Drug Smugglers Terrorize Border Residents

Simone Biles Opens Up About Mental Health in Powerful New Ad Empowering Us to 'Take a Pause'

The ad showcases the 27-year-old confronting the immense pressure and expectations that come with being a world-class athlete. We see her training, visualizing, and ultimately silencing the noise to rediscover her passion. “For years, I was only celebrated for my wins, and now it’s like for being a human, for being vulnerable,” Biles shares in the voiceover. Read More

New Leader of Jesse Jackson's Civil Rights Organization Steps Down Just Months on the Job

The Rev. Frederick Haynes III tells The Associated Press that he submitted his resignation on Tuesday as president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. He says the decision came “after a time of prayer and consultation.” Haynes mentioned “challenges that continue to exist,” but did not elaborate. Jackson announced in July that he would step down from the organization he founded more than 50 years ago and introduced Haynes as his… Read More

NORTHWEST NEWS

Grants Pass Anti-Camping Laws Head to Supreme Court

Grants Pass in southern Oregon has become the unlikely face of the nation’s homelessness crisis as its case over anti-camping laws goes to the U.S. Supreme Court scheduled for April 22. The case has broad implications for cities, including whether they can fine or jail people for camping in public. Since 2020, court orders have barred Grants Pass from enforcing its anti-camping laws. Now, the city is asking the justices to review lower court rulings it says has prevented it from addressing the city's homelessness crisis. Rights groups say people shouldn’t be punished for lacking housing.

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Washington Gun Store Sold Hundreds of High-Capacity Ammunition Magazines in 90 Minutes Without Ban

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OPINION

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Yet our responsibility to all parents and society at large means we must do more to share insights, especially with underserved and under-resourced communities. ...

Gallup Finds Black Generational Divide on Affirmative Action

Each spring, many aspiring students and their families begin receiving college acceptance letters and offers of financial aid packages. This year’s college decisions will add yet another consideration: the effects of a 2023 Supreme Court, 6-3 ruling that...

OP-ED: Embracing Black Men’s Voices: Rebuilding Trust and Unity in the Democratic Party

The decision of many Black men to disengage from the Democratic Party is rooted in a complex interplay of historical disenchantment, unmet promises, and a sense of disillusionment with the political establishment. ...

COMMENTARY: Is a Cultural Shift on the Horizon?

As with all traditions in all cultures, it is up to the elders to pass down the rituals, food, language, and customs that identify a group. So, if your auntie, uncle, mom, and so on didn’t teach you how to play Spades, well, that’s a recipe lost. But...

EL PORVENIR, Mexico (AP) -- Hundreds of families are fleeing the cotton-farming towns of the Juarez Valley, a stretch along the Texas-Mexico border 50 miles east of Ciudad Juarez.

All because the drug smugglers told them to.

In a new strategy, Mexican drug cartels seeking to minimize interference with their operations are using terror to empty the entire area.

They have burned down homes in Esperanza ("Hope") and torched a church on Good Friday in El Porvenir ("The Future"). Wherever they strike, they leave notes ordering residents to leave.

In El Porvenir, which normally has about 3,000 residents, only a couple hundred appear to remain. During Easter Week, when schools were closed and the plaza would normally bustle, the only things moving in the center of town were a few stray dogs.

The exodus appears to be the work of the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico's most powerful drug organization. The Associated Press, citing U.S. intelligence, reported last week that the group has seized control of smuggling corridors through the region after a bloody two-year battle with the Juarez cartel.

Experts and Mexican officials say the cartel, led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, is now trying to show locals who's in charge. Mexican soldiers who arrested four men on Tuesday for allegedly torching more than 20 homes in the valley said all are connected to the Sinaloa cartel.

Go to The Skanner News Playlist videos about drug cartels in Juarez.