Emanuel Expected to Leave White House for Chicago
Rahm Emanuel will resign from his position as White House chief of staff to run for mayor of Chicago. The Los Angeles Times reports that President Obama will announce Emanuel’s departure on Friday, according to an individual close to Emanuel. White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs could not confirm the move, but he told the press that a formal announcement would be made Friday. Emanuel will campaign to replace longtime Chicago mayor Richard Daley. A senior aide to the president will likely replace Emanuel in the White House.
Gay Group: Online Broadcast Leading to Alleged Suicide a “Hate Crime”
Last week, 18-year-old Tyler Clementi jumped off a bridge and died just days after his roommate and an accomplice at Rutgers University Twittered and then broadcast online video of Clementi being intimate with another man. Dharun Ravi and his friend Molly Wei have both been charged with invasion of privacy, which carries a maximum five-year sentence. Steve Goldstein, a spokesman for the New Jersey-based LGBT rights group Garden State Equality, recently called the broadcast a “hate crime.” A spokesman for the local prosecutor’s office told The New York Times that an investigation is ongoing and declined to “speculate on additional charges.”
Study: US Incarceration Rates Soar; Families Suffer
The United States has the world’s highest incarceration rate, and one in 28 America children has a parent behind bars, according to a new Pew Research Center study. The report finds that number of prisoners in the US has exploded from 500,000 in 1980 to 2.3 million today. The study also shows that families with an incarcerated parent face drastic income reductions, and children of incarcerated parents are much more likely to be expelled from school than their peers.
Longshoremen’s Wildcat Solidarity Strike Ends
A wildcat solidarity strike at major ports in New York City and New Jersey ended Thursday after holding up vessels for days, according to The New York Post. Individual longshoremen initiated a strike on Tuesday in solidarity with workers at a Del Monte packing plant in Camden, where 200 workers could lose their jobs if the company follows through on a plan to move the plant to Gloucester and employ another union. A federal judge ordered the longshoremen back to work on Tuesday, but fellow workers refused to cross the unofficial picket line, according to Libcom.org. The strike ended after the International Longshoremen’s Association promised to press harder for a resolution in Camden.
Cop Allegedly Frames Black Prison Reform Activist With Marijuana
After a day of serving ice cream and literature about reforming jails to residents of Buffalo, New York, earlier this week, two Milk Not Jails activists from New York City were arrested and taken to jail. While standing outside a local business in Buffalo’s Allentown art district, a group of Milk Not Jails activists was approached by a police officer holding a joint. The officer looked at the single black member of the group and said, “You dropped something,” according to a communiqué release on Infoshop. The activist, Tychist Baker, was searched and arrested even after the officer failed to find drugs or paraphernalia on his person. Another activist who intervened and questioned the officer and his backup was also arrested for obstruction of governmental administration. “Regardless of my positive work in the community, at the end of the day cops still approach me as a criminal because of the color of my skin,” Baker said. “Innocent until proven guilty is non-existent in today’s criminal justice system.”