The hospital that dispatched paramedics to treat Eric Garner, who died after being placed in a police chokehold, has agreed to pay his family $1 million. Video of Garner’s arrest shows an officer putting him in a chokehold as Garner yells, “I can’t breathe!” which became a protest slogan for the Black Lives Matter movement. When emergency responders from Richmond University Medical Center arrived, they did not perform CPR.
“Let’s say they listen to the cops and get in the car,” Anthony Anderson’s character Dre said Feb. 24 on black-ish, referring to his kids, if they were to be arrested.
“Look what happened to Freddie Gray.”
One out of five Southern Baptist missionaries overseas — or nearly 1,000 total — have volunteered to leave their posts to help the denomination’s mission board deal with its financial straits. That’s in addition to the departure of a third of the staff of the International Mission Board, also mostly through a voluntary program.
The pontiff’s lines on the exploitation of the powerless drew wide applause and highlighted not only themes that he has often addressed but also the debates over whether the pope — and Catholic teaching — lean toward some form of Marxism. Francis’ critics among conservatives in the U.S. in particular have often accused him of being a “left-winger” or a communist. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, has praised Francis as a “socialist” like himself.
Catholic candidates are mistakenly seeking to put politics and economics on one side and religion on the other. Such a dividing point misses the point of their faith. Catholic Mass — and worship services of other Christians — remains grounded in politics. Religious worship is political. The religious and political cannot be separated. To reject the politics or economics of Jesus would be to reject the spiritual teachings of Jesus.
Italy must pay compensation to an Egyptian imam’s family after a European court ruled his human rights had been breached in a C.I.A. operation that had him abducted in Milan and sent to his country of birth where he was tortured. The European Court of Human Rights ordered Italy to pay a total of 115,000 euros ($126,500) in damages and legal expenses to Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr and his family.
Toys are the story again. Barbie recently made waves, with new body types as well as hijab-clad dolls, and now, it’s Lego’s turn. The iconic toy company just released a stay-at-home dad, complete with baby stroller and a mom in office clothing.
As with many cases of rape and trauma, the truth of what happened to Kesha may take a long time to emerge. What is shocking and tragic here, in addition to the possibility that a trusted advisor and legal mentor could sexually assault his protégé (and then publicly deny it), is the very apparent commercial, and legal, incentive to keep the career and fortunes of woman in clear distress bound to her alleged abuser.
After years of activism and campaigns, religious groups have mixed reactions to the White House’s proposed closure of the Guantanamo Bay military prison. The blueprint for closure, submitted to Congress on Feb. 23 for review, would establish a U.S. location for detainees currently held at the detention facility located at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.
Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump convincingly won the Nevada caucuses last night but he is still struggling in what might be called “the Pope Francis primary.” In a joint op-ed in today’s edition of The Hill, the first Hispanic woman elected as a bishop of the United Methodist Church and a Catholic nun who is an outspoken Washington lobbyist for social justice causes blast Trump for the views he expressed in picking a fight with the pontiff over what it means to be a Christian.