Author: Reporter

One program distributes laptops in rural Iowa. Another helped people get back online after Hurricane Helene washed away computers and phones in western North Carolina. Programs in Oregon and rural Alabama teach older people, including some who have never touched a computer, how to navigate in an increasingly digital world. It all came crashing down in May when Donald Trump, on his own digital platform known as Truth Social, announced his intention to end the Digital Equity Act, a federal grant program meant to help bridge the digital divide. He falsely branded it as “RACIST and ILLEGAL” and said...

When Donald Trump and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin met in Alaska on August 15, it was just the latest chapter in the 49th state’s long history with Russia, and with international tensions. Siberian fur traders arrived from across the Bering Sea in the first part of the 18th century, and the imprint of Russian settlement in Alaska remains. The oldest building in Anchorage is a Russian Orthodox church, and many Alaska Natives have Russian surnames. The nations are so close — Alaska’s Little Diomede Island in the Bering Strait is less than 3 miles from Russia’s Big Diomede —...

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’ regime is preparing to build what human rights groups call a second immigration concentration camp, awarding at least one contract for what’s labeled in state records as the “North Detention Facility.” The site would add to the capacity at the state’s first detention facility, built at an isolated airfield in the Florida Everglades and dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.” Already, state officials have inked more than $245 million in contracts for that facility, which officially opened July 1. Florida plans to build a second detention center at a Florida National Guard training center called Camp Blanding,...