Author: Grace Thompson

Following the desegregation of the military in the 1940s, the first Black woman to enlist in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps passed away. Her age was 104. During her lengthy military career, Nancy Leftenant-Colon quietly broke down racial barriers. She retired as a major and passed away earlier this month at a nursing facility in New York. She was one of six siblings, including a brother who was a well-known pilot with the Tuskegee Airmen, who participated in the war. Her name was Lefty. A biography of Leftenant-Colon on the Tuskegee Airmen Inc. website states that he was killed in a mid-air crash over Austria in 1945. His body has never been located. According to her nephew Chris Leftenant, who spoke to The Associated Press, she was simply an amazing person. When she was doing all of this firs...

A protest movement has sprung up on Reddit after Elon Musk, the owner of X, made a hand gesture on Monday that many people claimed looked like a Nazi salute. Moderators in more than 50 subreddit groups have subsequently declared that connections from X, formerly Twitter, would no longer be permitted in new posts and comments, according to NBC News. There are at least 40 million members in the protesting communities, which range in size from hundreds to millions. Only a small percentage of these individuals are usually active, especially in larger or older subreddits. The platform has about 100,000 active subreddits. The salute event, which occurred at a rally after President Donald Trump's inauguration, was expressly brought up by moderators in numerous postings announcing the new regulati...

Washington Gina Bisignano's plan worked. In the hopes that Donald Trump would be re-elected and grant her a pardon, the Jan. 6 defendant had spent years doing everything in her power to postpone her criminal case related to her activities during the Capitol attack. Trump's pardons that wiped out the case against Bisignano gave her still another reason to celebrate on Monday, two days before her 56th birthday. The dismissal was signed Tuesday by a federal court. Bisignano was a free woman on Wednesday. "I have no regrets," Bisignano declared, adding that even if you gave me a million dollars, she wouldn't change a thing. NBC News interviewed a dozen offenders who were pardoned by Trump this week, and it was a recurring theme. They all expressed gratitude for Trump's deliverance, but there...

The phones of thousands of people in eastern Altadena buzzed with a Los Angeles County warning: BE AWARE, just 30 minutes after a fire broke out on a hillside in Eaton Canyon on the afternoon of January 7. A terrible warning will sound in 40 minutes: QUIT RIGHT AWAY. However, evacuation orders were not issued until early the next morning, more than nine hours after the Eaton Fire started, thus neighborhoods in western Altadena did not feel the same urgency. It was too late by then. The wind-fueled fire killed all 17 individuals who were west of Lake Avenue, a main thoroughfare that passes through Altadena from north to south. Among them were a 95-year-old actress from the heyday of Black Hollywood, an 83-year-old retired project manager from Lockheed Martin, and a 67-year-old amputee who ...

As part of his massive crackdown on federal diversity programs, President Donald Trump withdrew an executive order this week that prohibited discrimination by federal contractors and subcontractors. In a memo released Wednesday, the White House stated that the order signed the day before "protects the civil rights of all Americans and expands individual opportunity by terminating radical DEI preferencing in federal contracting and directing federal agencies to relentlessly combat private sector discrimination." According to the Department of Labor, the contested order had mandated "affirmative action and prohibits federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin." Initially covering federal personnel...

Donald Trump's administration has already redesigned the federal government's internet presence in the first few days of his second term in office. There is no longer a Spanish-language edition of the White House website. A disclaimer that promised to make it accessible to individuals with impairments has been removed. Additionally, several federal agencies have taken down websites pertaining to diversity and reproductive rights. Some of the missing sections seem to be temporary additions, as it is customary for a new president to update the White House website to reflect the objectives and ideals of their administration. However, other government website removals appear to demonstrate Trump's devotion to right-wing culture war concerns during his second term, as NBC News confirmed using a...

The Trump administration has issued numerous instructions that have halted almost all scientific communication by federal health agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, until further notice. In a message on Tuesday, Dr. Dorothy Fink, President Donald Trump's acting secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, directed leaders of all federal health departments to temporarily halt public messaging while a review is conducted. The memo, which was acquired by NBC News, instructs the heads of the Food and Drug Administration, the NIH, and the CDC to hold off on releasing any documents or communications—including press releases and regulations—to the public until they have been examined and authorized by a presidential...

Two days after being released from a federal jail after President Donald Trump granted him and more than 1,500 of the Jan. 6 rioters clemency, former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarriore came home to Miami on Wednesday. Following his landing, Tarrio was met by his loved ones, friends, and a horde of reporters while sporting a black "Make America Great Again" baseball cap. Tarrio remarked, "I think I love my family," before being driven out in a black SUV. At Dallas Love Field Airport, Tarrio informed reporters prior to his trip that his conviction for seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, was a "miscarriage of justice." He told a CBS News reporter, "I wouldn't have been in a position where I needed a pardon if we would have had a fair trial." Despite ...

A fast-moving wildfire flared Wednesday, spreading to over 8,000 acres in a matter of hours, forcing almost 20,000 people to evacuate a region north of Los Angeles, according to officials. The Hughes Fire broke out around 10:53 a.m. Wednesday close to the city of Castaic in northern Los Angeles County, prompting an additional 15,000 residents to be placed under evacuation alerts, according to a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Fire officials said that by Wednesday afternoon, 8,096 acres had been burned by the fire. The fire started weeks after two neighboring fires in the Los Angeles area earlier this month destroyed hundreds of homes and killed at least 27 people. The Angeles National Forest said in a statement that the fire was uncontainable as of Wednesday afte...

A fast-moving wildfire flared Wednesday, spreading to more than 5,000 acres in a matter of hours, forcing over 20,000 people to evacuate a region north of Los Angeles, according to officials. The Hughes Fire broke out around 10:53 a.m. Wednesday close to the city of Castaic in northern Los Angeles County, prompting an additional 15,000 residents to be placed under evacuation alerts, according to a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Three hours later, fire officials reported that the fire had burned over 5,054 acres. The fire started weeks after two neighboring fires in the Los Angeles area earlier this month destroyed hundreds of homes and killed at least 27 people. The Angeles National Forest said in a statement that the fire was uncontainable as of 1:33 p.m. Accor...