. Wight
At the hectic border crossing between La Guajira department in Colombia and Zulia state in Venezuela, there are a surprising number of kids in school uniforms – niños pendulares, or pendulum kids.
Erin Alexis Randolph / Shutterstock.com
In late September, about 20 men and women sat on folding chairs on the back patio of a large, colonial house in Ohio. The youngest in the group were in their mid-20s; the oldest were in their 70s and 80s. They’d traveled from New York, Nevada, Montana, California, as far as away as Calgary, Canada, to this small city 38 miles northeast of Cincinnati. Many of them wore bright yellow T-shirts with bold red letters that read “JESUS SAVES” or “TRUST JESUS,” and they sat facing a makeshift pulpit, decorated with signs reading “HEAVEN OR HELL?” and “PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD."
More than 1,000 young adults risked arrest Monday in Washington, D.C. by flooding the offices of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), and Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.). It’s the second time this winter that the Sunrise Movement has taken to the capitol in what Sunrise Movement co-founder Varshini Prakash referred to as part of a concentrated effort, “[to] build policy support and people power” around a Green New Deal.
Stacey Abrams speaks as Brian Kemp looks on during a debate in Atlanta. Oct. 23, 2018. John Bazemore/Pool via REUTERS
Souls to the Polls is a time-honored tradition, often led by clergy, to activate and engage congregants to exercise their right to vote that starts long before Election Day. It is a mobilization strategy to make the process of voting easier for their congregants. But sadly, voter suppression efforts targeting minorities in subtle and overt ways continue to make Souls to the Polls a critical service — placing the burden of voter education and empowerment on the backs of churches and other civil society organizations, not the government.
A relative of a Houthi delegation member participating in the negotiations in Sweden carries a bag at Sanaa airport, Yemen December 4, 2018. REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi
Yemen's warring sides agreed to free thousands of prisoners on Thursday, in what a U.N. mediator called a hopeful start to the first peace talks in years to end a war that has pushed millions of people on the verge of starvation. U.N. mediator Martin Griffiths told a news conference in a renovated castle outside Stockholm that just getting the warring sides to the table was an important milestone.
Mayerlis serves 48-year-old Ivan a meal of sarapa – rice and chicken wrapped in a Cachibou leaf. Ivan lived 31 years as a FARC guerilla combatant, before settling in San José de León after the 2016 peace treaty in Colombia. All photos: Albin Hillert/LWF
For the past two years, a group of families of former FARC-guerrilla combatants have settled down to cultivate a piece of land in northwest Colombia. Laying down their weapons following the 2016 peace treaty with the Colombian government, many ex-combatants now face trauma, stigma, and insecurity, and slow progress in the implementation of the treaty makes the situation precarious.