On Our Radar

NPR, March 16, 2021, Venture Aims To ‘Resurrect And Reimagine’ Anti-Slavery Newspaper For The 21st Century The summer of 2020 ignited a wave of nationwide protests and renewed calls for racial justice across the U.S. Now, a new media platform aims to be at the forefront of that push. The Boston Globe and Boston University Center for Antiracist Research […]

NPR, March 9, 2021, Results From The City That Just Gave Away Cash In 2012, when Michael Tubbs was a city council member in Stockton, Calif., the city was going through a tough time. It was dealing with the fallout from the financial crisis. It was working its way through a bankruptcy. It was also

Reverse Mortgage Daily, March 11, 2021, FHA Officially Drops LIBOR for Adjustable-Rate Reverse Mortgages, Adopts SOFR The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) on Thursday officially announced that the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) program is moving on from the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) index for adjustable-rate HECMs, and will instead adopt the Secured Overnight Financing

The 19th, March 9 , 2021, On Asian American and Pacific Islander Women’s Equal Pay Day, the numbers only tell part of real story For Asian American and Pacific Islander women who have long felt invisible in the nation’s response to economic inequity, the pandemic has been no different. The federal data on how Asian

The Hill, March 10, 2021, Senate confirms Fudge as Housing secretary The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by a solid bipartisan margin. Senators approved Fudge’s nomination to be HUD secretary on a 66-34 vote. She will be the first woman to hold the position

The Guardian, March 24, 2021, Big banks’ trillion-dollar finance for fossil fuels ‘shocking’, says report The world’s biggest 60 banks have provided $3.8tn of financing for fossil fuel companies since the Paris climate deal in 2015, according to a report by a coalition of NGOs. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic cutting energy use, overall funding remains

NPR, March 24, 2021, Asian Grandmother Who Smacked Her Attacker With A Board Donates Nearly $1 Million Xiao Zhen Xie, the 75-year-old woman who was punched by a white man in San Francisco — and then fought back by smacking him with a board — will not keep the nearly $1 million that has been

Finextra, March 24, 2021, Robinhood files for IPO Controversial stock trading app Robinhood has filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering. The company has been at the centre of a battle between activist retail investors and hedge funds shorting stock in companies such as GameStop and AMC Entertainment. Robinhood

The New York Times, March 20, 2021, Opinion: How to Collect $1.4 Trillion in Unpaid Taxes When the federal government started withholding income taxes from workers’ paychecks during World War II, the innovation was presented as a matter of fairness, a way to ensure that everyone paid. Irving Berlin wrote a song for the Treasury Department:

Grist, March 24, 2021, Zoned out: One woman’s half-century fight to desegregate Berkeley When Dorothy Walker was looking for a place to live in Berkeley, California, it didn’t take her very long to learn that half the city was off-limits to her family. It was 1950, and the rules were clear: “Because my husband was

ABC News, March 24, 2021, Kim Janey being sworn in as 1st Black, 1st woman mayor of Boston Throughout its 200-year history, Boston has been governed by mayors they have all been white men — mainly of Irish American or Italian American decent. That history changes Wednesday when Kim Janey is sworn in as mayor. Kim Janey

USA Today, March 24, 2021, ‘Inequality still exists’: Congresswoman to hold hearing on pay gap on Equal Pay Day In 2021, pay disparities and discrimination still exist between men and women, and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., wants people to know that Equal Pay Day is not one of celebration. “This day marks the extra time it takes

NPR, March 22, 2021, With Stronger Democratic Support, D.C. Statehood Fight Returns To Capitol Hill Thirty years after Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton first introduced a bill for Washington, D.C., statehood, she returns to Capitol Hill to do it again — this time with the broadest support for the cause to date. “We’ve gotten off of

The New York Times, March 20, 2021, Opinion: Your Home’s Value Is Based on Racism John, who is Black, and his wife, who is Japanese American, purchased a family home in a suburb of Atlanta in 2004. When he was interviewed for my book, John — who asked to be identified only by his first

NPR, March 19, 2021, Men’s And Women’s NCAA March Madness Facilities, Separate And Unequal, Spark Uproar On Thursday, Stanford University sports performance coach Ali Kershner posted a photo comparing the weight room set-up for the NCAA women’s and men’s basketball tournaments. While the set-up for the men’s teams included a number of power racks with Olympic