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A4 U.S. NEWS
Wednesday 1 June 2022
California to unveil groundbreaking Black reparations report

By JANIE HAR enslaved African Ameri-
Associated Press cans lived in California in
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — 1852, according to the
California’s first-in-the-na- draft report. The Ku Klux
tion task force on repara- Klan flourished in Califor-
tions will release a report nia with members holding
Wednesday documenting positions in law enforce-
in detail the harms perpet- ment and city government.
uated by the state against African American families
Black people and recom- were forced to live in seg-
mending steps to address regated neighborhoods
those wrongs, including ex- that were more likely to be
panded voter registration, polluted.
making it easier to hold Moore said that a state Of-
violent police account- fice of African American or
able and improving Black American Freedmen Affairs
neighborhoods. It also rec- could help Black residents
ommends the creation of file claims and trace their
a special office that would, lineage to prove eligibility
in part, help African Ameri- In this image made from video from the Office of the Governor California Gov. Gavin Newsom for individual restitution.
cans document their eligi- signs into law a bill that establishes a task force to come up with recommendations on how to give The task force in its draft
bility for financial restitution. reparations to Black Americans on Sept. 30, 2020, in Sacramento, Calif. report also recommends
The report, which runs 500 Associated Press compensating people
pages, will be the first gov- nity and how they made dants of Black people who technically abolished and who were forced out of
ernment-commissioned the United States what it is were in the United States oppressed Black residents their homes for construc-
study on harms against the despite ongoing oppres- at the end of the 19th cen- through discriminatory laws tion projects such as parks
African American commu- sion and degradation.” tury, overruling reparations and practices in educa- and highways and general
nity since the 1968 Kerner Gov. Gavin Newsom advocates who want to tion, home ownership, em- renewal, as happened to
Commission report ordered signed legislation creat- expand compensation to ployment and the courts. San Francisco’s historically
by then-President Lyndon ing the task force in 2020, all Black people in the U.S. African Americans make Black and once-thriving Fill-
Johnson, task force Chair making California the only The report, to be released up nearly 6% of California’s more neighborhood.
Kamilah Moore said. state to move ahead with by the state Department population yet they are “Other groups that have
“I hope that this report is a study and plan. Cities of Justice, marks the half- overrepresented in jails and suffered exclusion, op-
used not only as an educa- and universities are taking way point for the two-year prisons. They were nearly pression, and downright
tional tool, but an organiz- up the cause with the Chi- task force’s work. The draft 9% of people living be- destruction of human exis-
ing tool for people not only cago suburb of Evanston, report does not provide low the poverty level and tence have received rep-
in California but across the Illinois, becoming the first a comprehensive repara- made up 30% of people arations, and we should
U.S. to educate their com- U.S. city to make repara- tions plan, which is due to experiencing homelessness have no less,” said Rev.
munities,” she said, adding tions available to Black lawmakers next year. in 2019, according to state Amos Brown, the commit-
that the report also high- residents last year. The task The report is expected to figures. tee’s vice chair and pastor
lights “contributions of the force voted in March to lay out how California sup- Despite it being a “free” of Third Baptist Church in
African American commu- limit reparations to descen- ported slavery before it was state, an estimated 1,500 the Fillmore.q

Judge: No ‘speck’ of proof in Palin’s

libel case against NYT

her, citing several eviden- that Palin, for all her ear- corrected the errors they
tiary rulings by Rakoff that lier assertions, could not in called an “honest mistake”
they said were errors. Those the end introduce even a never meant to harm Palin.
ranged from how the ques- speck of such evidence,” Rakoff announced in Feb-
tioning of jurors occurred he said. Lawyers for Palin ruary even before a jury
during jury selection, to declined to comment on completed its deliberations
how jurors were instructed Rakoff’s ruling. that he intended to dismiss
when they asked questions Lawyers for The New York the lawsuit because Palin
during deliberations. Times did not immediately had failed to show that the
“In actuality, none of these respond to comment re- Times acted out of malice.
Sarah Palin, a Republican seeking the sole U.S. House seat in was erroneous, let alone a quests. The libel lawsuit by Jurors themselves rejected
Alaska, speaks during a forum for candidates Thursday, May 12, basis for granting Palin a Palin, a one-time Republi- Palin’s lawsuit the next day.
2022, in Anchorage, Alaska. new trial,” the judge said. can vice-presidential can- Rakoff said he thought it
Associated Press Rakoff wrote that regard- didate and former gov- was fair to all parties not
By LARRY NEUMEISTER sary to prove actual mal- less of her post-trial motions, ernor of Alaska, centered to wait for the jury’s verdict
Associated Press ice. Palin was required at a trial on the newspaper’s 2017 because he had already
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. District Judge Jed Ra- earlier this year to show editorial falsely linking her decided as a matter of law
judge who presided over koff made the assertion that an error in a published campaign rhetoric to a that the Palin hadn’t prov-
Sarah Palin’s libel case in a written decision as he editorial was motivated by mass shooting, which Palin en her case.
against The New York Times rejected post-trial claims actual malice — a require- asserted damaged her Her attorneys cited the tim-
denied her request Tuesday from Palin’s lawyers. ment in libel lawsuits involv- reputation and career. ing of Rakoff’s announce-
for a new trial, saying she They had asked him to ing public figures. The Times acknowledged ment as one more rea-
failed to introduce “even a grant a new trial or disqual- “And the striking thing their editorial was inac- son a new trial should be
speck” of evidence neces- ify himself as biased against about the trial here was curate, but said it quickly ordered.q