“That was our plan,” Mitchell Hunter told The Final Call. “I work in D.C., my wife works in D.C., and we love this city, but it is unaffordable for our family. We can find more and better for our family of five in the suburbs.”

The Hunters are not alone. Families are leaving America’s largest cities at a startling rate as the child population plummets, raising urgent questions about housing, family stability, and who gets to share in urban America’s future.

An analysis by The Wall Street Journal of Census Bureau data found that between 2015 and 2024, child populations declined in many U.S. cities with more than 500,000 residents. San Jose saw a 20% drop, Los Angeles a 16% drop, Albuquerque a 15% drop, Portland and San Diego a 14% drop, and Chicago a 13% drop.

The trend extends beyond city limits. From April 2020 to July 2023, roughly 80% of U.S. metropolitan areas lost children under 15, according to the Census Bureau. The New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago metro areas alone lost about 614,000 children, nearly 30% of the national decline.

Falling birth rates explain part of the shift. But families moving away, or being economically pushed out, explain another, more troubling part. The numbers reveal a society where working people can serve a city but increasingly cannot afford to raise children there.

“We love D.C.,” Rosalynn Douglass told The Final Call. She is a nurse; her husband, James, is a construction worker. “This is where we want to live only because we don’t have children. When it’s time to start having babies, I doubt we will be able to afford the city we love. Houses are very expensive, and you don’t get that much for your money.”

Cities for capital, but not for children

Political and business leaders often promote urban “revitalization” through luxury apartments, entertainment districts, and high-end development. But progress cannot be measured by property values alone. A city that attracts wealth while losing children may simply be replacing one population with another.

Housing is central to the crisis. Families need space, good schools, safe recreation, and affordable transportation. In many cities, these necessities have become luxuries.

In 2023, nearly half of U.S. renter households were cost-burdened, spending more than 30% of their income on housing, according to the Census Bureau. About 30.6% of Black renters were severely burdened, spending more than half their income on rent.

Meanwhile, Brookings Institution researchers found that 50% of Latino middle-class families could not cover basic necessities, compared with 27% of White middle-class families. Black middle-class families also had a lower median income overall.

Under these conditions, leaving is often not a rejection of city life; it is an act of survival.

A heavier burden for Black and Latino families

Black and Latino families confront rising prices with less accumulated wealth, lower incomes, and lower homeownership rates. Redlining, discriminatory lending, urban renewal, and the destruction of Black neighborhoods blocked generations from passing down property. Latino families have similarly faced discrimination, segregation, and displacement.

When neighborhoods become desirable to investors, longtime residents are often treated as obstacles rather than participants. Property taxes and rents rise. Family-sized apartments and local businesses disappear. People who sustained a community through years of neglect are told they can no longer afford to remain.

For Black families, leaving may mean losing cultural institutions, extended-family networks, and historic neighborhoods. A move can offer more space, but it also brings longer commutes, social isolation, and entry into suburbs where discrimination persists.

“I grew up going to the Petworth Library. My family went to Rock Creek Baptist Church. Those memories are dear to me, and I wanted that for my children,” Mr. Hunter said.

“But the average cost of a house in Petworth is close to $850,000. That is beyond our budget. We found a house we can afford; it’s great, but it’s not D.C., which means additional expenses because our social life is still in D.C.”

Latino and immigrant families also face political hostility and immigration enforcement that can disrupt households or discourage access to services. Relocation does not necessarily resolve financial pressure. Families escaping high rents may take on new costs, car payments, gasoline, and tolls. They gain space but lose time together.

What happens when children disappear?

Children sustain schools, libraries, recreation centers, pediatric services, child-care providers, and neighborhood businesses. When their numbers fall, school districts may close or consolidate schools, reducing services and making cities less attractive to the families who remain. Black and Latino neighborhoods, already burdened by disinvestment, often absorb the loss of schools that also function as community anchors.

Research from the Economic Innovation Group found that the under-5 population in large urban counties fell more than 8% between April 2020 and July 2023, nearly twice the national decline. New York City alone lost more than 100,000 children under five.

Births declined faster in large urban counties than in rural ones, while movement toward exurban communities continued even after the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A measure of society’s priorities

The population decline of children reveals an economy capable of producing enormous private wealth but unwilling to guarantee the basic conditions needed to sustain families. Officials routinely call families society’s foundation, yet housing policy, wages, child-care costs, school funding, and development decisions often work against them.

Cities must treat affordable, family-sized housing as essential infrastructure, preserving units and protecting tenants. Investment in childcare, schools, clinics, transportation, parks, and living wages must accompany housing policy.

Black and Latino families must have a seat at the table in shaping these policies. A healthy city should be judged by whether teachers, transit workers, nurses, sanitation employees, postal workers, and restaurant workers can establish homes, raise children, and grow old with dignity.

The decline of children is more than a population warning. It is a verdict on priorities. When families must flee to survive, the question is not simply, “Where have the children gone?” It is: What kind of society made it so difficult for them to stay?

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MEMPHIS—Residents of Memphisare continuing to recover in the aftermath of power outages resulting from severe storms. “We had no idea a storm of this magnitude was coming,” said Memphis Light, Gas & Water (MLGW) CEO and President Doug McGowen, during an Aug. 23 press conference in conjunction with newly re-elected Mayor Paul Young.

What began as a severe thunderstorm in Arkansas on the evening of Aug. 22, unexpectedly intensified into a “bow echo” storm over the Mississippi River as it blew into Memphis from a westerly direction, producing hurricane-like straight line winds in excess of over 80 miles per hour and torrential rain.

A bow echo storm is so named because it resembles an archer’s bow on a radar and produces fast-moving winds that generally cause severe damage. Though only about 45 minutes in duration, the intensity of the storm caused flash flooding, uprooted trees and downed power lines, leaving over 140,000 without power amid a potent heat advisory.

In this writer’s home, the power loss resulted in an internal temperature of 90 degrees within hours of the power outage.

MLGW, the sole provider of utilities and waste removal services to the city, quickly issued a notice to prepare for a multi-day recovery period. Additional electrical crews and tree workers were brought in from surrounding areas to aid in the clean-up and restoration efforts.

The city is also working to provide relief for those who needed safe spaces to go and loss of groceries due to the ongoing outages.

Mr. McGowen encouraged residents to temporarily lower their water consumption as water treatment facilities were also affected, and while they were back in operation by Aug. 23, time was still needed for the reservoirs and wells to recover.

On Aug. 26, outgoing Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, declared a state of emergency. Memphis is located in Shelby County.  Schools were slated to re-open Aug 27.

During the press conference Mayor Young was questioned about the utilization of the National Guard, already in Memphis, as a result of the President Donald Trump appointed Safe Task Force last September, in the recovery efforts.

According to the National Guard’s official website, a description of one of their primary functions is “When disaster strikes in the homeland, the National Guard stands ready to deploy and serve at a moment’s notice to protect life and property in our communities.”

In response, Mayor Young stated that recovery was “an all-hands on deck effort” and said that assistance would be requested, however, as of Aug. 27, the Tennessee National Guard Facebook page shows no mention of the storm or relief efforts in Memphis, but highlights, instead, training efforts from the previous week to “Strengthen(ing) communication and building trust will ensure our teams are ready to respond quickly when Tennesseans need us most.”

The Memphis Safe Task Force does not have an official website page; updates are given through the City of Memphis website. National Guard involvement in recovery efforts has not been reflected there either. As of Aug. 27, MLGW said a little over 1,500 customers were still without power.

These increasing weather-related disasters are not happening in a vacuum.

Over 50 years ago, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam, warned of the danger of such times in His book, “The Fall of America.”

In Chapter 36, he wrote, “To be plagued with too much rain will destroy property and lives. It swells the rivers and creeks. Too much rain floods cities and towns. … Rain makes the atmosphere too heavy with moisture causing sickness.

Wind with rain can bring destruction to towns and cities, bringing various germs, causing sickness to the people. It produces unclean water by the swelling of streams and destroying reservoirs of pure drinking water used for the health of the people. Rain is a destructive army within itself. Hail stones are also a property and life destroyer.”

For years, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, has continued to issue the warning, “watch the weather.”

In Part 8 of “The Time and What Must Be Done” lecture series delivered by Min. Farrakhan in 2013, he explains the extreme weather in relationship to America’s historical actions.

 “Let us see how ‘The Law of Justice’ is working in America: Have not you, America, destroyed the cities and the towns, and the people, of other nations? Well, look at your own cities and towns, America: Some will be ravaged by fire; others, by water.

Towns destroyed by tornadoes, hurricanes and floods. And soon, great earthquakes will be tearing down cities. The Chastisement of God has begun. The Grace Period is over,” Minister Farrakhan said.

“Can’t you see what is happening to America,” he implored in part two of the series. “One-third of the American people say they believe that the change in the weather is fulfilling Biblical prophecy of ‘end times.’ So, America, you must—if you are to survive: You must make a serious change to give America hope for an ‘extension of time,’ and even a ‘future.’”

At Final Call press time, thousands were still without power, as temperatures continue to hover above 90 degrees with heat indices forecasted to reach up to 104, and isolated thunderstorms to come.

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More than 100 parishioners, students, clergy, current and former elected officials and community supporters filled the broad steps of the historic Black Catholic parish Aug. 26 as Rev. Michael Pfleger walked to a clear lectern set outside the church he has served for more than half a century.

Some raised cellphones to record the moment. Others leaned forward around news crews. Smiles moved through the crowd as the longtime pastor, dressed simply in a white polo shirt, stood again before his church family.

Two days earlier, Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, had reinstated Father Pfleger effective immediately after the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Independent Review Board concluded there was “no reason to believe” he was guilty of an allegation of sexual abuse dating to the 1990s.

The decision ended a painful removal from ministry that kept Father Pfleger away from St. Sabina for about seven weeks while he was simultaneously undergoing radiation treatment for prostate cancer.

The gathering was part homecoming, part press conference and part call to action. Father Pfleger thanked those who carried him through what he described as public humiliation and private anguish, then turned his attention to an Archdiocesan process he called broken and unjust. “An accusation should begin an investigation and not end a reputation,” he told the crowd.

The scene was markedly different from the weeks of uncertainty that preceded it. Father Pfleger said he had missed block parties, a church picnic, food and book bag giveaways, Friday night peace walks and six Sundays of worship.

The separation also disrupted a parish whose ministry reaches far beyond Sunday Mass, including a food pantry Father Pfleger said serves about 250 people a day, youth programs and community anti-violence work.

Protection needed on all levels

On the steps, parishioners stood shoulder to shoulder with young men from Leo High School. Local television microphones crowded the lectern. Attorney James Figliulo, Father Pfleger’s high school classmate and legal counsel, addressed the news media first as supporters filled nearly every visible space behind him.

Atty. Figliulo said the church must protect children while also protecting priests from unjust allegations. The problem, he argued, is a system that can act quickly to remove a priest but slowly to resolve a claim.

“We all need a process because we all want to protect children from sex abuse,” he said. “But we also want to protect priests who are unfairly accused.” He said the allegation against Father Pfleger should have been resolved much sooner and pledged that lawyers, community leaders and faith leaders would continue pressing the Archdiocese for reform.

“We can still protect children and provide a fair process for the priests,” Atty. Figliulo said. “There are a hundred ways to do it, and we’re going to work together to get it done. We’re not letting it go.”

Dr. Shaka Rawls, president and principal of Leo High School, brought students to witness what he considered a living lesson in perseverance and justice. “There’s no better  educational opportunity than for our young Black and Brown men on the South Side of Chicago to watch somebody deal with false accusations,”

Dr. Rawls said to The Final Call. “There is no better educational process than seeing this man fight this firsthand and actually being vindicated. This is school today.”

Illinois Sen. Willie Preston, whose district includes St. Sabina, said concern for children and fairness to the accused are not competing values.

“The worst thing we can do for real victims is allow someone falsely accused to be essentially convicted in the court of public opinion,” Sen. Preston told The Final Call. He described Father Pfleger as a friend personally and professionally and said there had been no substantiated evidence that would cause him to abandon that friendship.

When Father Pfleger finally stepped to the microphones, those behind him quieted. He began not with anger, but gratitude. “First, I am thankful to God for His faithfulness and His strength,” he said. “I have had to deal with cancer and public humiliation simultaneously, and the emotional trauma did not help the radiation treatment. I learned quickly that I could not handle either without Him.”

He thanked Atty. Figliulo and his law firm, Smith, Gambrell & Russell; researcher and adviser Andrew Stroth; his canon lawyer, Msgr. Patrick Lagges; judges and attorneys who offered support; ministers across faith traditions; St. Sabina’s staff and leadership; his family; and the close circle of friends who gave him room “to vent, cry and express my heart.”

He also thanked the parishioners who prayed, called, texted and publicly demanded his return. “You are proof that we are building a church of leaders,” Father Pfleger said. “I am honored and humbled to be your pastor.”

For St. Sabina, the removal was not an abstract administrative action. Father Pfleger told The Final Call about an eighth-grade boy in the parish’s altar service ministry who cried, lost sleep and repeatedly asked whether his pastor would ever return. Father Pfleger called the child and assured him that he was all right, that he loved him and that he would be back.

“He just cried on the phone,” Father Pfleger recalled. “This young child has to go through this kind of trauma. It’s cruelty.”

The pain extended across a congregation already confronting violence, hunger, racism and the other pressures bearing down on Black and Latino communities, he said. A faith community should be a place where people are strengthened for those battles, not another institution they must fight.

The allegation came to the Archdiocese through an attorney representing a woman who said Father Pfleger abused her when she attended St. Sabina school between 1993 and 1995. Father Pfleger denied the accusation. In a July 11 announcement, he said he had been ordered to leave the parish and cease ministry while the matter was investigated.

In his Aug. 24 letter to St. Sabina parishioners, Cardinal Cupich said the Independent Review Board, assisted by the Office of Child Protection and outside investigators, had thoroughly reviewed the allegation. He defended the importance of an independent and disciplined inquiry, even when it is public and requires substantial time.

“As to this case, the Review Board has concluded there is no reason to believe Father Pfleger is guilty of this allegation,” Cardinal Cupich wrote. “After careful consideration I have accepted their conclusion and have reinstated Father Pfleger to ministry at St. Sabina, effective immediately.”

The cardinal also acknowledged that Father Pfleger’s absence had caused “real and painful” suffering.

Father Pfleger said the call he had waited weeks to receive came shortly after 7 p.m. Aug. 24. His attorney first told him the Cardinal would be calling. About 30 minutes later, Cardinal Cupich informed him of the review board’s finding and his immediate reinstatement.

“It was like an exhale,” Father Pfleger told The Final Call. “The hurt, the pain, the questions, the doubt—all that you go through—now that chapter closes.”

Word spread quickly. Parishioners came to the church, where they embraced, prayed together in the sanctuary and began celebrating the return of their pastor. Father Pfleger later shared a social media post recalling Michael Jordan’s famous 1995 announcement: “I’m back.” He said his nephew suggested the comparison and that the message represented a comeback rooted in faith, perseverance and strength.

But relief did not erase the ordeal. The night before the press conference, Father Pfleger granted The Final Call an exclusive, hour-long interview, offering an in-depth account of his removal, reinstatement and concerns about the Archdiocese’s review process.

Father Pfleger said the transcript of the accusation referred to buildings and tunnels that did not exist. He said attorneys and investigators examined the locations and timeline and concluded that the alleged encounter could not have occurred as described.

Father Pfleger also said he was ordered to leave his home and removed from ministry before the accuser had been interviewed. He then had to retain and pay for his own attorneys to defend himself against an allegation that had already become public.

Reflecting on a previous accusation that was determined to be unfounded, Father Pfleger said his removal received front-page coverage, while news of his reinstatement appeared on “page 21 or 22” in some publications. “The bad always seems to outshout the good,” Father Pfleger told The Final Call.

Father Pfleger said an accusation, once broadcast nationally, can follow the accused for life even when the claim is later rejected. He criticized a process that identifies the priest publicly while shielding the accuser and acts before preliminary credibility checks have been completed.

“You are guilty until proven innocent, and your name is slandered and trashed across local and national news networks,” he said. “Let me be clear: I believe every accusation should be taken seriously. But this policy allows no room for the accused to be taken seriously or receive justice.”

Father Pfleger said he and a group of lawyers and judges plan to propose changes that would preserve protection for children while adding an initial assessment of credibility, urgency and present risk before a priest is publicly removed. He also questioned why allegations that may involve criminal conduct are not handled first by agencies such as law enforcement or child protection authorities.

The balance is essential, he said, because the Catholic Church’s historic failure to protect children cannot be corrected by abandoning fairness to the accused.

“Caring for both doesn’t mean you’re not caring for one,” he told The Final Call. “You can be just and fair to both.”

Perseverance amid pain

The investigation unfolded as Father Pfleger faced another threat to his life. After nearly three years of monitoring and tests, his prostate-specific antigen level rose to 14.5, he said. Doctors warned that the cancer was near the bone and required prompt treatment. After consultations at Northwestern Medicine and the University of Chicago, he chose radiation rather than surgery.

For four weeks, five days a week, he underwent treatment at the University of Chicago. His PSA level later dropped to 2.16, he said, and doctors told him he was cancer-free. He continues medication and monitoring and is scheduled for another PSA test in September.

The physical side effects were difficult, but the public accusation intensified the mental and emotional strain, he said. Radiation staff repeatedly warned that tension, stress and anxiety could interfere with treatment.

“I’m going through a national accusation. What do you think I’m going to have?” he recalled telling them.

During the press conference, Father Pfleger said the overlapping trials forced him to depend more deeply on God. He revisited speeches and sermons by leaders whose lives taught him how prophetic voices endure persecution, including the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Medgar Evers.

He told The Final Call that the bond between St. Sabina and the Nation of Islam had been a source of strength throughout his ordeal. At the root of the Torah, Holy Qur’an and Bible are shared principles of “love, respect, justice and caring for the poor,” Father Pfleger said. He expressed deep gratitude for the support of the Nation of Islam and his decades-long friendship with Minister Farrakhan.

“I am so grateful to be able to call the Minister my brother and my friend, and the Nation my family,” he said. “That is a gift for which I am very grateful.”

That interfaith solidarity is part of Father Pfleger’s larger history as a White Catholic priest leading a predominantly Black parish and confronting racism, gun violence, liquor and tobacco advertising, poverty and police misconduct. He arrived at St. Sabina in 1975 and became pastor in 1981. Over the decades, the parish developed a national profile for blending worship with social action.

Father Pfleger said his public positions have brought hate mail, lost financial support, threats against his life and repeated demands that he become less controversial. He sees those demands as incompatible with the faith commitment he made May 14, 1975, to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

On the church steps, the homecoming reached its defining moment as Father Pfleger shifted from what had happened to what would happen next. He invoked Dr. King’s warning about becoming silent on things that matter and the late Jesuit priest and anti-war activist Rev. Daniel Berrigan’s admonition that anyone following Jesus “better look good on wood.”

Then he named the causes that would continue to command his voice: the suffering in Gaza, the treatment and deportation of immigrants, attacks on voting rights, war abroad, racism, White supremacy and a national “war on the poor.” Supporters nodded and called out their agreement.

“I have not come through arrests, name-calling, accusations, suspensions, lawsuits or threats on my life to remain silent,” Father Pfleger declared.

The crowd erupted as he delivered his answer to those he believes hoped the ordeal would diminish him.

“There have been many people throughout this who have tried to bury me,” he said. “They should know you have simply caused me to grow deeper roots and grow taller to bear new fruit.”

He paused before the final line, with St. Sabina behind him and his church family surrounding him.

“No, I am not going to remain silent, nor be silenced,” Father Pfleger said. “In fact, I intend to turn up the volume.”

The post Father Michael Pfleger reinstated and vows to ‘turn up the volume’ Vindicated! Popular priest cleared of false charges appeared first on Final Call News.

Besides the money, which will be paid out over a decade, Meta has agreed to strengthen its age estimates to keep kids under 13 off its platforms and teens in age-appropriate accounts, enact a hard limit of two hours a day for users under 18, block kids from the apps from midnight to 6 a.m., and hide “like” counts, among other changes.

Meta said the new safeguards will only apply in the United States, with most in place for 10 years.

While acknowledging the changes go further than Meta has ever gone when it comes to child safety, critics and children’s advocates cautioned it will not solve its myriad problems overnight.

Arturo Béjar, a former Meta engineering director, said the settlement is a “significant milestone,” but parents should not see Instagram as suddenly safe for children.

“The agreement has a big problem in that it allows Meta to define harm,” Béjar said in an interview Aug. 26. “It’s one thing to say, ‘Yeah, you only get like two hours of alcohol or two hours of cigarettes a day,’ but it’s still as bad for you because of what’s getting delivered.”

Béjar, the first witness to testify during the federal trial cut short by the settlement, would like to see Meta address the effect of content recommendations to teens, which he says can prove addictive. While teens might put their phone down when they hit the two-hour limit, they can be distressed about it because the way the platform is designed leaves them craving more.

Meta said people over 18 also can adopt versions of the new controls individually, such as daily time-limit reminders, but there will not be an option for them to opt into the overall settings for what teens experience on the platform.

Stronger age checks

To protect kids, first Meta has to know who they are. While the company has already been using artificial intelligence to determine if kids are lying about their age—either to sign up if they are under 13, which is not allowed, or to use adult accounts when they are 13 to 17—it did not always work.

Under the proposed settlement, Meta agreed to strengthen its technology to check kids’ ages, using its own as well as third-party tools, with regular outside audits on how well it is working. The agreement also includes specific goals around false positive rates—that is, minors who are identified as over 18. And if a user is identified as under 13 and kicked off the platforms, Meta will check the ages of their friends, too.

“The age assurance section is reasonably good because it has measurement, has independent testing, has goals,” Béjar said. “Because I think Meta should be measured on effectiveness, not effort.”

Meta requires users to be at least 13 years old to create an account, in line with federal child privacy law.

In his testimony last week, Béjar said Meta took a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach on kids under 13 on its platforms.

“Meta has one of the most sophisticated infrastructures in the world to detect fake accounts,” he said. But despite that, he added, there were “no goals, no metrics” to detect and check kids’ ages who were suspected to be under 13.

Some safety features will be on by default

Critics have faulted Meta over many of its safety features that users have to manually turn on, or opt into themselves.

Of the host of safeguards listed in the settlement, many are on as a default. This includes the two-hour time limit, which can only be turned off with a parent’s permission, as well as the night mode that blocks use between midnight and 6 a.m.

Still, under the agreement other features, such as turning off video autoplay or showing posts in chronological order rather than having algorithms decide what to show kids scrolling through their feeds, will be opt-in.

Josh Golin, executive director of online safety nonprofit Fairplay, said the deal appeared to be too focused on offering tools to parents rather than restricting harmful features altogether.

“We are disappointed that the settlement does not turn off by default recommendation algorithms that connect kids to predators and send young people down dangerous rabbit holes,” Golin said.

Questions around default settings came up at the trial earlier this week when a lawyer for the states suing Meta pressed Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, on the low adoption rate among teens for the “take a break” feature, which prompts users to step away if they have been scrolling a while.

Very few teens used the feature when Instagram first introduced it, but since launching separate teen accounts in 2024, Meta has made it the default setting for teenage users. Still, if a teen didn’t want to take a break, they could simply swipe away the notification.

It may take time to see the results

Some researchers have found that many past protections Meta has rolled out are ineffective or don’t work as advertised.

“It is a little premature, unfortunately, to tell if exactly all the changes we want to see are going to happen,” said Yaël Eisenstat, director of policy and impact for the Cybersafety Research Center, which recently audited dozens of safety tools offered by both Meta and other social media companies and said most fell short.

Still, Eisenstat said, the Aug. 26 settlement is monumental in showing that alternative approaches are possible.

For years, Meta “decided to go against the advice of some of their own internal employees and continue to ignore the fact that these design features were unsafe in search of profit,” said Eisenstat, who also previously worked at Meta, then Facebook, before leaving the company in 2019.

The measures outlined August 26 at the very least show that there are technically-feasible options that can make the platform safer, she said—something whistleblowers and others have already “been saying very loudly.”

Like others, Eisenstat stressed that there was a lot of work left to be done—and that it will require a combination of technical solutions, market forces and government regulation.

“There’s no singular silver bullet for fixing all of this,” she said. “I’m just glad that at least we are catching up a little bit now.”

The settlement, which also includes the District of Columbia and U.S. territories, must still be approved by a judge. (AP)

The post Time limits and a midnight cutoff: Meta’s new rules for kids go further, but critics say not enough appeared first on Final Call News.

CommonDreams.org

Canada announced Aug. 25 that it will impose roughly $20 billion in retaliatory tariffs on American imports in response to President Donald Trump’s 50% tariff on many of its goods after bilateral negotiations collapsed amid what Ottawa said were last-minute concessions that damaged the Canadian economy and intruded on its sovereignty.

The government of center-left Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said its countermeasures will cover roughly C$27.6 billion ($20 billion) worth of American products, with tariffs ranging from 15% to 50% on hundreds of categories including steel, aluminum, appliances, clothing, seafood, electronics, furniture, and dairy.

The measures are scheduled to take effect September 8. Ottawa also unveiled billions of dollars in assistance for workers and businesses expected to be hurt by the conflict.

“Canada must respond, and today we are, in a proportionate, targeted, and strategic way,” Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said during a press conference in Ottawa. “Today I’m announcing that Canada will match the United States tariffs dollar for dollar, rate for rate.”

“Canada’s counter-tariffs are designed primarily to provide protection for Canadian industry impacted by U.S. tariffs and allow them to compete against U.S. products in the Canadian market,” he added. “It’s all about fairness, it’s all about a level playing field, it’s all about supporting Canadian workers and Canadian businesses.”

It’s also apparently about political calculation ahead of November’s midterm elections, in which the congressional balance of power—and therefore Trump’s ability to pursue his agenda—is at stake.

The administration’s trade war with Canada is hitting industries concentrated in states where Republicans are fighting to defend vulnerable U.S. Senate seats, including Maine’s lobster industry and Michigan’s auto sector, while Ohio and other Midwestern states face exposure via cross-border manufacturing and supply chains.

On Aug. 24, Trump told Canadian leaders to “fall in line” or face “far WORSE” consequences than the new tariffs. Carney retorted that Canadians are not “going to accept” an “attitude at the negotiation table that Canada is a subsidiary of the United States.”

Canadian anger toward Trump has surged as the U.S. president has repeatedly threatened Canada’s sovereignty, including his frequent talk of making Canada the “51st state.” Canadian political leaders and labor organizations have largely rallied behind a tougher response, while a growing grassroots boycott of U.S. products has become a symbol of national resistance.

“Canadians understand that maintaining our sovereignty and independence will entail consequences and sacrifices,” Calgary-based commentator Jen Gerson wrote Aug. 25 in The Guardian.

“We did not bring this trade war on ourselves; we have merely refused to comply in advance to the unreasonable demands of a bad-faith actor. We will be punished for it. We have accepted this.”

“If nothing else, let the [United States’] retaliation be a warning to the rest of the Western alliance,” Gerson added. “Run, run. Protect yourselves. Move faster.”

Trump—the self-proclaimed “peace president” who has attacked more countries than any other U.S. leader in modern history—has menaced a string of allies. He’s threatened to retake the Panama Canal, launch armed attacks on Colombia and Mexico, “bomb the sh**” out of Oman, and take over Greenland.

Longtime U.S. allies have taken notice—and action. Just as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine spooked Sweden and Finland into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Trump’s erratic aggression has pushed other countries in directions once thought highly unlikely. 

European Union membership for Iceland, long a politically moribund proposition, is now politically plausible amid developments including Trump’s Arctic saber-rattling. U.S. tariff pressure on India is even incentivizing India to seek closer economic ties with China, a traditional adversary.

Trump’s increasingly aggressive and condescending rhetoric has left many Canadians feeling like their relationship with their southern neighbor has irreparably changed.

“America has changed, and … we will not return to our old relationship,” Carney said after Trump announced the 50% tariffs over the weekend.

“You’re at war when you get attacked,” the prime minister also said. “We got attacked.”

Such rhetoric was once the realm of comedy, like the 1995 satirical film Canadian Bacon, directed by Michael Moore and starring John Candy and Dan Aykroyd, about a struggling U.S. president who manufactures a shooting war with Canada, invasion and all, in hopes of rallying Americans around a foreign enemy.

The premise was absurd because the notion of Washington deliberately provoking its peaceful northern neighbor into war seemed preposterous. Many critics have noted that under Trump, absurdity has become the new normal.

On Aug. 25, Trump said he’s considering changing the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America,” because, as one Bluesky account noted, “Trump likes to slap the name of America on everything.”

“Gulf of Mexico? Gulf of America. Strait of Hormuz? Strait of America. Lake Ontario? Lake America,” the account quipped, adding one more suggestion: “Epstein Island? America Island.”

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When I spoke to the students at Tuskegee University on March 22, 2013, I said: “You are more than who you think you are. … Because of ‘who’ you are, you are in danger. So tonight, I want to expose the danger, and by God’s Grace, give you the guidance to be exactly what I said you are: ‘The Seminal Fluid’ of The Kingdom of God.”

Tuskegee University has received high amounts of government funding for research and experimentation, the most recent being the HeLa, or “immortal cells” (the oldest, most commonly used human cell line), which are cancer cells used in testing and creating vaccines!

I said at Tuskegee: “Your former slave masters don’t give you money without another purpose beyond what they tell us! …You have to remember history to guide you in the way you think! It’s all right to think that people have ‘changed’—but you cannot go to sleep; you have to watch to see if the change is real.”

For example, in the 1940s the U.S. government experimented by infecting the people of Guatemala with syphilis and gonorrhea and sexually transmitted diseases! The government has now acknowledged this.

On October 1, 2010, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, apologized in a statement with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton regarding this HeLa experimentation.

And, brothers and sisters, this is what I’m afraid of; that with the research that is going on in Tuskegee with the HeLa cells, now The Enemy has created genetic weapons that are designed specifically for certain genetic groups—and they are designing different drugs for that same purpose!

Dr. Jonas Salk used the HeLa cells in producing the polio vaccine; but yet, a contaminant was introduced into the vaccine! Also, it was this HeLa cell that was the carrier of the cancer that was introduced into “SV40” (an abbreviation for “Simian vacuolating virus 40”

Or “Simian virus 40,” a polyomavirus that is found in both monkeys and humans) into the polio vaccine; and that’s why the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, in the ’60s, forbade his followers from taking the polio vaccine.

Now they say that 2,000 pounds of HeLa cells have been produced. … And they’ve gone all over the world! So instead of these immortal cells being used to curb the rise of cancer, the opposite is true: Cancer is proliferating all over the world, especially in Third World countries—and especially among the Black man and woman in America. Is this an “accident”?

Why, in the scheme of things, was the syphilis experiment “so important”? Why is the HeLa experiment and research “so important”? Why, in the scheme of things, was this experiment to start at Tuskegee, in Alabama, where Booker T. Washington established the principles 1.) self-reliance, 2.) self-help, 3.) commerce, 4.) industry; and 5.) agriculture—and where George Washington Carver was?

And they even told George Washington Carver that he should not marry; that he should not have any children, because these oppressors did not want to see another “Carver” in a future generation that their children would have to contend with! My question is: What type of research is this, and how will this research benefit us as a people?

Scientists took these cells without asking for permission, and have made millions of dollars off of these cells. And the woman—the Black woman, Henrietta Lacks, from which this immune cell, this great cell was taken—has not received anything, though the world is benefiting from this HeLa cell.

Why Tuskegee? Well, Tuskegee is like a “manger.” A manger is like a trough; it’s a feeder that is made of carved stone, wood or metal construction, and is used to hold food for animals, as in a “stable.”

Jesus was born in a manger. … It is not an accident that such greatness has come out of that little city! Tuskegee is a “manger,” it’s a place of feeding ground—a “feeding place” for a people that have been made savage; that from such an institute.

Which is now a university, can come that which will civilize not only the Black man and woman of America, but from it, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad saw “a world institution.”

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This story was originally published by The New Lede

A genetically modified wheat under development in the U.S. would increase the use of an herbicide that is linked to soil, water and fetal harm, according to a new report. 

The report, from the environmental organization Friends of the Earth (FOE), comes six months after agricultural organizations announced they are partnering to develop what would be the first genetically modified (GMO) wheat, called HB4, commercially available in the U.S. Proponents of HB4 say it is drought-tolerant and will bolster food security and help farmers grow wheat in a changing climate. 

FOE said that HB4—which was approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 2024—would prompt more use of the herbicide glufosinate, which scientific studies have linked to premature births, impaired fetal development, kidney problems and disruption of the gut microbiome.

HB4 is engineered to withstand glufosinate, which can be sprayed directly on the wheat and will only kill weeds. The FOE report also warns that HB4 could hamper U.S. exports since not all importing countries accept GMO wheat, and it would harm U.S. farmers that are not using GMO wheat by contaminating their fields. 

“If some farmers choose to grow this GMO wheat it actually imperils all wheat farmers because those wheat supply chains would not be segregated,” said Kendra Klein, senior staff scientist at Friends of the Earth. “So, there’s the problem of the commingling of the GMO wheat and the non-GMO wheat.” 

“Climate resilient” wheat 

Previous GMO wheat attempts in the U.S.—including from Monsanto for Roundup-Ready wheat—have not received approval. The USDA 2024 decision, which relied on industry studies, deregulated HB4 as the agency found no increased plant pest risk from its use.

“From a plant pest risk perspective, this modified plant may be safely grown and bred in the United States,” the USDA stated in its decision. The agency did not respond to requests for comment on the FOE report or ongoing HB4 development. 

At the time of the USDA decision, industry leaders said commercialization was still three to five years away. The Argentinian agricultural company Bioceres Crop Solutions and the Colorado Wheat Research Foundation last September announced a partnership to develop HB4 as a “climate-resilient” wheat for use in the U.S.

The press release said the two organizations would start breeding programs and, alongside industry partners, “develop, register, and commercialize new broad-spectrum herbicide formulations tailored for HB4 wheat.” It also said HB4 would be available to any public or private U.S. wheat breeding programs through an open licensing model. 

“This is an important milestone for the wheat industry and sets the stage for long-term innovation in this important crop,” said Brad Erker, executive director at the Colorado Wheat Research Foundation, in a statement. The Foundation did not return requests for comment on the FOE report or the status of HB4 development. 

Health concerns 

Glufosinate use is already on the rise in the U.S., where it is already used on GMO corn, soybeans, cotton and canola. Several major agricultural companies including Bayer, BASF, Syngenta and Corteva manufacture formulations of the herbicide. 

HB4 would allow farmers to spray glufosinate directly onto the wheat since it would be tolerant of the herbicide, leading to much broader exposure since wheat forms a large part of many Americans’ diets. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it found “no human health risks of concern” in its 2024 registration of glufosinate.

However, an agency assessment in 2022 said a primary effect of exposure is “inhibition of glutamine synthetase in the brain, which may be of significant concern for possible neurotoxicity.” The herbicide was banned in the European Union in 2018 over evidence that it had reproductive impacts on people exposed.

“In this moment when people are increasingly paying attention to pesticides and their impacts on our health, and their impact on the environment, it’s really concerning that an herbicide-tolerant wheat is being proposed,” said Klein, pointing to recent news and lawsuits about glyphosate—an herbicide widely used on GMO crops that has been linked to cancer.

HB4 is “replicating the deeply flawed and failed model of herbicide-tolerant corn and soybeans,” she added. 

In addition to human health concerns, glufosinate has been linked to disrupted soil microbial communities and pollinator harm.  

GMO contamination risk 

The U.S. is the fourth-largest wheat producer in the world, with exports bringing in $6.3 billion in 2025. FOE warns that HB4 threatens this key market, as several countries that import U.S. wheat, including Japan, Mexico and the Philippines, have not approved the sale of GMO wheat. Previous attempts to commercialize GMO wheat in the U.S. have largely been rejected over similar trade disruption concerns. 

There’s also the risk that non-GMO wheat would be contaminated with HB4, leading to economic loss. For example, in 2013 Monsanto GMO wheat was found in Oregon and Montana, which led to Japan and South Korea suspending U.S. imports and several other countries ramping up their testing of U.S. wheat imports.

Monsanto did not admit liability but later reached a settlement, paying $250,000 to several wheat growers’ associations and $2.1 million into a settlement fund for Washington, Oregon and Idaho wheat farmers.

“Almost half of wheat in the U.S. is exported and so those export markets are really critical for farmers and this is not a theoretical concern,” Klein said. “There’s been commingling of GMO crops with non-GMO crops and export markets have temporarily shut down costing farmers millions of dollars.” 

The New Lede

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Atlanta has become one of the hubs for Black-owned businesses, as it leads the country with Black-owned firms making up more than 10% of all businesses across the city. The National Business League held the conference in Atlanta for the fourth consecutive year.

The 2026 conference operated under the theme, “Booker T. Washington and the Sacred AI Codes to Economic Sovereignty.” It was hosted by the National Alliance for Black Business, a unified coalition including The National Business League led by president and CEO Dr. Ken Harris;

The World Conference of Mayors, founded by Tuskegee Councilman and former Tuskegee, Ala. Mayor Johnny Ford; the National Black Chamber of Commerce, led by executive director Charles H. DeBow III; and The Black Business School, founded by educator and businessman Dr. Boyce Watkins.

The spirit of Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Ala., and the National Negro Business League, dwelled in the conference rooms of Hilton Atlanta throughout the weekend. Booker T. Washington held the first National Negro Business League conference in Boston, Massachusetts, on August 23, 1900.

The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam, who taught Black people to unite, do for self, to own land and to open and to support businesses, admired Booker T. Washington and the principles he established among Black people.

“We must revisit and engrain those principles into our very being, and teach them, and pass them on to our children and unborn generations in the future,” the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, said in Part 38 of his 2013 weekly lecture series, “The Time and What Must be Done.”

“The principles, if followed, upon which Dr. Booker T. Washington founded Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University, are immutable principles that any and every human being of every race, creed or color—any people who are down.

And in the mud of civilization, or nonproductive, could become producers for self and producers of a great community, and become a people that produce a great civilization.,” Minister Farrakhan said.

“Dr. Washington was interested not just in farming and agriculture and animal husbandry; he was interested in our growth into Science and Civilization: the manners and behavior of a civilized people,” he continued.

The 2026 National Business League Conference began where it all started, in Tuskegee. During a citywide tour, attendees viewed Booker T. Washington’s home, the Tuskegee University Historic Campus District, George Washington Carver Museum, George Washington Carver National Monument and other historical sites.

On the following day, Aug. 20, several summits ran concurrently. During the World Conference of Mayors summit, Tuskegee Councilman Johnny Ford, mayor emeritus of Tuskegee, declared a proclamation for the Nation of Islam’s upcoming Holy Day of Atonement, which will be in Atlanta, Oct. 10-11.

“As you know, Tuskegee hosted a Holy Day of Atonement, and so we intend to support it.  And I’m so proud of the Holy Day of Atonement, and we commend the [Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan] for continuing to have it,” Mayor Emeritus Ford said to The Final Call.

The Nation of Islam convened the Holy Day of Atonement, commemorating the 18th anniversary of the historic Million Man March in Tuskegee in 2013.

At a welcome reception Aug. 20, evening, Booker T. Washington’s great-great-granddaughter, Dr. Erica Washington McDonald, shared words with attendees.

“On behalf of the family of Booker T. Washington, we want to thank you all for coming out again, for keeping his legacy alive and continuing with business, to continue to show us what Black excellence looks like,” she said.

Artificial intelligence and Black businesses

The conference’s main sessions began Aug. 21, when Dr. Harris and other presenters introduced and launched “Project 2035,” a national economic sovereignty think tank to assist in forming a national economic agenda for Black people.

“We got Project 2035, which is our plan towards national economic sovereignty. We launched a pilot this weekend with an unbelievable technology app that allows for us to collect the thoughts of the community and allow the community to come forward with the types of things that’s necessary as we rebuild over the next 10 years towards an economic sovereignty agenda,” Dr. Harris said to The Final Call.

As part of the project’s working sessions, panelists tackled artificial intelligence, digitalization and digital infrastructure.

“As a Black community, that digital divide is real. It has always been. We have missed so many movements, cultural movements, technology movements, etc. throughout history. We missed the agricultural revolution because we were the ones picking the cotton, not being able to participate, not being able to own the land in a way that allowed for us to be a part of the economy.

We missed the Renaissance movement. We missed the Civil Rights Movement because it did not have economics attached to it,” Dr. Harris said. “So, 62 years later, post the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Black people are at the bottom of every major economic indicator and quality of life, and we do not want to miss the technology boom, but most importantly, the artificial intelligence boom.

We want to be a part of it, and we just don’t want to participate or be included anymore. We want to own and control the technological advances of the future because we believe … that this will lead to freedom, liberation, emancipation, and most importantly, economic sovereignty.”

Conference keynote presenter Dr. Talitha Washington, executive director of the Center for Applied Data Science and Analytics at Howard University, defined A.I. as “a system that performs tasks normally requiring human intelligence, including reasoning, perception and judgment.”

It can include machine learning (systems that improve by learning patterns from data), generative A.I. (models that produce new content such as text, images, code and audio) and agentic A.I. (systems that plan, use tools and take multi-step actions toward a goal with limited human supervision).

Panelists discussed how A.I. could change the landscape for Black business owners and entrepreneurs. A.I. can help break down barriers to building capacity and scaling, they shared. But it must be tied with unity, collaboration and the will to do the work.

“One thing about A.I. that’s really interesting to me is I have found that it is a fascinating place to generate ideas and create plans to execute those ideas. What the A.I. won’t do for you, though, is do the actual legwork required to make that idea into a real thing. It’s not going to replace the work necessary for you to take that thing all the way to the finish line,” panelist Dr. Boyce Watkins said.

News analysis, surveys and research have presented A.I. as both a major opportunity for Black entrepreneurs but also as a new way to possibly reproduce longstanding racial disparities, if Black people fail to keep up. There are concerns that the data and information that is fed into A.I. is discriminatory toward non-Whites. For example, there are studies that show A.I. algorithms used in healthcare are racially biased.

But as big tech companies increasingly build their massive A.I. data centers, the engines that train and run A.I. systems, in or near Black communities or other cultural landmarks, such as historic Black cemeteries, creating harmful environmental impacts, the question becomes, how can Black people adopt A.I. responsibly? 

“We don’t want to do things in a way that’s harmful to our people and harmful to the community, and so we must bring stakeholders together,” Dr. Harris said. White House representatives from the Department of Agriculture and the government’s A.I. center presented at the conference, along with the Democratic and Republican candidates for Georgia governor.

“We need to be in the middle to figure out how do we solve potential problems but at the same time not lose out on the opportunities,” Dr. Harris added.

“Regardless of who’s in office, Black businesses are at the table, and it’s not about parties anymore. It’s about how do we advocate properly for our communities so that we are a part of the process, that we’re at the table and not just on the menu.”

During her talk, Dr. Washington brought up zero net water usage and the use of renewable energy like solar in order to power data centers. She also encouraged transparency around data centers.

Mayor Emeritus Ford shared with The Final Call that it is the responsibility of mayors to ensure data centers are built in areas where they do not become detriments to the community.

“Our environment is important. Being able to get electrical services at a reasonable rate is important for our citizens, and we’re not going to have that threatened by a data center.

So, mayors are intelligent enough to make sure that before we approve a data center for our area, for our cities, we go through all the necessary things to make sure it’s a benefit, not a detriment, to make sure it doesn’t take up all the electrical power,” he said.

There are serious concerns about the use of A.I. an its impact on Black people and communities which The Final Call has covered in several editions. (See The Final Call, Vol. 44 No. 16 and Vol. 45 No. 35)

Conference takeaways

Other topics addressed at the conference on Aug. 21 and 22 included buyer supplier readiness, the role of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and turning prospects into clients.

The U.S. Africa Trade Desk hosted the Pan-American Global Business, Investment and Trade Summit. During the session, Dr. Alveda King, niece of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., emphasized the need for Black land ownership.

“Your land is one of the most valuable things you could hold on to,” she said.

The conference ended with the Booker T. Washington National Awards Gala.

Mayor Emeritus Ford emphasized to The Final Call that the conference is not about talk but about action.

“We go to a lot of conferences, and people come together and hear a lot of speeches. They have a lot of receptions and meeting other people, but that’s it. This is a working session. This is a business session,” he said.

“We are concerned about action and getting things done. So, we want people to take away from this conference the ability to understand the A.I. process and have the ability to take what they learn here back and put it into effect.”

As next steps, the partners in the National Alliance for Black Business are continuing to form relationships overseas. The World Conference of Mayors is focused on building bridges with countries in South America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia.

“We live in a global world,” Mayor Emeritus Ford said. “Mayors now must be global. They must be international. They must be able to deal with the whole world.”

The long-term goal for Black business and economics? Dr. Harris voiced the following concluding words to The Final Call: “We want all people of Black descent all over the world to own and control their own destinies, to build enterprise, develop enterprise, and most importantly, as Booker T. Washington would say, become captains of industry.” The question is however, is A.I. the way to achieve this?

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Student Min. James Muhammad of Mosque No. 69 and Pastor Dr. Chris Erkskie of Movement Fellowship Church desire to work together with others in the community to make their neighborhood a safe and decent place to live. During the July 18 gathering, Student Min. James and Pastor Erksine shared messages of spirituality, responsibility and empowerment with the men present.

—Submitted by Bro. Walter Umrani Muhammad,

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Also, each week, in cities around the county, the brothers share the Teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad as taught and exemplified by His National Representative, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. They do this in part, through The Final Call newspaper which is available via print and digital subscription and door-to-door sales.

We thank the men of the Nation of Islam for their commitment and service in this mighty mission to resurrect our people.

—The Final Call

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