Black Unemployment Just Hit 7.5%. If That Were the National Number, We’d Call It a Recession.
The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies put a number on something a lot of us have been feeling anecdotally for a year: Black unemployment climbed to 7.5 percent by the end of last year, up from 6.2 percent at the start, according to the organization’s “State of the Dream 2026” report. Read that […]
40 Tiny Homes, One Northwest Side Lot: Inside Milwaukee’s Bet on Ending Veteran Homelessness
Forty tiny homes are going up on a seven-acre lot on Milwaukee’s northwest side, and if you served, you should care about this project even if you’ve never needed anything like it yourself, because it’s a test of whether this country has actually learned anything about how to house veterans instead of just talking about […]
The Black Church Is Getting Back Into Politics. It Never Really Left.
Every few election cycles, someone in national media “discovers” that Black churches are political institutions, as if this were breaking news. It isn’t. It’s the load-bearing wall of Black civic life in this country, going back to before Reconstruction, and it’s doing exactly what it has always done this year, ahead of the November 2026 […]
Meta Just Got Hit With Another $567 Million Bill for Your Kids’ Mental Health. It Still Won’t Fix the Problem.
A judge in New Mexico ordered Meta this week to pay $567 million to address the harm Instagram and Facebook have done to young users’ mental health. Judge Bryan Biedscheid’s ruling breaks the money down with some precision: $420 million goes toward treatment services for young people, the rest toward prevention, screening, and awareness work […]
Trump Wants the Senate to Cancel Its Vacation for a Bill That’s Already Failed Five Times
President Trump wants the Senate to skip its August recess. The reason is a bill called the SAVE America Act, which would require voters to show documentary proof of citizenship when they register to vote. Senate Majority Leader John Thune doesn’t want to cancel recess for it. The bill has already failed on the Senate […]
The Masculinity Crisis Isn’t About Weakness. It’s About Men Nobody Sees.
There’s a data point circulating in recent national research on American men that I haven’t been able to shake, and I want to lead with it instead of burying it in paragraph six the way a lot of coverage does. Men who report feeling that “no one really knows me” show up as dramatically more […]
Milwaukee County Flooded Twice in Nine Months. The Recovery Deadline Nobody’s Talking About Is 25 Days Away.
If you live in Milwaukee County and your home took on water this past April, I need you to hear this clearly, because I don’t think it’s gotten the airtime it deserves: you have until August 31 to apply for FEMA Individual Assistance. That’s it. Twenty-five days from today. And if you’re one of the […]
The 22 Percent: Why Black Veterans Carry a Heavier PTSD Burden, and What Actually Closes the Gap
There’s a number I want to sit with for a minute before I explain why it matters: 22 percent. That’s the share of Black veterans who deployed and report post-traumatic stress disorder, according to recent Department of Veterans Affairs research. For white veterans who deployed, that number is 14.1 percent. Same wars. Same deployments, broadly […]
The Strait of Hormuz Deal Nobody’s Watching Could Hit Your Wallet Before It Hits the Headlines
Most weeks, “Strait of Hormuz negotiations” is the kind of headline people scroll past on the way to something with a face and a name attached. I get it — it sounds like Foreign Policy 101 homework, not something that touches your life in Milwaukee or Memphis or Atlanta. But this is one of those […]
When We Let Political Violence Off the Hook, We All Pay Later
This week, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta did something he made clear he did not want to do. He dismissed the seditious conspiracy case against Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and eight co-defendants — the last standing prosecution tied to January 6, 2021 — because the Justice Department itself asked him to. Rhodes had been […]