More Americans are dying young, Journal of the American Medical Association report finds
December 5th, 20190 CHICAGO —The highest relative jump in death rates from 2010 to 2017, 29 percent, has been recorded among people ages 25 to 34, a new report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association has found. Overall life expectancy in the United States has also dropped for three consecutive years according to the study, which...
Levin, more than 100 Democrats send letter to Pompeo expressing “strong disagreement” with Israeli settlement policy reversal
November 29th, 20190 WASHINGTON, D.C. — Led by U.S. Rep. Andy Levin (D-Bloomfield Township), more than 100 Democratic members of Congress have signed a letter expressing “strong disagreement” with the Trump administration's decision to no longer classify Israeli settlements in the West Bank of Palestine as illegal under international law. The...
Paralyzed man walks again thanks to Arab American doctor’s innovative procedure
November 29th, 20190 Rochester, Minnesota — A historic medical trial lead by Dr. Mohamad Bydon, a neurosurgeon and spine specialist at the Mayo Clinic, has yielded miraculous results for a patient who was paralyzed from the neck down due to a spinal cord injury. Chris Barr told ABC’s Good Morning America that he had given up hope after the prognosis...
Yemeni nationals in U.S. backed into a deadly corner by uncertain TPS policies
November 26th, 20190 By Mark Hedin WASHINGTON, D.C.— "If I go back to Yemen, I have only one option: To die." So said a Brooklyn shopkeeper as he movingly described how a lifeline provided him by the United States has allowed him to thrive despite the horrors of the war afflicting his native country. The Department of Homeland Security could end that...
Report warns of technology-based threats from WhatsApp, other apps prior to 2020 election
November 26th, 20190 NEW YORK CITY —A major New York-based university is warning of potential technology-based threats that could compromise the 2020 presidential election, the website Tech Times reported. In a report released this September by the New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, the organization said that bad actors...
Ban on flavored vapes could lead to loss of 150,000 jobs, $8.4 billion sales hit
November 23rd, 20190 NEW YORK — A potential U.S. ban on e-cigarette flavors could result in a loss of more than 150,000 jobs and a direct sales hit of $8.4 billion, according to a report released on Friday by a vaping industry trade group. Two months ago President Trump’s administration announced a sweeping plan to ban all e-cigarette and vaping...
U.S. vaping-related deaths rise to 47, cases of illness to 2,290
November 23rd, 20190 WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Thursday, U.S. health officials reported 2,290 confirmed and probable cases and 5 more deaths from a mysterious respiratory illness tied to vaping, taking the total death toll to 47 so far this year. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recorded 2,172 cases and 42 deaths from the...
Arab Americans helped turn Virginia blue
November 20th, 20191 Many Virginians recently celebrated as both houses of the Virginia legislature came under Democratic Party control. In the past 30 years, the state has shifted from being a conservative Republican state to a liberal Democratic stronghold exemplified by the recent elections. Political analysts attribute this profound change to demographic...
Coalition of churches applauds EU’s decision to accurately label Israeli products
November 20th, 20190 WASHINGTON, D.C. — Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), a coalition of 29 church communions and organizations, applauded this week the European Union’s Court of Justice November 12 decision that products made in Israeli settlements could no longer be labeled as though they were made in Israel. Since 1984, CMEP has worked to...
How do we keep our democracy healthy?
November 20th, 20190 Representative democracy is based on a simple premise. It’s that ordinary citizens can make satisfactory judgments on complex public policy and political issues — or at least grasp them well enough to decide who should be dealing with them. But the significance of that premise isn’t simple at all. It means that our country’s...
Upgrading your phone? Four things you should do first
November 20th, 20190 By Alvaro Puig If you’re thinking about upgrading to a new phone, make sure you remove your personal information before you trade it in. Why? Because your phone could have a lot of sensitive, personal information on it – like your passwords, account numbers, emails, text messages, photos and videos. If that information...
Oregon invests pension funds in Israeli spyware company
November 19th, 20190 TIGARD — $233 million in Oregon’s state employee pension funds have been invested in a private equity firm that owns majority share of the Israeli spyware company NSO Group, according to a recent report by AP. The deal between Novalpina Capital, which along with other partners recently bought majority stock in NSO, occurred in...
Pelosi says Trump has admitted to bribery as impeachment probe intensifies
November 19th, 20190 WASHINGTON, D.C. — House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said on Thursday President Trump already has admitted to bribery in the Ukraine scandal at the heart of a Democratic-led inquiry accusing him of an impeachable offense under the U.S. Constitution. “The bribe is to grant or withhold military assistance in...
Attorney General Nessel joins 18 others to urge withdrawal of proposal obstructing asylum-seekers’ ability to work
November 19th, 20190 LANSING — Eighteen attorneys general joined Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel last week in opposing a proposed rule from the Trump administration that would eliminate the 30-day time frame currently in place for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to review asylum-seekers work permit applications. The move...
U.S. angers Palestinians, violates international law with reversal on Israeli settlements
November 19th, 20190 WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Trump administration changed the U.S. position on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank on Monday, reversing four decades of American policy and further undermining the effort to gain Palestinian statehood. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the U.S. is repudiating the 1978 State Department......
FBI releases official statistics on hate crimes
November 17th, 20190 WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Bureau of Investigations released its Hate Crime Statistics 2018 report this week. The report is the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program’s latest compilation about bias motivated incidents throughout the nation. The 2018 data was submitted by 16,039 law enforcement agencies that provided...
On 16th birthday, California student opens fire at his high school, killing two and shooting himself
November 17th, 20190 SANTA CLARITA, CA — A Southern California high school student pulled a .45 caliber semiautomatic handgun from his backpack and fired on fellow classmates on Thursday morning, killing two and wounding three others. He saved the last bullet for himself. It was his 16th birthday. The teenaged gunman, whose name was not provided by......
New report shows how tech companies profit from anti-Muslim violence and bigotry
November 9th, 20190 CHICAGO — The Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE), in collaboration with Crescendo and the Public Accountability Initiative, released a report this week that looks at the role that Big Tech platforms, Wall Street firms and right-wing media corporations have played in fanning the flames of White supremacy and anti-Muslim...
Haley Stevens should focus on serving her constituents in Michigan, not Israel
November 8th, 20191 This week, four members of the United States House of Representatives sent a letter to the United Nations Secretary-General expressing their "concern about the continuing, serious violations of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 and the resulting threat our ally Israel faces on its northern border." Resolution 1701 led to...
Microsoft should not fund Israeli spying on Palestinians
November 6th, 20190 The act of Palestinian activists covering their faces during anti-Israeli occupation rallies is an old practice that spans decades. The masking of the face, often by Kufyias — traditional Palestinian scarves that grew to symbolize Palestinian resistance — is far from being a fashion statement. Instead, it is a survival technique,...
Arab American mother allegedly evicted from Florida hotel because of her perceived religion: “We don’t want you here”
November 2nd, 20190 WEST PALM BEACH, FLA — A south Florida mother named Rosemarie Mohammed has claimed she was evicted from a hotel here because of her Arab ethnicity and perceived religion, and has filed a lawsuit accusing Hilton Worldwide Holdings over the alleged incident. “We don't want you here,” Mohammed was allegedly told by a Hampton Inn......
Remembering former U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a civil rights advocate and friend of the Arab American community
November 2nd, 20190 DETROIT —During his five decades in Congress, former U.S. Rep. John Conyers, who died Sunday at age 90, played a major impact in both local and national politics. In the wake of his passing, those who knew him and/or worked with him spoke out about him and his accomplishments. “John Conyers lived to serve Detroit, his community...
Debbie Dingell introduces foster care legislation in honor of Rehab and Ahmed Amer
October 30th, 20190 WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Dearborn) introduced the Rehab and Ahmed Amer Foster Care Improvement Act of 2019 on Wednesday, legislation that requires state foster care programs to ensure children are prioritized for placement with their relatives and puts additional requirements in place for a fairer decision-making......
Young Arab American woman found dead in Staten Island park in New York
October 30th, 20190 NEW YORK – The New York Police Department identified an Arab American woman found dead in a Staten Island park last week as 25-year-old Ola Salem. Salem was found by a jogger near the side of the road in a wooden park last Thursday morning. Salem’s body did not show any obvious signs of trauma, though sources told The New York Post...
Former U.S. Congressman John Conyers dies at age 90.
October 27th, 20190 DETROIT - John Conyers, a Democrat who was the longest-serving African American member of the U.S. House of Representatives, serving for more than half a century, died on Sunday at the age of 90. Conyers joined the House in 1965 and stepped down in 2017, after his reputation was sullied by sexual harassment accusations. The......
