Officials’ reactions to U.S. Supreme Court decision on Muslim Travel Ban
July 1st, 20180 Japanese American protesters: What happened to us should never happen again WASHINGTON/DEARBORN — Outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, many protesters held signs that read "No Muslim Ban" and "We Will Not Be Banned" as they protested the court's decision to uphold President Trump's travel ban. However, in the process —...
Arab American police officer promoted in Youngstown, OH
June 30th, 20180 YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — The Youngstown Police Department made history Thursday with the first promotion of an Arab American and Muslim police officer. Mohammad Awad, who is entering his seventh year with the department, is going from police officer to detective sergeant. The department swore him in to his new duties Thursday morning...
Yemeni Americans grapple with travel ban fallout as protests erupt in large cities
June 30th, 20181 NEW YORK — Yemeni Americans are most affected by President Trump's Muslim travel ban among the Arab and Muslim Americans. Yemen is one of the countries listed on the third version of the travel ban, which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday. The ban blocks citizens of Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, and...
Supreme Court upholds Trump’s travel ban targeting Muslim-majority nations
June 26th, 20181 WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday handed Donald Trump one of the biggest victories of his presidency, upholding his travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries and rejecting the argument that it represented unconstitutional religious discrimination. The 5-4 ruling, with the court’s five conservatives in...
Lawsuit claims landlord denied man a property lease because he’s Muslim
June 24th, 20181 DENVER — When Craig Caldwell wanted to sublet a space to a Muslim restaurant owner, his landlord turned the deal down. He was so shocked at the reason she gave that he used his cell phone to record two conversations with her. His landlord said find an "American person", according to the recordings. The recordings, which are part...
U.S. quits U.N. Human Rights Council, claiming it’s anti-Israel
June 24th, 20180 WASHINGTON — The Trump administration withdrew from the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday, accusing the body of hypocrisy and bias against Israel. “For too long, the Human Rights Council has been a protector of human rights abusers and a cesspool of political bias,” Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said Tuesday...
1 In 4 hijabi women experienced shoving on NYC subway
June 22nd, 20182 NEW YORK — More than a quarter of hijabi Muslim or Arab-looking women were shoved on the subways as xenophobic attacks proliferated in New York City around and following the 2016 presidential election, a new report says. More than 27 percent of Muslim women who wear the hijab, a religious head covering, said they were...
ACLU sues over plans for citizenship question on 2020 Census
June 20th, 20181 NEW YORK —Civil rights lawyers sued the U.S. Commerce Department last week to try to stop plans to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, calling it an unconstitutional attempt to discriminate against immigrants. The Manhattan federal court lawsuit on behalf of immigrants' rights groups blames racial animus for the recent...
Tampa man goes to prison for ruining home sale to Muslim family
June 18th, 20180 TAMPA — Kaderbhai Ali Asgar choked up as he told the courtroom what Islam means to him. It is a religion of love and peace, he said. "Security for all," Asgar said. "That’s what I want." Just a feet away from him sat David H. Howard, the man who had threatened in November 2016 to burn a Davis Islands house down if Asgar and his...
Trump calls De Niro ‘very low IQ individual’ for Tony Awards outburst
June 12th, 20180 LOS ANGELES - President Trump on Tuesday hit back at Robert De Niro, calling him a “very low IQ individual,” after the Oscar-winning actor’s expletive-laden attack on the American president on live television. Two days after De Niro’s outburst on the stage of the Tony Awards ceremony in New York, Trump said he had watched the...
Survey: 1 in 5 Americans would deny Muslims the right to vote
June 10th, 20180 WASHINGTON - A minority of Americans believe that many Muslim Americans are not “American” enough, according to a new study by the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group. They also see little difference between Muslims from other countries and Muslim Americans, “suggesting that ‘Americanness’ alone does not lead to more positive...
Amazon lets Muslim workers put Ramadan before Prime Day
June 10th, 20180 MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota — The run-up to Amazon Prime Day, the e-commerce giant’s big July sales promotion, overlaps with Ramadan, 30 sacred days during which many observant Muslims fast and seek time off. That’s creating tension in Minnesota’s Twin Cities region, where activists say Amazon.com Inc. employs more than...
American Muslim investors to donate $5.6 million to charity during Ramadan
June 10th, 20181 FALLS CHURCH, Virginia — Azzad Asset Management, a socially responsible, faith-based registered investment advisor, announced on Thursday that its Muslim clients are expected to donate approximately $5.6 million to charity during the holy month of Ramadan. The figure is the highest since Azzad began providing this calculation in...
Congressman Dan Kildee and staff fast in solidarity with Muslim Americans
June 9th, 20180 FLINT, Michigan — U.S Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Flint), along with his congressional staff in Washington, D.C., fasted Wednesday June 6 in solidarity with Muslims in Michigan and around the world in observance of Ramadan. Ramadan is a holy month of fasting during which Muslims may not eat or drink from sunrise to sunset. This will be the...
Muslim students attacked at a Florida McDonald’s
June 8th, 20180 SAINT AUGUSTINE, Fla - A Florida man was arrested on Wednesday after he reportedly attacked two men he believed to be Muslims or Middle Easterners. He used a stun gun and told them they didn’t “deserve to eat American food". John Jay Smith, 60, got into a verbal altercation with the men before menacing them with a knife and......
Flint Congressman Kildee and staff to observe Ramadan for a day
June 5th, 20180 WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressman Dan Kildee (D-Flint), along with his congressional staff in Washington, D.C., will fast in solidarity Wednesday with Muslims in Michigan and around the world in observance of Ramadan. Ramadan is a holy month of fasting during which Muslims may not eat or drink from sunrise to sunset. This will be the...
Another Islamophobe joins the Trump administration
June 4th, 20180 WASHINGTON - The National Security Council announced last week that Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst and a senior vice president at the Center for Security Policy, is the Council's new Chief of Staff and Executive Secretary and also Deputy Assistant to President Donald Trump. The Center for Security Policy, which the Southern......
Arab American group wins San Francisco school district contract, despite Jewish objections
June 4th, 20180 SAN FRANCISCO — Three years ago, the San Francisco Unified School District placed a hold on a proposal to grant the Arab Resource and Organizing Committee (AROC) a contract to teach “cultural competency training” and Arabic language classes in city public schools. At the May 22 district school board meeting and to the dismay of...
Florida’s Muslim free clinic a ‘blessing’ to uninsured, low-income patients of all faiths
June 3rd, 20180 David Gagner was having seizures. But he did not have nor can afford health insurance, so he sought care at a Baptist Health emergency room. There he was told he had another option in the future, the volunteer-run Muslim American Social Services, or MASS, clinic that provides free health care to uninsured, low-income adults of all...
Survey: 80 percent of American Muslims observe Ramadan by fasting
June 2nd, 20180 The Pew Research Center has found that 80 percent of U.S. Muslims say they observe Ramadan by fasting during daylight hours. More of the U.S.’s 2.15 million Muslim adults say they do this than say that they pray five times a day (42 percent) or attend mosque weekly (43 percent). More Muslim women say they observe Ramadan in this way...
New Texas law requires state contractors to pledge not to boycott Israel
June 1st, 20180 By Lindsay Ellis HOUSTON, TX — In February, Vanessa Angélica Villarreal gave a workshop and reading at the University of Houston's Spanish program in creative writing. The University of Southern California Ph.D. candidate met students and promoted her first book at the event. But she was surprised in April to hear......
ABC’s cancels ‘Roseanne’ following star’s Islamophobic, racist tweet
May 29th, 20181 "It's as joke." That's how TV star Roseanne Barr characterized her Tweet that said former aid to President Obama Valerie Jarrett looked like if "muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby." But that so called joke got her hit TV show, ABC's "Roseanne", canceled. In a statement, Channing Dungey denouncing Barr's...
Party City first national retailer to offer Ramadan decorations
May 25th, 20180 Party City said it's become the first national retailer to offer a dedicated line of decorations for Ramadan, after numerous requests from customers. Ramadan began on May 16 and ends at on June 14, kicking off the start of the day-long Eid al-Fitr celebration. The chain, which has more than 900 stores in the United States and......
Arab American activist set to take reins at Massachusetts Teachers Association
May 25th, 20180 BOSTON — Merrie Najimy, the president-elect of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA), was inspired to become an educator and later a unionist after experiencing in her own youth that the curricula taught in the Massachusetts public schools she attended felt exclusionary to Arab American students. Growing up in the Lebanese...
Workers hit McDonald’s with multiple sexual harassment claims
May 25th, 20180 LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK — Ten women who work at McDonald’s restaurants in Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles and six other cities have filed sexual harassment complaints in the past few days with the federal government against the company and its franchisees, which they said ignored or retaliated against them for such complaints. The......
