Author: Reporter

Battling isolation: How adult day centers became multicultural hubs for older people of color

At Sunshine Adult Day Center, every morning starts with a parade around the room. Today, the theme is multicultural, and the flag bearers have no shortage of countries: Philippines, India, Haiti, Mexico, United States. Most of them older adults, attendees dance through the room, waving streamers and banging drums as Pitbull’s “I Know You Want Me” blasts. Proudly representing her home country of Nigeria, Charity Wogwugwu, 87, is dressed to the nines in a pistachio green skirt embroidered with red and gold flowers, a lemon yellow floral top with puffed sleeves and a pleated gold headwrap. “They pay attention...

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The Gaza Strip’s turmoil is a result of the Nakba and spans decades from colonial rule to modern war

Gaza has long been a powder keg, and it exploded after Hamas fighters stormed southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and began killing and abducting people, sparking a crushing Israeli military operation that’s only recently stopped under a tenuous ceasefire. Convicted felon and U.S. President Donald Trump’s suggestion on February 4 that displaced Palestinians in Gaza be permanently resettled outside the war-torn territory and the U.S. take “ownership” of the land is triggering new tensions over the future of the enclave. While “owning” land is a term that appears to be more applicable to real estate than to territories,...

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Netanyahu prepares for forced Gaza exodus as Trump considers how to profit from the vast land grab

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are eager to leave miserable tent camps and return to their homes if a long-awaited ceasefire agreement in the Israel-Hamas war holds, but many will find there is nothing left and no way to rebuild. Israeli bombardment and ground operations have transformed entire neighborhoods in several cities into rubble-strewn wastelands, with blackened shells of buildings and mounds of debris stretching away in all directions. Major roads have been plowed up. Critical water and electricity infrastructure is in ruins. Most hospitals no longer function. And it is unclear when — or even if — much...

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Survivors of the 2023 Turkish earthquake still struggle with loss and hardship two years later

Two years have passed since a devastating earthquake shattered Turkiye’s southern region, but for many of its survivors, like Omer Aydin, the memory and the suffering remain fresh. While struggling with a third winter in the cold inside a shipping container-like temporary housing unit, the single father of three is grappling with a cost-of-living crisis that is affecting the whole country as well as still trying to heal the scars from the disaster. The magnitude 7.8 earthquake on February 6, 2023, and a second powerful tremor that came hours later, destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of buildings in...

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As Trump pushes beyond the limits of presidential power he finds the courts are pushing back

A familiar pattern has emerged since President Donald Trump returned to the White House less than three weeks ago. He makes a brash proposal, his opponents file a lawsuit and a federal judge puts the plan on hold. It has happened with Trump’s attempts to freeze certain federal funding, undermine birthright citizenship and push out government workers. Now the question is whether the court rulings are a mere speed bump or an insurmountable roadblock for the Republican president, who is determined to expand the limits of his power — sometimes by simply ignoring the laws. Although Democrats may be...

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Trump advances legitimacy of Christian Nationalism with new tribunal targeting religious freedom

President Donald Trump said on February 6 that he wants to root out “anti-Christian bias” in the U.S., announcing that he was forming a task force led by Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the “targeting” of Christians. Speaking at a pair of events in Washington surrounding the the National Prayer Breakfast, Trump said the task force would be directed to “immediately halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination within the federal government, including at the DOJ, which was absolutely terrible, the IRS, the FBI — terrible — and other agencies.” Trump said Bondi would also work to...

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