San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie approved a new law setting up a reparations fund to compensate for slavery and racial discrimination that passed the city's Board of Supervisors earlier in December. In a statement to Newsweek, Lurie emphasized that while the new law sets up a reparations fund, the city is not allocating money to it. "I was elected to drive San Francisco's recovery, and that's what I'm focused on every day. We are not allocating money to this fund"with a historic $1 billion budget deficit, we are going to spend our money on making the city safer and cleaner," he said. The fund was set up in response to recommendations for single payments of as much as $5 million to any Black San Franciscans who might be eligible. read more
A report from the Costs of War project at Brown University revealed that 20 years of post-9/11 wars have cost the U.S. an estimated $8 trillion and have killed more than 900,000 people. read more
Demonstrations across Iran, initially sparked by economic hardship and the sharp fall of the national currency, continued for a third day on Tuesday, drawing in university students as authorities deployed force and made multiple arrests. Protests spread across Iran on Tuesday, with universities and commercial districts emerging as key hubs amid a widening strike by shopkeepers in Tehran and other cities. Human rights and student groups said at least 11 protesters were arrested near Tehran's Shoush Square. Five students were also detained at universities in the capital, four of whom were later released. read more
How did so much get so terrible so rapidly? One simultaneous cause and consequence of the Minnesota swoon is outright fraud, the rotten fruit of a partnership between some of the state's leading politicians and sectarian interests that understand government not as a society's shared instrument to address its problems, but as a storehouse to pillage. read more
Murder rates would be up to five times higher than they are but for medical developments over the past 40 years. According to new research, doctors are saving the lives of thousands of victims of attack who four decades ago would have died and become murder statistics. Although the study is based on US data, the researchers say the principle applies to other countries too: "There is reason to expect a similar trend overall in Britain," said Dr Anthony Harris, the lead author of the study. read more
Next thing Snoofys going to claim the overthrow of Iran was racist by the Persians