CNN has dropped Rick Santorum as a senior political commentator amid controversy over recent disparaging remarks the former senator made about Native Americans.
Driving the news: Speaking at a Young America's Foundation event last month, Santorum said, "We birthed a nation from nothing — I mean, there was nothing here. I mean, yes, we have Native Americans, but candidly, there isn't much Native American culture in American culture."
More than 100,000 Haitians living in the United States will have the chance to receive Temporary Protected Status under a new Biden administration directive announced on Saturday.
Why it matters: Haiti continues to experience political, social and economic unrest with COVID-19 cases on the rise and President Jovenel Moïse's ongoing refusal to step down.
Over 100 beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) can legally travel internationally for the first time starting this week, after a judge granted their request for a special permit to re-enter the United States.
Why it matters: Nearly 700,000 people in the program would normally face deportation if they left the U.S. for educational trips or family emergencies like grandparents’ funerals.
Viola Fletcher can still smell the smoke of burning buildings and see "Black bodies lying in the street." Nearly 100 years after a white mob attacked a Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, killing an estimated 300 people and torching thousands of homes and businesses, Fletcher says she still hears the screams.
The big picture: As the country prepares to mark the 100-year anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, the last known living survivors, including 107-year-old Fletcher, testified this week before a House committee considering reparations for survivors and their descendants.
The Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency announced it will begin distributing loan forgiveness payments to Black and other minority farmers in June as part of President Biden's American Rescue Plan.
Details: Approximately $4 billion of the COVID-19 relief plan has been allocated to help those "who have faced a legacy of financial discrimination," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes.
The Navajo Nation surpassed the Cherokee Nation as the largest tribe in the United States from an enrollment surge during the coronavirus pandemic, growing to 399,494 members, according to the New York Times.
Why it matters: The uptick in enrollments was likely from a need to secure federal pandemic relief funds as the virus tore through the largest Indian reservation in the country.
More than 70 officers have left the U.S. Capitol Police force in the aftermath of the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection, according to Gus Papathanasiou, chair of the Capitol Police Labor Committee, Politico reported.
Why it matters: The police force has warned it will take years to hire and train more officers to recoup its ranks and that current officers are working longer hours to fill staffing gaps.
Nearly seven out of 10 Black Americans say police treatment has gotten worse in the past year, and about the same percentage believe police shootings of Black and brown youths have become worse in that time, according to an Axios-Ipsos poll.
The big picture: The poll, conducted a year after George Floyd's death, suggests that the relationship between Black Americans and the police not only hasn't improved, but is a profound and escalating crisis.
President Biden said Friday he won't allow the Justice Department to seize journalists' email or phone records, calling the practice "simply wrong."
Driving the news: Biden's comments come after the recent disclosures that the DOJ, under the Trump administration, secretly obtained the records of several journalists, including one at CNN and three at the Washington Post.
