Quick summary: The start of any new presidency is bound to be busy — but the first days of Donald Trump’s second term have been, in a word, hectic. Executive orders and controversial promises are flying, while legal challenges and public outcry are flying right back. This weekend, we’re recapping Trump’s first actions in an effort to separate what is urgent from what is spectacle, featuring reporting from Epicenter NYC, AsAmNews, Documented, Capital B, India Currents, and Parlé.
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Trump is back. Avoid the hype and focus on what’s real.
Hey, y’all,So President Donald Trump is back … one week in, how do we feel? Okay, not even a full week yet, but personally, my sense of time has felt warped the last few days. The new administration stormed into office with such a flurry of executive orders, all against the backdrop of extreme pomp and showmanship. If you told me it’d been a month already, I’d believe you. And honestly, the more the dust of the inauguration settles, the more it feels like Trump’s flashy reentrance to the nation’s highest office — and the way he is now full tilt trying to obliterate anything the previous administration touched — is a calculated mix of distracting and dangerous. Let’s try to separate the two from each other for a moment, so that the truly consequential actions are not hidden from view by political theater.
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The process of confirming Trump’s Cabinet picks in the Senate is underway. His selections — many of them acutely controversial — pose imminent threats to Black life over the next four years and beyond. According to Trump’s aides, the selections were made based on loyalty over policy expertise, Capital B explains.
Melissa Ferrer Civil, Kansas City’s first Poet Laureate, processes the wildfires in Los Angeles through a meditation on living and dying in this age, published in The Kansas City Defender. They write: “Our imagination and understanding of life itself has been under siege since our youth. This is good news. All that we know is not all there is. All that we think is not all that is possible. Truth is, the truth can be found at the place of the wound … Most importantly, we know that in times of crisis (be it fire, flood, or genocide) or in times of peace our relation is refuge. How love guides and moves us to act is our salvation.”
Hip-hop magazine XXL determines a “Freshman class” of rap music each year, featuring young artists who are gaining traction. Take a look back at the class of 2018 and see where they are now with Parlé.
217 Kenyan police officers have arrived in Haiti to assist the country’s ongoing crisis of gang violence, which has displaced thousands from their homes. It marks the third wave of personnel aid from Kenya and fulfills over half of the 1000 officers it pledged to send in a United Nations Security Council resolution. Additional reinforcements have arrived from Guatemala and El Salvador, according to The Haitian Times.
Learn the story of Roy Clay, a self-taught coder who broke the technology industry’s color barrier in the 50s, built HP’s first computer in the 60s, and transformed the field in the 70s by hiring thousands of Black employees, PushBlack reports.
Despite the widespread normalization of MAGA culture, resistance to the start of President Trump’s second term is still alive and well — especially for younger generations. Their commitment was palpable during a demonstration at Washington Square Park that took place as he was being sworn in, Documented reports.
