Today in History: May 25, George Floyd killed by Minneapolis police
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In 1946, Transjordan (now Jordan) became a kingdom as it proclaimed its new monarch, Abdullah I.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy told Congress: 'I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.'
In 1964, the US Supreme Court, in Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, ordered the Virginia county to reopen its public schools, which officials had closed in an attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka desegregation ruling.
In 1977, 'Star Wars' was released by 20th Century Fox; it would become the highest-grossing film in history at the time.
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In 1979, 273 people died when an American Airlines DC-10 crashed just after takeoff from Chicago's O'Hare Airport.
In 2008, NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander arrived on the Red Planet to begin searching for evidence of water; the spacecraft confirmed the presence of water ice at its landing site.
In 2012, the private company SpaceX made history as its Dragon capsule became the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station.
In 2018, Harvey Weinstein was arrested and charged in New York with rape and another sex felony in the first prosecution to result from the wave of allegations against him. (Weinstein would be convicted of two felony counts in 2020, but an appeals court would overturn the conviction in 2024. A retrial on the charges began in April 2025.)
In 2020, George Floyd, a Black man, was killed when a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on Floyd's neck for 9 1/2 minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and pleading that he couldn't breathe; Floyd's death, captured on video by a bystander, would lead to worldwide protests, some of which turned violent, and a reexamination of racism and policing in the US.
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San Francisco Chronicle
37 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Elon Musk is gone, but DOGE's actions are hard to reverse. The Institute of Peace is a case study
WASHINGTON (AP) — The staff was already jittery. The raiders from Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency had disposed of the U.S. Institute of Peace board, its acting president and its longtime outside counsel. But until 9:30 p.m. on March 28, there was hope the damage might be limited. Then termination notices started popping up in personal emails. As he departs, Musk is leaving behind a wounded federal government. DOGE's playbook has been consistent: Take over facilities, information technology systems and leadership. Dismiss the staff. Move too quickly for the targets or courts to respond or fix the damage. Thousands of federal workers have seen the playbook unfold. What makes USIP, a 300-employee organization, unique is the blitz during its takeover has been, for the moment, reversed in court. The headquarters taken away in a weekend of lightning moves is back in the hands of its original board and acting president. The question they must answer now is a point that U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell made during one hearing: Can USIP be restored? 'A bull in a China shop breaks a lot of things,' she said. As the institute tries to reboot, it's a question for others in their own DOGE struggles. Targeting an agency aimed at fostering peace USIP was created by Congress in the 1980s. Described as an independent, nonprofit think tank funded by Congress, its mission has been to work to promote peace and prevent and end conflicts. When DOGE came knocking, it was operating in 26 conflict zones, including Afghanistan. The institute was one of four organizations targeted by President Donald Trump's Feb. 19 Executive Order 14217. Despite conversations to explain the organization's role, most of the Institute's board was fired by email March 14. The lone holdovers were ex officio — Cabinet members Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio and the National Defense University's president. Within minutes of the 4 p.m. emails, DOGE staff showed up and tried to get into the building but were turned back. That, according to court documents, kicked off a weekend of pressure by the FBI on institute security personnel. DOGE returned the following Monday and got into the headquarters with help from the FBI and Washington police. Outside counsel George Foote thought the local officers were there to expel the DOGE contingent but learned quickly they were not. He, security chief Colin O'Brien and others were escorted out by local authorities. 'They have sidearms and tasers and are saying you can't go anywhere but out that door,' Foote said. The board filed a lawsuit the following day. Howell expressed dissatisfaction with DOGE's tactics but she let their actions stand. By then a DOGE associate, Kenneth Jackson, had been named as acting president of the organization by the ex officio board members. The staff knew what he'd done as the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Now Jackson was at the institute, but they were hopeful 'we would have a process of explanation or review of our work,' said Scott Worden, director of the Afghanistan and Central Asia programs. Then came March 28. By midnight, nearly all the institute's employees had been let go. The actions reverberated The impact was 'profound and devastating,' Worden said. First, employees at the institute are not government employees so they got no government benefits or civil service protections. Insurance also was gone. Partners abroad suddenly lost their support and contacts. The lawyers representing board members in their lawsuit sought a hearing to head off rumors of more mayhem to come. But when they walked into a courtroom the headquarters and other assets were gone, too. It was, Howell said at the hearing, 'a done deal.' Over the weekend, DOGE had replaced Jackson with fellow DOGE associate Nate Cavanaugh, whose name was on the documents that allowed DOGE to take control of institute assets and transfer the headquarters to the General Services Administration. In court, the Trump administration's attorney laid out the timeline, making clear the newly named president of USIP had not only been authorized to transfer the property but also the request had gone through proper channels. Throughout hearings, Howell struggled with describing the organization — whether it was part of the executive branch and under Trump's authority. The government argued it had to fall under one of the three branches of government and clearly wasn't legislative or judicial. Lawyers defending the government also said that because presidents appointed the board, presidents also had the authority to fire them. Howell's May 19 opinion concluded the institute 'exercises no Executive branch power under the Constitution.' She added that the law that created it set specific steps for firing the board members and none of those had been followed. What it looks like now Two weeks later, about 10% of the people who would normally be inside the headquarters are doing maintenance, getting systems running and trying to access the institute's funding. Desks are empty but with paperwork and files strewn across them, left by the speed of the takeover. O'Brien, the security officer, praised the General Services Administration and security managers who tried to keep the building going. But getting systems fully functioning will entail lots of work. Foote said some returnees are trying to access the institute's funding, including money appropriated by Congress and the part of the endowment moved during the takeover. He said transferring funds within the federal government is 'complicated.' The result: Workers are furloughed, and overseas offices will remain closed. Nicoletta Barbera, acting director for the U.S. Institute of Peace's West Africa and Central Africa programs, is one of the furloughed workers. 'We had USIP representatives based in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger that, overnight, were left with no support system from anyone here in HQ,' she said. Barbera said a recent attack in Burkina Faso ended with 'hundreds of atrocities and deaths.' 'And I couldn't just stop but think, what if I could have continued our work there during this time?' she said. Moose has said there will likely be lasting damage — on traumatized staff and relationships with partners around the world. 'That's going to be hard to repair,' he said.
Time Magazine
an hour ago
- Time Magazine
Supreme Court Unanimously Sides With Straight Woman In ‘Reverse Discrimination' Case
Lawsuits for 'reverse discrimination' will face an easier path after the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously sided on Thursday with a woman who argued that she was passed over for a promotion and later demoted because she is straight. The court's ruling is a departure from previous court decisions that have set a higher bar in cases where people who are part of a majority group, such as those who are white and straight, filed lawsuits alleging discrimination under federal civil rights law. But the Supreme Court said in its ruling that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race and sexual orientation, among other characteristics, 'draws no distinctions between majority-group plaintiffs and minority-group plaintiffs. Rather, the provision makes it unlawful 'to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.'' 'By establishing the same protections for every 'individual'—without regard to that individual's membership in a minority or majority group—Congress left no room for courts to impose special requirements on majority-group plaintiffs alone,' Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote for the court. The case was brought by Marlean Ames against the Ohio Department of Youth Services, where she started working in 2004. In 2019, she applied for a promotion, but was turned down and a colleague with less seniority—who was a lesbian woman—received the promotion instead. Ames was later demoted and her previous role was given to another colleague who had less seniority, a gay man. She sued under Title VII, alleging in her lawsuit that she was denied the promotion and then demoted due to her sexual orientation. Her supervisors, however, said Ames was passed over for the promotion because she didn't have the vision and leadership skills needed for the role and demoted because they had concerns about her leadership skills. Lower courts had previously ruled against Ames, saying her lawsuit failed to demonstrate 'background circumstances to support the suspicion that the defendant is that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.' But the Supreme Court ruled that requirement was 'not consistent with Title VII's text or our case law construing the statute.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
US Rep. Veronica Escobar questions ICE over Fort Bliss migrant detention plans, conditions
U.S. Rep Veronica Escobar questioned acting ICE director Todd Lyons during a House Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security oversight hearing in Washington, D.C., over plans to expand ICE detention facilities and the dire conditions of the facilities. "The increase in cost to taxpayers obviously hasn't translated into an increase in humane conditions, but I bet it has meant an increase in profit for these private companies," Escobar, D-El Paso, said during the hearing Wednesday, May 14. "How many total beds does the reconciliation package create?" Lyon responded that they are looking to add 100,000 beds, but he said that the agency currently does not have the money. Congress has approved funding for 41,500 detention beds, but ICE is currently detaining 52,000 people. But Lyons initially did not respond to Escobar's question, stating that ICE is focused with the committee and members of Congress that any increase in bed space would be done in a "proper and fiscal way." He blamed the need to use private prison companies, like Geo Group, on "sanctuary cities" and state legislation for needing to move immigrants around because of available bed space. He also said that ICE is looking to add 3,500 beds at Fort Bliss in El Paso, which the Trump administration has stated it would like to use as a deportation hub since February. The office of the Secretary of the Army said in March that they had identified land where they will begin construction of the detention facility "soon." Top Democrats have increasingly warned the Department of Homeland Security that the federal agency is running out of money. Sen. Chris Murphy warned Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on May 8 that her agency would use its $65 million budget by July. Rep. Lauren Underwood of Illinois, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security, accused the ICE and the DHS of using funds it does not have. 'This administration is cashing checks it does not have to reach questionable goals it cannot meet,' Underwood said. Lyons denied that the agency was running out of money. The Trump administration is pushing to increase the DHS budget to $200 billion. More: Amnesty International report finds disregard for human rights in El Paso ICE facility Escobar condemned the conditions in the detention facilities. She joined Underwood in questioning Lyons about the conditions in the ICE facilities and the number of immigrants who have died while detained. Lyon said that there have been nine deaths in ICE facilities, and promised to update the available information about the deaths. ICE has arrested 88,000 people this year, Lyons told lawmakers. Two-thirds have been arrested since President Donald Trump assumed office on Jan. 20. Lyons stressed that the administration focuses only on the "worst of the worst." Escobar challenged this narrative, pointing out that many of those who have been arrested have no criminal record, are students with green cards, and that they are "being snatched off the streets by masked men and disappeared into detention facilities." 'What we've seen under the Trump administration should send chills down the spine of every American,' Escobar said. "The fact is that the administration is not focusing on the worst of the worst, as it claims… the focus has largely been on immigrants who are here both legally and those who are here illegally, but pose absolutely no threat to the public." Jeff Abbott covers the border for the El Paso Times and can be reached at:jdabbott@ @palabrasdeabajo on Twitter or @ on Bluesky. This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: US Rep. Escobar questions acting ICE director over detention conditions
