Author: Carma Henry

    SIPRI’s annual report for 2025 notes: “More people were killed in armed conflict, were forced from their homes or needed humanitarian assistance than in recent years, probably for decades. On many battlefronts, peacemaking was non-existent or stalled.” 

      For generations, Americans were told that diplomacy and war were different roads. Diplomacy was supposed to keep armies from moving, create room for compromise and end violence already underway. Military force, by contrast, was the failure of that process — or at least its last resort. The Trump administration is erasing that distinction. It is treating talks and attacks as instruments that can be used at the same time, against the same country, for the same political objective.

    We once took for granted that everyone concerned with global warming outside the Trump administration’s orbit accepted the scientists’ conclusion that 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming was the critical threshold. Following on its pullout from the Paris Accords, the administration has ignored climate scientists’ overwhelming findings on the human causes of global warming and stifled publication of their research.

     With the Axis powers tottering toward defeat in World War II, Roosevelt reported that the recently concluded Yalta conference of Allied leaders had agreed upon “a common ground for peace.”  It would “spell the end of the system of unilateral action, the exclusive alliances, the spheres of influence, the balances of power, and all the other expedients that have been tried for centuries―and have always failed.”  These approaches would be replaced by “a universal organization,” a “permanent structure of peace upon which we can begin to build . . . that better world in which our children and grandchildren . . . must live, and can live.”

Chekhov, the military budget, and endless wars

    The suit pulls back horrible January and the invasion of Minneapolis, a.k.a., Operation Metro Surge, when armed and masked members of ICE and Customs and Border Protection began occupying the Twin Cities for the purpose of snatching and deporting (“allegedly”) undocumented immigrants, creating immense fear and chaos everywhere, and leading to huge protests.

       A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to temporarily restore approximately $127 million in grant funding that supports Black farmers and other underserved agricultural producers after the Trump administration canceled the program earlier this year.

       Alliance Community & Employment Services (ACES) will host its free Leaders with a Destiny Summit on Aug. 8, bringing together youth, families, educators, employers and community organizations for a day focused on education, advocacy and opportunities for individuals with disabilities and underserved communities.

       But the high price of vehicles is not the only financial challenge confronting Black and other consumers of color. Discriminatory and predatory practices in the sale and financing of cars have pushed millions of buyers into longer and higher priced loans. 

In many Black churches, divorced women say they face blame, invisibility and lost ministry roles, exposing gaps in how congregations handle broken marriages.