Latest news with #Columbians
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Who sabotaged the budget to promote ‘conversion therapy'? Columbia deserves answers.
LGBTQ+ advocate Cora Webb was among those who testified at City Hall in Columbia, S.C., Tuesday, May 20, 2025, urging the city to maintain its ban on conversion therapy for minors. (Photo by Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette) There's an old horror story: the call is coming from inside the house. In Columbia, that chilling metaphor might not be far from reality — and this time, it's not a fictional villain on the line, but the possibility that someone elected to protect the city may have quietly worked to harm it from within. Tuesday night Columbians of all stripes came out to tell the city: Don't repeal the ban on licensed healthcare providers giving minors so-called 'conversion therapy,' a discredited practice that seeks to force a change in sexual orientation or gender identity. Residents who had been victims of the barbarous practice shared heart-rending stories. Mental health professionals, religious and secular residents, gay and straight alike spoke – all in defense of keeping this important ban in place. City Council punted on the decision, giving residents and advocates a small reprieve. After the council meeting, Mayor Daniel Rickenmann told reporters that city leaders had 'sequestered' hospitality and accommodations tax funding — bracing for the possibility that the state Legislature would withhold support. That support, estimated at $3.7 million, now hangs in the balance because an ambitious, socially conservative senator from the Upstate disapproved of Columbia's policy to protect LGBTQ+ kids. Acting in the wake of Attorney General Alan Wilson's letter, that senator inserted language into the Senate's version of the budget making Columbia's public funding a hostage to ideological retaliation. And then a curious thing happened on Wednesday. After the conference committee completed its work of cobbling together the state budget, House Ways and Means Committee Chair Bruce Bannister — speaking about the inclusion of the proviso in their final package — said this about unnamed Columbia City Council members: 'They were supportive of us adopting the proviso … and that this would encourage their members to think a little harder about it.' When a reporter asked if the mayor specifically talked with them, Bannister said, 'I don't – it was someone. I neither confirm nor deny who was doing the work on that end.' That silence is deafening. Because if it turns out that any member of Columbia City Council lobbied state lawmakers to deliberately deny the city funds as a backdoor tactic to force the repeal of its ban on conversion therapy, then what we are dealing with is not just an instance of political pressure. It is a civic betrayal of the highest order. That being said, we can't lose focus. Columbia's ordinance banning conversion therapy — a practice condemned by every major medical and psychological association — is a life-affirming law designed to protect LGBTQ+ youth from psychological abuse masquerading as treatment. It took courage for City Council to enact it. Resistance to repealing the ordinance is paramount now more than ever. However, if now, through backroom dealings and veiled threats, city officials are attempting to reverse that moral stand by threatening a $3.7 million cut to Columbia's public budget, then they have not only undermined public trust — they have weaponized the state budget against their own citizens and constituents. That alone would be scandal enough. However, the intrigue doesn't seem to stop there. What makes it even more audacious is the decision to tie that political coercion to hospitality and accommodations tax (HTAX) funding. HTAX funding is the fuel behind the festivals that draw visitors from across the Southeast. It's a support that keeps our local arts scene vibrant, our public events safe and staffed, our nonprofits operational, our parks clean, and our local businesses booming. To tinker with that engine out of ideological spite — or worse, as a calculated move to pressure elected officials to fall in line — isn't just reckless. It's economically self-sabotaging. This isn't just a game of political chess. These are real dollars, real jobs, and real people whose lives depend on a functioning, forward-looking city government. And to even contemplate disrupting that system for the sake of dismantling protections for LGBTQ+ youth reveals a staggering disregard for both moral responsibility and fiscal stewardship. If the rumors are true — if the mayor or other officials worked behind closed doors to cut Columbia off from state support in hopes of toppling a policy they couldn't defeat in open debate — then they must be held accountable. Not just at the ballot box, but in the court of public opinion and historical memory. Because when elected leaders lobby against their own city's interests — when they betray the people they were sworn to serve — they don't just break public trust. They break the very foundation on which local democracy stands. And that, no matter what the political calculus, is indefensible.
CBS News
05-05-2025
- Business
- CBS News
Cinco de Mayo Parade is canceled, but other celebrations are happening in Chicago
It's Cinco de Mayo, but unfortunately, the annual Little Village parade has been canceled. Celebrations, however, are happening in Chicago. What led to the cancellation of the Cinco de Mayo parade According to organizers, the Little Village parade was canceled due to deportation concerns. While the primary concern is safety, the move will cost businesses and the community money. Organizers say canceling this year's parade will cost the Chamber of Commerce about $1.5 million. Small businesses that depend on the crowds to eat and shop will also lose $5 to $6 million. Businesses in the community have already been losing money, some down 60% since the first of the year. Guerrero Auto Repair has seen a decline in clientele. "We had a high clientele of Venezulans, Columbians, Cuban, different other races, Mexican as well. We've seen that amount of clientele decrease since the Trump administration," said Erika Cruz. "I think it's more important to be safe right now than sorry," Hector Escobar of the Cermak Road Chamber of Commerce said. Organizers said they are planning for the event's return next year. Where to celebrate Cinco de Mayo For those looking to celebrate the holiday, Fulton Market's Carnivale restaurant is celebrating by serving Latin-inspired dishes and cocktails starting at 5 p.m. The MLK Skating and Bowling Center will host a skate and bowl fiesta from 5 to 8 p.m., during which walking tacos will be available for purchase. Cinco de Mayo celebrates Mexico's 1862 victory over France during the Battle of Puebla. However, the holiday is not Mexican Independence Day, which is scheduled for Sept. 16.
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Can a Pop Song Violate Children's Rights?
The song "+57," from the Colombian musicians Karol G, J Balvin, and several others, violates the rights of children, a Colombian court has ruled. The Associated Press reports that the court has ordered the artists "to refrain from publishing music that violates the rights of children and teenagers." How can a song violate someone's rights, let alone the rights of multiple people? Unless we're talking about copyrights, it makes little sense. And no, the court isn't saying that kids of Colombia have a collective copyright claim to "+57." The issue is lyrics in the song that could be read as sexualizing a teen girl. The court claims these lyrics represent a violation of children's rights. "Sexualizing minors reduces them to becoming objects of desire, and exposes them to risks that can affect their development," the 14-page ruling says. "+57" is about someone who goes out partying after telling her boyfriend she is going to sleep. The contested lyrics—sung in Spanish—call someone "a hot mama since she was 14" and say "although that baby has an owner, she goes out whenever she wants," according to a Billboard translation of the lyrics. Some Columbians argue that the backlash against the song represents class bias, moral panic, and a distaste for reggaeton music, according to a New York Times piece last fall on the controversy. It's hard to look at those lyrics and not get the feeling they're right. These are not graphic lyrics. The outrage over them isn't about preventing a patently offensive and obscene depiction from reaching people's ears, or stopping some pedophilic exploiters from airing fantasies. These are lyrics that tell a narrative about a particular fictional character. It is a story, albeit a pretty light one—most of the song is just about drinking and dancing and partying behind the boyfriend's back. The character is clearly meant to be young, though nothing indicates she's still under age 18. Nor is there reason to believe that the song's creators are celebrating the idea of her having been a "mamacita" from a young age. In any event, declaring these lyrics a rights violation obviously won't stop any actual sexual harm against children. All it does is stop people from singing about it. It's hard to imagine who might be helped at all by a ruling against lyrics like these. But it's easy to see how the situation is an affront to artistic freedom—and how it could curb people's ability to speak out against the sexualization of minors and sexual exploitation. For what it's worth, the musicians changed the lyrics last fall to "since she was 18," and Karol G, known as a champion for women's causes, apologized but also said people were taking the lyrics out of context and in the wrong way. The idea that song lyrics sexualizing minors should be criminal seems far removed from U.S. conceptions of free speech and artistic freedom. But is it? A number of Republican-controlled states and GOP lawmakers have been trying to toughen rules against performances, books, and other artworks that they deem "harmful to minors." The particulars of these efforts differ slightly, but at the heart of all of them is an effort to go beyond just restricting and criminalizing things that could be considered "obscene" (itself an imperfect and subjective standard, despite the Miller test) and instead creating even more broad and subjective rules. These efforts are steeped in the language of protecting "children" from sexualization, but often fail to distinguish between age groups (as if what's inappropriate for a 6-year-old is necessarily inappropriate for a 16-year-old as well) and take a highly conservative view of what is OK even for older kids. They also tend to come down hard on LGBTQ content. State proposals to limit material "harmful to minors" often hinge on the idea that it will be developmentally dangerous for young people to encounter said material, not that the mere existence of such material violates their rights. But it doesn't seem like a huge leap from some of these efforts to declaring sexual song lyrics—or stories, or anything else—a rights violation. Would the First Amendment allow this? It shouldn't, of course. But even if Colombian-style efforts in the U.S. would eventually get struck down, they could still do damage. After all, the effect of all these "harmful to minors" measures we're currently seeing isn't limited to banning existing works of art. Even vague and unenforced rules can have a chilling effect, making institutions more reticent in what they feature in the first place. They can also create new avenues for government coercion, allowing the authorities to threaten action on "harm to minors" grounds in order to get groups to do what they want more broadly. The idea that a pop song can violate children's rights in the way the Colombian courts suggest is silly. But the idea that panic about pop songs could cause violations of free speech rights seems all too clear. • Meta goes to court today over antitrust claims. The New York Times reports: On Monday, the Federal Trade Commission will face off with Meta in court over claims that the social media giant snuffed out nascent competitors when it bought Instagram and WhatsApp. And on April 21, the Justice Department will argue that a federal judge should force Google to sell its Chrome web browser to limit the power of its search monopoly. Both cases, which helped set into motion a new era of antitrust scrutiny, were filed during President Trump's first term in office. They were advanced by the Biden administration, which also filed monopoly lawsuits against Amazon, Apple and Google's ad technology business. Investors in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street hoped that Mr. Trump might show technology companies more deference during his second term, as he promised to deregulate industries. Some legal experts think the administration could still take a lighter hand on blocking mergers and setting proactive regulations for tech. But so far, Mr. Trump's appointees have promised to continue much of the scrutiny of the biggest tech companies, despite the industry's hopes. See also: "Silicon Valley's gamble on Trump isn't paying off." • "A recently created Department of Homeland Security task force is using data analytic tools to scour the social media histories of the estimated 1.5 million foreign students studying in the United States for potential grounds to revoke their visas," reports NBC. "The data analytic tools now being used to scour social media were enhanced during the Biden administration, a former Biden administration DHS official said." • Space miso! • "Michigan has now officially decriminalized surrogacy contracts, becoming the last state in the country to do so," ABC 12 News reports. • Economist Emily Oster talks with Yascha Mounk about kids and screens (as part of a longer conversation about parenting): Oster: The data that people bring to bear on questions like the impact of screen time on the development of two-year-olds is really bad. It is far worse in terms of the correlation versus causation problem, than the breastfeeding evidence. In some ways, it should be very easy for people to understand this. Take one example: studies comparing kids under one who watch more than four hours of screens a day to those who watch none. Then they look at developmental measures—say, test scores—when those kids are five or six. But if you ask someone to imagine a household where a one-year-old is watching four to six hours of TV a day, and another where the one-year-old watches none—do you think those households are otherwise similar? I think it's hard to imagine they would be. And in fact, the data shows they're not. But they're not just different in obvious ways—they differ in all kinds of ways, many of which we can't measure. So maybe those kids are different for reasons unrelated to screen time. It's very hard to say, definitively, that screens are the cause. When I talk to parents about this, I try to frame it as: screens aren't inherently bad or inherently good. Screens are really just something that displaces other activities. So rather than treating them like a boogeyman, it helps to think in terms of opportunity cost. It's probably better for your kid to be reading a book, spending time with family, or sleeping—activities we know have clear benefits. Screens are more neutral. The question is: what are they replacing? But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't do any screens. If they have an hour of screen time while you're cooking dinner so that they can then be ready to have that nice family dinner and be in a good place, that's fine. And there isn't anything in the data that would say that it's not. I think this is an area where it helps to structure the choice, set boundaries, and avoid having screens everywhere all the time. But at the same time, it is not helpful to assume that any amount of screen time is terrible, because that is just not supported by the data. The post Can a Pop Song Violate Children's Rights? appeared first on
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Columbia University interim president steps down amid clash with Trump admin over federal funding
Interim Columbia University President Katrina Armstrong has stepped down amidst a clash with the Trump administration over federal funding. "Dr. Armstrong accepted the role of interim president at a time of great uncertainty for the University and worked tirelessly to promote the interests of our community," said David J. Greenwald, chair of the board of trustees, said in a news release late Friday. "Katrina has always given her heart and soul to Columbia. We appreciate her service and look forward to her continued contributions to the University." Fox News also confirmed that board of trustees co-chair Claire Shipman has been appointed as the acting university president until the board completes its presidential search. Shipman has been on the board since 2013. Armstrong is expected to return to lead the university's Irving Medical Center, Fox News also learned. Columbia University Yields To Trump Admin Demands Over Revoked $400M In Federal Funding The Trump administration recently pulled $400M in federal funding from Columbia University and put major pressure on Armstrong to make changes on campus. Read On The Fox News App The Trump administration recently pulled $400 million in federal funding from Columbia University with the imperative that Armstrong make substantial changes on-campus. The proposed agreement, summarized in a letter shared by Armstrong, "outlines the substantive work" that Columbia has undertaken since last August when former President Minouche Shafik stepped down. "The way Columbia and Columbians have been portrayed is hard to reckon with. We have challenges, yes, but they do not define us. We teach the brightest, most creative students in the world, and we care deeply for each and every one of them. I have every faith in our ability to overcome the greatest of challenges. We stand resilient and brilliant," Armstrong wrote. Hawley Blasts 'Insane' Liberal Attorney During Senate Hearing On Campus Antisemitism Columbia agreed to demands from the administration to ban masks for the purpose of concealing identity on campus as well as appoint a senior vice provost to oversee the school's Department of the Middle East, South Asian and African Studies, as well as the Center for Palestine Studies. After much violence on campus, Columbia must also hire 36 new campus police officers with the ability to arrest students. Per the Trump administration, these agreements are merely a "precondition for formal negotiations regarding Columbia University's continued financial relationship with the United States government." Columbia University President Resigns After Months Of Mounting Pressure Over Anti-israel Protests Columbia was at the heart of 2024's anti-Israel campus protests, with NYPD officers ultimately breaking up a barricade at Hamilton Hall in a highly publicized raid. In a letter called "Fulfilling our Commitments" released earlier this week, Katrina Armstrong clarified that "demonstrations and other protest activities that occur inside academic buildings and places where academic activities take place present a direct impediment to maintaining our core academic mission." "Based upon the experience of peer schools, Columbia is clarifying that such protests in academic buildings, and other places necessary for the conduct of University activities, are generally not acceptable under the Rules of University Conduct because of the likelihood of disrupting academic activities." Current acting president Claire Shipman has written four New York Times bestselling books, including The Confidence Code, The Confidence Code for Girls, Living the Confidence Code and Womenomics. Shipman has a new book coming out in June focused on women and power, titled "The Power Code." Armstrong stepped in after former Columbia president Minouche Shafik resigned in August amid claims of institutional antisemitism. At the time, House Speaker Mike Johnson said, "We hope that President Shafik's resignation serves as an example to university administrators across the country that tolerating or protecting antisemites is unacceptable and will have consequences." Fox News' Louis Casiano, Alexis McAdams and Yael Halon contributed to this article source: Columbia University interim president steps down amid clash with Trump admin over federal funding
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Applications dip slightly at Columbia University, but no large drop despite campus turmoil
NEW YORK — Columbia University has largely maintained the size of its application pool — despite campus protests over Gaza and scrutiny by the federal government that have besieged the university over the last year, according to newly released undergraduate admissions data. Overall, 59,616 students applied to Columbia, down by just more than 1% from 60,248 applicants the year before. It remained 'one of the largest applicant pools in Columbia's history,' according to a school announcement — a statement The New York Daily News independently verified. High school seniors were notified of their admissions decisions on Thursday night. 'We in admissions understand how much of themselves the students who were admitted today put into their applications,' said Jessica Marinaccio, Columbia's dean of undergraduate admissions and financial aid. 'We were honored to have the chance to get to know them, and now we are preparing to help them see themselves here as Columbians.' The data also revealed it was slightly easier to get into Columbia this year than last. The acceptance rate was 4.3%, up from 3.9% the previous cycle. The increase may have been driven in part by Columbia accepting 200 more applicants, giving the university more of a cushion if admitted students ultimately decide to enroll elsewhere. Students submitted their applications before President Donald Trump took office, and before $400 million in federal funding was revoked from the university — a financial hit that Interim President Katrina Armstrong warned would 'touch nearly every corner of the University.' Last week, Columbia agreed to several of the federal government's demands in a bid to restart the canceled contracts and grants. Columbia's Class of 2029 may still face headwinds. Fewer high school seniors applied early to Columbia this admissions cycle, according to Columbia Spectator, the student newspaper. Early decision is a binding process that requires accepted students to attend Columbia. Students admitted through the regular decision process may opt to register at a rival school not currently in the Trump administration's cross-hairs. Some pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian students have also made personal decisions and public calls not to enroll in or engage with Columbia, whether they disagree with the university's handling of campus protests or otherwise feel unsafe on campus — either because of the presence of protesters or law enforcement. As part of the concessions made to the Trump administration on March 21, the university said it was engaging outside experts to make recommendations on Columbia's admissions practices. An advisory group has also been established to analyze recent enrollment trends. 'For example, we have identified a recent downturn in both Jewish and African American enrollment, and we will closely examine those issues,' read the memo to federal agencies. This admissions cycle was the second in which affirmative action was banned. Columbia became the epicenter of protests over the war in Gaza last year as students pitched tents on the campus lawns, launching a wave of encampments across American colleges. The demonstrations came to a head when activists occupied Hamilton Hall, shifting the rest of the semester online and canceling university-wide commencement. The U.S. House education committee first launched its investigation into antisemitism at Columbia in February 2024, nearly a year before Trump became president.
