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A survivor of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting joined the Reverend Al Sharpton on Saturday to announce a June rally in front of President Donald Trump’s Manhattan apartment to protest gun violence facilitated by access to assault weapons.

Aalayah Eastmond, a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, was at Sharpton’s National Action Network in Harlem for the minister’s weekly meetings. 

Eastmond, 16, was in class February 14 when a gunman attacked, eventually killing 17 people.

The June 2 rally — at the beginning of New York state’s Gun Violence Awareness Month — is to start at Trump International Tower on Columbus Circle and proceed toward Fifth Avenue and Trump Tower, where Trump has an apartment that has been his longtime home.

For Eastmond, New York City is more than a prominent media staging ground. One of her family members was fatally shot here.

Fifteen years ago, “I actually lost my uncle to gun violence in Brooklyn,” she said. “So for it to happen to me, in my face, that just shows that change has to happen now.”

Sharpton said that young people leading recent activism across the country have produced what he called “a necessary marriage of dealing with gun violence as an American issue that jumps over the boundaries of any community and deals with America from every city.”

Another Sharpton concern is how police handle interactions with the mentally ill. On Thursday, police fatally shot a Brooklyn man, Saheed Vassell, as he brandished what turned out to be a welding torch mistaken for a gun.

Among the June rally organizers is Ramon Contreras, 19, a senior at one of 11 NYC College Prep charter schools who lost a classmate to gun violence last October.

“He was only 17 years old,” Contreras said. “The way it affected me, I was lost.”

He said everybody wanted to do something but felt “we didn’t have the resources.”

Last month, “the nationwide walkout gave us the courage, and pretty much the strength, to say, ‘Hey, enough is enough.’ ”
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One person was killed and four firefighters received minor injuries in an apartment fire on the 50th floor of Trump Tower in New York on Saturday, in a blaze that was quickly extinguished, fire officials said.

The victim, a male resident, died at the hospital and has not yet been identified, they said.

President Donald Trump, who has an office and a private residence in the midtown Manhattan structure, was not in the building at the time.

“Fire at Trump Tower is out. Very confined (well built building). Firemen (and women) did a great job. THANK YOU!” Trump tweeted.

Fire officials have not yet released a suspected cause of the blaze, adding no member of the Trump family was in the building at the time.

“This was a very difficult fire. As you can imagine, the apartment is quite large, we are 50 stories up. The rest of the building had a considerable amount of smoke,” Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said on Twitter.

About 200 fire personnel responded to the incident, which the department said was a four-alarm fire.

Video on social media showed flames outside of a few windows and black smoke billowing up from the high-rise.

In January, three people were injured in an early-morning fire at the top of Trump Tower. One firefighter was hospitalized while two people received minor injuries that were treated at the scene, the New York Fire Department said.

In addition to the president’s 66th-floor penthouse, Trump Tower houses the headquarters of the Trump Organization as well as other residences, offices and stores.
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The success of the 2020 census, which will be the first to include an online survey, could hinge on a single “dress rehearsal” underway right now in Rhode Island. So far, many locals aren’t impressed.

Providence County, the state’s most populous, is the only place where the Census Bureau is running a full test, after plans to test two other sites this year were canceled because of a lack of funding from Congress. A planned question about citizenship that has states suing the federal government isn’t on the test.

Several elected officials and leaders of advocacy and community groups this week held an “emergency press conference” to raise concerns, which include a shortage of publicity around the test and its limited language outreach in an immigrant-heavy county, with large communities from countries including the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Portugal and Cape Verde.

“If we don’t get it right here, then the country’s not going to get it right,” Democratic Lieutenant Governor Dan McKee warned.

States, cities sue

The concerns in Rhode Island are the latest evidence of mounting apprehension over the 2020 census. Seventeen states and six cities, including Rhode Island and its largest city, Providence, sued the federal government on Tuesday to block a question the administration of Republican President Donald Trump announced last month it would ask about citizenship.

The 2020 census will be the first to give respondents the option of answering online. Census Bureau officials say that the Rhode Island test is on track, and that they’re focused on ensuring new technology works, including a smartphone app being used by canvassers and cloud computing.

“There’s things that aren’t exactly the way they need to be. But we’re learning that; we’re making the changes on the fly,” said Jeff Behler, a regional Census Bureau director who is overseeing the test. “We’re getting some very critical information about changes that we need to make. And we have time to do that.”

In the test, which began March 16, 280,000 homes in Providence County are receiving letters through the U.S. mail that direct residents to a survey website or toll-free phone number. There, they can complete the survey, which includes questions including about age, race and ethnicity.

People may also call to get a paper version of the census sent to them, but census officials hope most will do it online because it is less expensive.

A response is legally required. Those who don’t respond on their own will get a personal visit, with door-knocking scheduled through July, Behler said. Census workers who visit homes will use a new smartphone app, instead of paper forms, to enter information they collect in person.

Nothing on citizenship

The test survey does not include any question on citizenship, having begun several days before the Trump administration’s announcement that it was adding that question.

Entities that use census data worry about including a question on the census without testing it first.

“Adding a question at this late stage of the Census process does not allow time for adequate testing to incorporate new questions, particularly if the testing reveals substantial problems,” the American Statistical Association wrote in a January letter to the federal government.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said he added the citizenship question at the request of the Justice Department to provide a more accurate tally of the number of voting-eligible residents in each neighborhood. Many Democratic officials and advocacy groups fear the question will scare people away from participating because they view the Trump administration as hostile to immigrants, diminishing the survey’s overall accuracy.

Many Republican officials have downplayed such concerns, instead echoing the Trump administration’s assertion that there is no empirical evidence pointing to a steep participation decline. The Rhode Island test would have to be repeated — the second time with a citizenship question at the end — to gauge whether there is a decrease in participation, but there are no plans to do that.

Even aside from the citizenship question, critics say they worry residents will ignore the test requests because they don’t know what they are or because they fear how the government will use the information. And they worry a test with a lot of problems will ripple into the nationwide census two years from now.

Funding shortages mean the testing has been scaled back significantly from original plans, including two canceled 2018 tests in West Virginia and Washington state, as well as two field tests that were canceled in 2017. Plans for the census bureau to run an ad campaign and other outreach for the Rhode Island test were also canceled for lack of funding.

“At this time 10 years ago, there were five fully funded, end-to-end tests around the country,” said Gabriela Domenzain, director of the Latino Policy Institute at Providence’s Roger Williams University. “Today there is one underfunded. The census will fail. The pilot is failing.”

Letter in English only

Community leaders point out that the region has a large immigrant population but that the official-looking, two-page government letter came only in English, along with a short flier that offered help completing it, with one sentence each in eight other languages.

“The confusion around the census and the fear around it, we’re afraid, is going to dissuade people from filling it out,” said Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza. “I don’t know what’s in their minds, but it sure seems that if you’re trying to be strategic and sandbag this process, that you would do exactly what they’re doing.”

As of Monday, more than 43,000 households in the county of about 630,000 residents had responded to the test, a 15 percent response rate, Census Bureau spokeswoman Kristina Barrett said. That figure is in line with expectations at this point in the test, she said. Eighty-seven percent of respondents had done so online.

At the bustling Carolina Family Restaurant in Providence on Friday, which serves up Dominican fare, one patron said she received the letter and completed it online; another said she got it and planned to do it. But five other county residents said they knew nothing about it.

“I don’t really watch the news,” said Anthony Gomez, 29, of Providence. “It’s depressing.”

This story was written by the Associated Press.
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A federal immigration raid that took 97 people into custody at a Tennessee meat processing plant may be the biggest employment crackdown under President Donald Trump’s administration, civil rights activists said Friday.

Eleven people were arrested on criminal charges and 86 were detained for being in the country illegally, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Tammy Spicer said in a statement Friday.

The Thursday raid on Southeastern Provision, a meat processing plant in Bean Station in eastern Tennessee, is the largest single worksite immigration enforcement action since the administration of President George W. Bush, said Jessie Hahn, labor and employment policy attorney at the National Immigration Law Center.

“This is part of the stepped-up Trump mass deportation enforcement agenda for sure,” Hahn said.

​Cracking down on employers

The current administration has promised to crack down on employers who hire immigrants living in the country illegally, and several raids have taken place across the country. A total of 21 people were arrested after immigration agents raided 7-Eleven stores nationwide in January.

A Tennessee activist said the processing plant raid is another example of the emphasis on enforcement.

“What we saw here, while it is the largest and certainly credibly egregious raid, it does fit in the larger practice and patterns of the Trump administration of targeting workers, indiscriminately arresting immigrants and really terrorizing communities across the country,” said Stephanie Teatro, co-executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.

Spicer declined to confirm whether it is largest workplace raid under the current president.

Suspected tax evasion

Officials with ICE, Homeland Security, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division and the Tennessee Highway Patrol executed a federal search warrant on the meat processing plant Thursday morning, Spicer said. 

During the search, Homeland Security officials encountered 97 people who are subject to removal from the U.S., she said. Ten workers were arrested on federal criminal charges, and another was arrested on a state charge. Of the 86 people arrested and placed in deportation proceedings, ICE kept 54 in detention and released 32 from custody, Spicer said.

An affidavit filed with the search warrant and signed by a special agent with the IRS says the government has probable cause to believe that the company and its owners have committed tax evasion and are employing immigrants in the country illegally. An undercover police officer was hired at the company using a false name and he was paid in cash, the affidavit filed by IRS Special Agent Nicholas Worsham said.

Court records say James Brantley is the president of the business and his wife, Pamela, is listed as an employee. Public records do not list their phone number. The Associated Press left phone and email messages with company but they were not returned.

Several children saw both parents placed in detention and many did not show up for school Friday because of fear in the immigrant community, Teatro said.

Many of the people employed at the plant had worked there for years and are long-standing members of this rural community, she said.

Rights activists have mobilized to help with donations and legal assistance and people have rallied to help the workers and their families, Teatro said.

“That’s because in the face of the threats of the Trump administration, communities have been organizing and coming together to defend their rights and we’re not going to stop organizing, and the community isn’t going to stop standing with these families until they’re returned home.”

This story was written by the Associated Press.
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A federal immigration raid that took 97 people into custody at a Tennessee meat processing plant may be the biggest employment crackdown under President Donald Trump’s administration, civil rights activists said Friday.

Eleven people were arrested on criminal charges and 86 were detained for being in the country illegally, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Tammy Spicer said in a statement Friday.

The Thursday raid on Southeastern Provision, a meat processing plant in Bean Station in eastern Tennessee, is the largest single worksite immigration enforcement action since the administration of President George W. Bush, said Jessie Hahn, labor and employment policy attorney at the National Immigration Law Center.

“This is part of the stepped-up Trump mass deportation enforcement agenda for sure,” Hahn said.

​Cracking down on employers

The current administration has promised to crack down on employers who hire immigrants living in the country illegally, and several raids have taken place across the country. A total of 21 people were arrested after immigration agents raided 7-Eleven stores nationwide in January.

A Tennessee activist said the processing plant raid is another example of the emphasis on enforcement.

“What we saw here, while it is the largest and certainly credibly egregious raid, it does fit in the larger practice and patterns of the Trump administration of targeting workers, indiscriminately arresting immigrants and really terrorizing communities across the country,” said Stephanie Teatro, co-executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.

Spicer declined to confirm whether it is largest workplace raid under the current president.

Suspected tax evasion

Officials with ICE, Homeland Security, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division and the Tennessee Highway Patrol executed a federal search warrant on the meat processing plant Thursday morning, Spicer said. 

During the search, Homeland Security officials encountered 97 people who are subject to removal from the U.S., she said. Ten workers were arrested on federal criminal charges, and another was arrested on a state charge. Of the 86 people arrested and placed in deportation proceedings, ICE kept 54 in detention and released 32 from custody, Spicer said.

An affidavit filed with the search warrant and signed by a special agent with the IRS says the government has probable cause to believe that the company and its owners have committed tax evasion and are employing immigrants in the country illegally. An undercover police officer was hired at the company using a false name and he was paid in cash, the affidavit filed by IRS Special Agent Nicholas Worsham said.

Court records say James Brantley is the president of the business and his wife, Pamela, is listed as an employee. Public records do not list their phone number. The Associated Press left phone and email messages with company but they were not returned.

Several children saw both parents placed in detention and many did not show up for school Friday because of fear in the immigrant community, Teatro said.

Many of the people employed at the plant had worked there for years and are long-standing members of this rural community, she said.

Rights activists have mobilized to help with donations and legal assistance and people have rallied to help the workers and their families, Teatro said.

“That’s because in the face of the threats of the Trump administration, communities have been organizing and coming together to defend their rights and we’re not going to stop organizing, and the community isn’t going to stop standing with these families until they’re returned home.”

This story was written by the Associated Press.
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The Catholic Easter custom of hunting brightly colored eggs and chocolate bunnies may be over now, but in the Orthodox world, Easter comes one week later. And it brings with it, its own unique traditions. One of them is the centuries-old practice of drawing elaborate patterns on Easter eggs decorated and painted using hot wax. Mariia Prus and Konstantin Golubchik produced this report from Alexandria, Virginia that is narrated by Katherine Gypson.
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The Catholic Easter custom of hunting brightly colored eggs and chocolate bunnies may be over now, but in the Orthodox world, Easter comes one week later. And it brings with it, its own unique traditions. One of them is the centuries-old practice of drawing elaborate patterns on Easter eggs decorated and painted using hot wax. Mariia Prus and Konstantin Golubchik produced this report from Alexandria, Virginia that is narrated by Katherine Gypson.
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Following the success of West Virginia teachers in securing a pay raise, educators in Oklahoma and Kentucky are walking out of their classrooms, demanding that lawmakers increase education spending in their states. Arizona teachers may soon follow suit. From Washington, VOA’s Jill Craig has more.
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Following the success of West Virginia teachers in securing a pay raise, educators in Oklahoma and Kentucky are walking out of their classrooms, demanding that lawmakers increase education spending in their states. Arizona teachers may soon follow suit. From Washington, VOA’s Jill Craig has more.
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The Trump administration on Friday announced wide-ranging sanctions against 38 Russian individuals and companies, part of what senior administration officials billed as a response “to address Russia’s pattern of malign activities” around the world.

The sanctions will be imposed on seven Russian oligarchs — including Oleg Deripaska, an aluminum magnate and close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin — and 12 companies they own or control. Seventeen senior Russian government officials, as well as a state-owned Russian weapons trading company, also will be targeted.

U.S. officials say the sanctions are “not in response to any single event or issue,” but are aimed at countering the “totality of the Russian government’s ongoing and increasingly brazen pattern of malign activity around the world.”

In a briefing with reporters, the officials cited Russia’s occupation of Crimea, the destabilizing of eastern Ukraine, support for the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, Moscow’s “ongoing malicious cyber activity,” and “Russia’s continued attacks to subvert Western democracies.”

“Elites are not immune from accountability from the actions of the Russian government,” a U.S. official said, adding that Russian oligarchs should use their position of influence to “put an end to this cycle of destabilizing Russian activity around the globe.”

The oligarchs, the official said, have “reaped great benefits under the Putin regime and play a key role in its malign agenda.”

The sanctions will block all of the oligarchs’ assets that are subject to U.S. jurisdiction, and U.S. persons will be “generally prohibited” from dealing with the sanctioned entities, officials said. Any entities owned 50 percent or more by any of the subjects also will be subject to the sanctions.

The move comes after Britain, the United States and other NATO countries expelled more than 150 Russian diplomats in a show of solidarity over the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter, who were attacked with a nerve agent in Britain.

The spy, Sergei Skripal, 66, remains in a British hospital following the March 4 poisoning that Britain has blamed on Russia. The attack on the Skripals set off wide diplomatic recriminations, between the West and Moscow, that were reminiscent of the Cold War standoffs of the 1950s.

Russia has adamantly denied involvement and expelled an equal number of Western envoys. There was no immediate Russian reaction to the latest sanctions.

This story was written by William Gallo
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The Trump administration on Friday announced wide-ranging sanctions against 38 Russian individuals and companies, part of what senior administration officials billed as a response “to address Russia’s pattern of malign activities” around the world.

The sanctions will be imposed on seven Russian oligarchs — including Oleg Deripaska, an aluminum magnate and close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin — and 12 companies they own or control. Seventeen senior Russian government officials, as well as a state-owned Russian weapons trading company, also will be targeted.

U.S. officials say the sanctions are “not in response to any single event or issue,” but are aimed at countering the “totality of the Russian government’s ongoing and increasingly brazen pattern of malign activity around the world.”

In a briefing with reporters, the officials cited Russia’s occupation of Crimea, the destabilizing of eastern Ukraine, support for the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, Moscow’s “ongoing malicious cyber activity,” and “Russia’s continued attacks to subvert Western democracies.”

“Elites are not immune from accountability from the actions of the Russian government,” a U.S. official said, adding that Russian oligarchs should use their position of influence to “put an end to this cycle of destabilizing Russian activity around the globe.”

The oligarchs, the official said, have “reaped great benefits under the Putin regime and play a key role in its malign agenda.”

The sanctions will block all of the oligarchs’ assets that are subject to U.S. jurisdiction, and U.S. persons will be “generally prohibited” from dealing with the sanctioned entities, officials said. Any entities owned 50 percent or more by any of the subjects also will be subject to the sanctions.

The move comes after Britain, the United States and other NATO countries expelled more than 150 Russian diplomats in a show of solidarity over the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter, who were attacked with a nerve agent in Britain.

The spy, Sergei Skripal, 66, remains in a British hospital following the March 4 poisoning that Britain has blamed on Russia. The attack on the Skripals set off wide diplomatic recriminations, between the West and Moscow, that were reminiscent of the Cold War standoffs of the 1950s.

Russia has adamantly denied involvement and expelled an equal number of Western envoys. There was no immediate Russian reaction to the latest sanctions.

This story was written by William Gallo
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