Search Results for: mississippi

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) released a 67-page report Tuesday detailing its findings from monitoring the 2022 US midterm election and showcasing strategies to combat racial inequality during upcoming election cycles. The report, entitled Democracy Defended, specifically focused on voter experiences in seven of the nation’s southern states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, [...]

Former Philadelphia Police Officer Edsaul Mendoza, accused of shooting an unarmed 12-year-old, pleaded guilty to 3rd-degree murder on Friday, according to the Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s Office. In March 2022, Mendoza shot Thomas “TJ” Siderio during a “tactically unsound” foot pursuit. The former officer had been charged with first-degree murder, third-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, [...]

The Alabama House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday that would define biological sex in binary terms based on individuals’ reproductive systems rather than their gender identity. House Bill (HB) 111 would amend the Alabama Code to define sex-based terms, provide policy relating to sex and gender identity, allow public entities to establish some [...]

The Tennessee Senate passed a bill Thursday that would require public schools to show a fetal development video comparable to one produced by an anti-abortion group to its students. SB 2767 will require public schools’ family life curriculum to include a three-minute “high-quality, computer-generated animation or high-definition ultrasound” that shows the development of vital organs [...]

The Florida Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the state constitution does not protect the right to abortion. The ruling in Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida vs. State of Florida allows the current 15-week abortion ban to be upheld and triggers the Heartbeat Protection Act to take effect. The Act, signed into law [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging an Ohio ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender minors. The organization filed the suit along with the ACLU of Ohio and Goodwin, a global law firm, on behalf of two families whose children are at risk of losing access to such care. The ACLU [...]

The last of the six members of the Mississippi law enforcement group known as the “Goon Squad,” Joshua Hartfield, was sentenced to just over ten years in prison on Thursday for his involvement in the January 2023 torturing of two Black men. All six officers were terminated and pleaded guilty to their involvement in the [...]

A federal judge in Mississippi sentenced former Rankin County sheriff’s deputy Christian Dedmon to 40 years in prison on Wednesday, making Dedmon the fourth in a string of sentences for deputies who pled guilty for their role in the January 2023 beating and torture of two Black men. Dedmon pleaded guilty alongside five other deputies [...]

The third of six members of the Mississippi deputy group who referred to themselves as the “Goon Squad,” Daniel Opdyke, was sentenced Wednesday to 17 and a half years in federal prison for his involvement in the torture of two black men. In January 2023, six members of Mississippi law enforcement entered the home of [...]

The Mississippi House of Representatives passed on Wednesday a bill that seeks to define sex in strictly binary terms, impacting the recognition of transgender individuals’ identities within the state. The Mississippi Women’s Bill of Rights reflects a broader trend among Republican-controlled legislatures in the US to address and restrict the legal acknowledgement of transgender and [...]