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Columns/Opinion

Black Americans are doing a lot better under Trump

The August jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed more great news for all Americans. And particularly for black Americans. The nation’s unemployment rate of 3.7% puts it near the lowest ever in the last half-century. Black unemployment is at an all-time low at 5.5%. Also at an all-time low is the gap between black and white unemployment. With white unemployment at 3.4%, the gap is 2.1 percentage points. Put in other terms, black unemployment stood 62% higher than white unemployment. A few years ago, the Pew Research Center looked at BLS unemployment data back to ...

Is it ethical to take good money from bad people?

The now-former head of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab went from hero to zero in a couple of news cycles. Once heralded for overseeing projects that use technology for social good, Joichi Ito resigned after revelations that he had tried to hide the source of donations from sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. It was the cover-up that ultimately did him in. Before that, there was some back and forth on the morality of taking good money from bad people — a subject on which hypocrisy often takes center stage. Few of the fortunes that shower colleges, medical facilities ...

Dealing with Taliban devil that’s waiting us out

President Trump was right to cancel a “secret” meeting with leaders of the Taliban and the Afghan government following two bomb attacks by the terrorist group that killed 10 civilians, an American soldier and a Romanian service member in heavily fortified Kabul. The president is eager to fulfill a desire to withdraw remaining American forces in what has been one of America’s longest wars. Who isn’t? Unfortunately, terrorism does not fall under a single umbrella. It is not just al-Qaida, though all Islamist terrorist groups appear to have the same objective: Kill Americans, ...

Slave labor in the modern era

By Mary Jane Wilkie The Baltimore Sun The prospect is appealing: work your own hours, be your own boss, choose your assignments. Who wouldn’t want that? But reports from Uber and Lyft drivers suggest that the glittering prospect is deceptive and that many drivers make roughly what fast-food workers make. Here’s the truth: The gig economy is glorious only if the skill you are selling has great value, your business skills are sharp and you have the opportunity to use your business savvy. Now well into senior citizen-hood (and still working), I have spent more than 60% of my ...

We’re living fable of emperor’s new clothes

If you’re going to lie, make it a good one. Meaning, put some effort into it. Make it convincing. Make sure the truth is not easily discoverable. Don’t just draw on a weather map with a Sharpie. That’s apparently what Donald Trump or someone in his employ did last week to prove he was right all along in claiming that the state of Alabama lay in the path of Hurricane Dorian. He made this claim via Twitter Sunday morning, and it was so alarmingly wrong that the Birmingham office of the National Weather Service quickly tweeted an emphatic correction: “Alabama will NOT see any ...

The ongoing tragedy that’s still Sept. 11

By Bridget Rooney Tribune News Service Sept. 11, 2001, will always be recognized as a day of tribulation in the United States. Some 3,000 people lost their lives in multiple terrorist attacks, the largest one being the fall of the World Trade Center’s twin towers in New York City. Thousands of first responders and civilians risked their lives to save others. Eighteen years later, the toll is still climbing. Many forms of carcinogens were left in the air and inhaled by thousands of people. General illnesses caused from high levels of dust inhalation have attributed to chronic ...