Author: Carma Henry

Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) announced today a $1 million donation to buy more than 1,600 laptops for students to use in rapid credentialing programs to obtain the skills they need to get back to work amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

     The origin of this story goes back to 1975, when French director/screenwriter Romain Gary (ex-husband of actress Jean Seberg) worked under the pseudonym Émile Ajar and penned the classic novel La Vie Devant Soi (The Life Before Us): An orphaned Arab boy, Momo, is devoted to Madame Rosa, a dying and elderly survivor of Auschwitz and a former prostitute. The setting is Paris’ immigrant slum, Belleville, where ladies of the night, pimps, transvestites and petty thieves flourish. Gary’s book earned France’s Prix Goncourt—equivalent to a Pulitzer—firmly establishing the tale’s pedigree.

       “As a leading congressional advocate of debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries and a supporter of the Jubilee movement, I am especially proud of President Rawlings’ advocacy for African nations to have their international debts cancelled. Debt relief was critical to free more than thirty-five of the world’s poorest countries – including Ghana – from the burdens of international debts and enable them to invest their resources in health, education, poverty reduction, and infrastructure,” Waters said.

       Much of the public outrage has been directed at the officials who have been unable to prevent the fatal spread of COVID-19 in jails and prisons throughout the country. But in addition, there were too many governors who were unwilling to reduce prison populations by releasing individuals who posed no threat to public safety. As a result, nearly 200,000 incarcerated Americans have been infected as of November 2020 according to the Marshall Project.

       The announcement came as the CBC embarks on its 50th anniversary as the voice of Black America in Congress.

     West, a graduate of Texas State University and the University of Houston, earned a two-year fellowship from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF) and American Petroleum Institute (API) as an Energy Policy Fellow.

      A Black nurse was one of the first people who received the COVID-19 vaccine in New York on Monday morning.

Embracing ecological realism

     December 10, 2020 marked the 72nd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Two related documents also celebrate significant anniversaries this year: the 25th anniversary of the Declaration of Principles on Tolerance and the 75th anniversary of the United Nations Charter. Both Declarations and the Charter provide a framework for building unity in a diverse world.

How Portland Radicalized Me