December 16, 1942 Heinrich Himmler, head of the German Gestapo, made public an order that Gypsies, or Roma, and those of mixed Roma blood already in labor camps be deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.”Himmler was determined to prosecute Nazi racial policies, which dictated the elimination from Germany and German-controlled territories of all races deemed “inferior,” as well as “asocial” types, (hardcore criminals, homosexuals, Communists, Slavs, Catholic priests). Gypsies fell into both categories according to Nazi ideology and had been executed widely in Croatia, Poland and the Soviet Union. Gypsy arrivals to the Belzec death camp. The Porajmos (also Porrajmos) — literally Devouring — is a term coined by the Romani to describe attempts by the Nazi regime to exterminate most of their people in Europe. Read more Video
December 16, 1950 President Truman proclaimed a national state of emergency in order to fight “Communist imperialism.” This followed major Chinese intervention in the Korean War, launching a counter-offensive with 300,000 men against Republic of Korea, United States and United Nations troops.The U.N. command, under General Douglas MacArthur, had attacked the North Korean Army at Inchon three months earlier, liberating Seoul, destroying three divisions and forcing a retreat by the North Korean People’s Army. North Korean Leader Kim Il Sung (second from L) with the Korean-Chinese joint military command
(I was about to post this one but I wanted to read Ten Bears’s first, and that one’s an essential with lots of news. This is a single positive, and possibly a resource for someone. -A)
Last year, Sammi Mrowka, a graduate student at San Diego State University who is nonbinary and transgender, completed the legal process for changing their name and gender marker on IDs. Mrowka, who uses “he” and “they” pronouns, participated in a name and gender marker change clinic run by law students at the University of San Diego, who helped him fill out the paperwork.
“It was worth it to go through all of the mental stress and gymnastics with these government offices to finally get the relief of, for example, going to a doctor’s office and not having to worry about them using my deadname or misgendering me,” Mrowka said. “I can feel the huge, huge relief, realizing how intense it was every single day having to think about all that, to now, where everything’s done.”
University of San Diego and Loyola Marymount University, both Catholic colleges, host name and gender marker change clinics run by law students. The clinics assist trans and nonbinary people in California who want to change their name and/or gender marker on documents like birth certificates, marriage licenses, driver’s licenses, passports, and social security cards.
Accurate IDs allow trans and nonbinary people to live more safely and gain access to resources and public spaces. Accurate IDs can also reduce the risk of harassment, discrimination, or violence.
At LMU in Los Angeles, Siobhan Kelly Fogarty and Rachana Reddi, both third-year law students, are the leaders of Loyola Maymount’s name and gender marker change clinic. LMU had a name-change clinic in 2022, but it had been on hiatus, and Fogarty and Reddi spent the last year reviving it. They held their first virtual clinic this fall, with five people in attendance. At their first in-person clinic at the Los Angeles LGBT Center, around 75 people came.
Especially now, when anti-trans rhetoric and legislation is on the rise, Fogarty said the Loyola clinic explicitly connects to the school’s religious mission.
“We’re a Jesuit university, and our school has this social justice mission. [The clinic’s] mission is to serve the LGBTQIA+ community seeking name and gender marker changes,” Fogarty said.
USD’s clinic started in 2018 and meets virtually about once a month. Mrowka contacted the clinic in July 2023 after hearing about it on Instagram and through their therapist. Soon after, he had a Zoom meeting with a student volunteer and lawyer who helped him fill out the paperwork.
“I was kind of shocked initially since it is affiliated with a religious institution, but them even having this clinic made me feel comfortable talking to them,” he said. According to clinic volunteers and attorneys, USD’s clinic has helped more than 1,200 people since opening in 2018.
Lilly Wood is a law student at USD and on the clinic’s board. “The school is supportive of the clinic, but it’s unique in the sense that it is entirely student run,” Wood said. Other clinics at USD, Wood said, are either run through the school itself, meaning students can participate for credit, or are run through Legal Aid Society and facilitated by the school.
“The name change and gender marker clinic is run more like a student organization,” Wood said. “There are six or seven of us right now and we run everything.” In addition, attorney volunteers supervise and assist as needed.
As a virtual clinic, Wood said people reach out via email and give basic information, and law student volunteers begin filling out the proper paperwork. There are multiple forms — “it’s very complicated, but they all make up the petition for a name and gender marker change,” Wood said.
On the night of the clinic, participants from all over the state join on a Zoom call, and the volunteers meet with participants individually to make sure the paperwork is correct, then cover next steps for how to proceed.
“A lot of the legal clinics at USD are very meaningful but different from the gender marker clinic,” Wood said. “We have a domestic violence clinic, a worker’s rights clinic, and a lot of times people are coming in with challenging, sad issues that are happening in their personal lives. Usually when people come into the [gender marker change] clinic, they’re so happy to be there. You’re helping them be themselves in a more honest way. It’s celebratory.”
Shortly before Wood came to law school, she said her friend from high school who was a trans woman passed away.
“She really inspired me with her optimism for life even under horrible transphobia,” Wood said. “When I learned about the clinic, it made me want to honor her memory in lending assistance to other trans people in the community.”
Although Mrowka had been out as nonbinary and trans for about a year before coming to the clinic, they said they had little experience finding affirmation in legal and medical spaces.
“It was really nice to feel the difference of talking to professionals and not having to feel the tension in my body,” he said. “There was no, ‘oh god, hopefully they don’t ask about this or that.’”
Mrowka said he also has trouble filling out forms, and having the volunteers fill them out and answer any questions was a huge help. Once the forms were filled out, Mrowka brought them to the courthouse.
LMU’s clinic is one of the only on campus that isn’t officially organized, meaning they don’t receive school funding, which would allow for a director, office on campus, and for students to get school credit.
Reddi and Fogarty are pushing for it to become an official clinic and hope to see it grow in the coming years, continuing their partnerships with the Long Beach and Los Angeles LGBTQ+ centers and faculty members at Loyola. They’ve received a lot of interest from student volunteers.
“Being able to sit with people and fill out the forms, which for me didn’t feel like a huge task — I would have done as many as they needed me to do — it felt good to be a part of someone’s journey in that way,” Reddi said. “It’s more important than ever to continue to do the work that we’re doing.”
Fogarty went to Catholic school growing up and “didn’t have the best experience as an openly queer kid,” she said. “I was concerned about coming to Loyola at first, and finding these communities is what made me feel okay. I saw that Loyola had an LGBTQ org that was the first of its kind in the country. [It’s important] to create space in these faith-based communities where everyone is welcome and seen and heard and safe.”
Part of Wood’s role on the clinic board at USD is keeping up-to-date on changes in the legal landscape of gender record changes.
“It’s hard to be optimistic right now,” Wood said. “We hear a lot from participants about their concerns. It’s unsettling to not know what’s going to happen next, but we’ll be here to support the community as much as possible. We’re lucky enough to be in California, which is very protective of trans rights, but we’re still kind of at the mercy of the federal government in some ways.”
For Mrowka, though they are no longer religious, USD’s clinic “practiced a lot of the virtues that I learned as a kid growing up in church, in terms of radical acceptance and deep compassion and servitude toward the community,” they said. “It’s another example of what neighborly love could look like. They don’t pretend everything is fine in the United States, but it’s so focused on what we can do with what we have.”
Say What? Could you please, Pleeeeeeeeeeease repeat Did you say: Molleta? Prieta? Morena? Ohh African! Hmmm Soy Puertorriquena Yes, Puertorican
That I don’t look What ? Oh, I guess I don’t look cafe con leche mancha de plátano Mulata, high yellow grifa By the way I did not know that there was a puertorican look. And what exactly is that? That I just look more what? Well, Y Tu abuela dónde Está? I should say abuela, tío, Tía, y to el barrio Let me tell you something FOR YOUR INFORMATION Most ricans are a mix of Africans, Spaniards, and Native Americans called Taínos By the way, no one has seen a Taíno in the last 500 years. Sooooo exactly … You know what that means My English is covered with spices spices from the Caribbean Spices that you might find Strange Because you were born in this cold fast food of a mall of a country Where Spanish is a foreign word That you are ashamed to learn
And when you try Is not there Only mumbles of a murmur Susurando el olvido A reganadientes Pretendiendo Escondiendo la vergüenza You remember Puerto Rico on the 2nd Sunday of every June When everybody is suddenly proud to be Puerto Rican No the word is Boricua Boricuas Here, Boricuas THERE, Boricuas everywhere And everyone waves the flags The flags that they don’t even understand And no one knows why they are here Yes HERE Now Do you Know? why your parents or grandparents vinieron aqui? De que Pueblo? Cuando te bañaste en las aguas calientes del Caribe? Better yet Do you really know that …? We all came from the Motherland Africa Even the Spanish people that came with Colon, Columbus However you want to say it Lived 700 hundred years under the Moors You heard that right The moors as in Arabs as in black Arabs SO … in other words Not only I But we Have over 500 years of African mestizaje The so called “white people” that everyone is so proud of As in “my grandparents are from Spain Well if they are … They Too have negrITOs in them Remember the Gitanos But that is another story … Getting back to the Boricua’s issue
What history do you know? Ever heard of Agüeybaná Albizu Campos Luis Palés Matos Rafael Betances Arturo Schomburg Francisco Oller Julia De Burgos Rafael Hernández Segundo Ruiz Belvís Enrique Laguerre Mariana Bracetti Pedro Pietri
Still havING problems figuring me out? Or is it that you just don’t know Who you are?
On Water Street, scaffolds envelop the buildings, wire screens surround the benches, iron fences line the street. You must walk a hot summer block in either direction to cross.
To the east, construction continues. To the west, trucks sit, waiting.
Approaching or leaving, it feels like a detention center without passports or means of escape.
Late nights on Water Street, beneath the scaffolding, behind the steaming sidewalks, and the screens and the fences, the men set up their dominoes table and their friends watch them play, awaiting their turns.
We wave on our way to walk our dogs and when returning home in the humid air.
There are no passersby on Water Street, no loitering without intent or purpose but I will reply to the questions they might have asked had they existed.
Why, they might wonder, do the men sit at a bridge table in the stifling heat beneath scaffolds, behind screens and fences? Surely, there are air-conditioned apartments where they might socialize and yell Capicu!
Because, I would answer, it is our street, this is our Lower East Side that we breathe, this is our space where neighbors smile as they pass by and call out, Otra vez you’re still at it, as time slowly propels us closer to wherever we are headed, but until we get there, the table is set for another night of apocalyptic dominos.
December 14, 1917 U.S. peace activist and suffragist Kate Richards O’Hare was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for a speech denouncing World War I. Occupying a neighboring jail cell was Emma Goldman, the well-known anarchist organizer, feminist, writer and anti-war critic was imprisoned for obstructing the draft. O’Hare was one of a number of prisoners Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs cited in his “Canton Speech” for which he in turn was imprisoned. More about activist Kate Richards O’Hare Read the speech
December 14, 1961 In a public exchange of letters with South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, U.S. President John F. Kennedy formally announced the United States would increase aid to South Vietnam, including the expansion of the U.S. troop commitment. Kennedy, concerned with recent advances made by the communist insurgency movement in South Vietnam, wrote: “We shall promptly increase our assistance to your defense effort.” President Ngo Dinh Diem President Kennedy and Secretary of Defense McNamara Kennedy – Diem letter exchange
December 14, 1980 At Yoko Ono’s request, John Lennon fans around the world mourned him with 10 minutes of silent prayer. In New York over 100,000 people converged on Central Park in tribute, and in Liverpool, England, his hometown, a crowd of 30,000 gathered outside of St. George’s Hall on Lime Street. johnlennon.com “You may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one.” Time capsules to mark John Lennon’s legacy
December 14, 1985 Wilma Mankiller became the first woman to lead a major American Indian tribe when she took office as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Wilma Mankiller on the day in 1985 when her election as chief of the Cherokee Nation was announced
December 14, 1994 After eight years of negotiations, the United States finally agreed to honor New Zealand’s ban on nuclear weapons in its territory. U.S. Navy ships armed with nuclear weapons no longer visited New Zealand’s ports.
December 14, 1995 Leaders of the states that were parts of the former Yugoslavia signed the Bosnia peace treaty, formally ending four years of bloody and vicious ethnic/religious conflict. The Dayton Accords, as they are known, committed the Balkan states of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina to accept a division of territory, a process to deal with the more than 2 million refugees, and the introduction of 60,000 NATO peacekeeping forces. The negotiations were led by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, and held principally at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. The Dayton Accords
“[Trump’s] been very open for a while about how he plans to end this core constitutional principle, end birthright citizenship.” Watch Mehdi Hasan break down the flaws in Donald Trump’s argument against the 14th Amendment.
Unaccompanied children detained at the border are first processed by Customs and Border Patrol before being handed over to other US authorities.
Donald Trump’s incoming border tsar, Tom Homan, has said that the US government “can’t find” more than 300,000 migrant children – and that many have been lured into forced labour and sex trafficking.
President-elect Donald Trump and his political allies, including Vice-President-elect JD Vance, have repeatedly made similar claims.
Some experts have accused them of distorting statistics to suggest the children are “lost” and victims of crime, although there is agreement that aspects of the system need to be changed.
The incoming administration has made immigration enforcement a priority, promising to clamp down on the US-Mexico border and conduct mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.
Let’s take a look at the claims of missing migrant children.
What are the Trump team’s claims?
In an interview with Fox News on 26 November – just before a visit to the US-Mexico border in Texas – Homan accused the Biden administration of “bragging” about how quickly children are released from custody, as well as “not properly vetting” adult sponsors in the US.
“Shame on them,” he said of the Biden administration. “They have over 300,000 children that they have released [to] unvetted sponsors that they can’t find.”
“Many are going to be in forced labour. Many forced sex trade,” Homan added. “We need to save these children.”
In his October debate against Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, JD Vance also said that the Department of Homeland Security “effectively lost” a total of 320,000 migrant children.
Concerns over the plight of migrant children were also starkly highlighted earlier this week when authorities in Texas shared an image of a two-year-old girl from El Salvador found at the border clutching a piece of paper with a phone number.
“Putting optics over safety has led to countless children in danger or unaccounted for,” Tennessee Republican representative Mark Green told the New York Post.
“This refusal to protect vulnerable alien children from abuse, exploitation, and human trafficking will be one of the defining failures of the Biden-Harris administration.”
Are the children actually missing?
According to immigration experts and attorneys, the claims largely stem from an August report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general’s office, which found that 32,000 unaccompanied minors failed to show up for court dates at immigration courts from 2019-23.
The report noted that 291,000 migrant children received no court notices at all. It also called on the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) to “take immediate action to ensure the safety” of unaccompanied migrant children in the US.
Migrant children “who do not appear for court are considered at higher risk for trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor”, the inspector general’s office reported.
But Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at the American Immigration Council, a migrant advocacy group, told the BBC the figures are indicative of a bureaucratic “paperwork issue” rather than “anything nefarious”.
“When you hear the phrase ‘missing’, you think that there is a child that someone is trying to find and can’t,” he said.
“That’s not the case here. The government has not made any effort to find these children.”
Many of the children, experts say, may well be at the addresses that are on file with the government, but were simply unable to make their court dates.
“That doesn’t mean something bad happened to them,” Mr Reichlin-Melnick said. “It means you missed a court hearing.”
Mr Reichlin-Melnick added that there are “valid concerns” about exploitation.
“We cannot, however, suggest that all 320,000 of those children are being labour trafficked,” he said.
Eric Ruark, an immigration researcher with NumbersUSA – which calls for tighter border controls – said that the children are difficult to track “because of some combination of apathy, incompetence and bureaucratic inefficiency”.
“Many, hopefully even most, are safe with caring sponsors,” he added. “But the Biden administration can’t actually say one way or the other, and apparently doesn’t care enough to find out.”
What happens to children at the border?
Unaccompanied minors detained at the US-Mexico border go through a complicated process that begins with detention and processing by Customs and Border Patrol, or CBP.
If the child is from a foreign country that is not Mexico or Canada, they are placed into removal proceedings and transferred to the US Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS.
HHS, through its Office of Refugee Resettlement office, cares for the children in a network of state-licensed providers.
The office also seeks to reunify children with family members in the US or with individual or organizational sponsors – who in turn are obligated to ensure they arrive at immigration court dates.
What can the Trump administration do?
Homan and other Trump administration officials have so far not provided many details about how they plan to address the issues that plague the detention of undocumented minors.
Several immigration attorneys contacted by the BBC suggested that the administration is likely to make becoming a “sponsor” for undocumented children much more difficult, even if the sponsor is a member of their family.
In practice, this would mean that more undocumented children are kept in detention.
“They could do what the Obama administration did, and detain them,” said Alexander Cuic, an immigration attorney and professor at Case Western Reserve University.
The controversial “Remain in Mexico” programme could also be applied to children, forcing them to wait across the border for the outcome of immigration proceedings.
“I’m not sure even they know what they’re going to do with the kids,” Mr Cuic said of the Trump administration. “But there’s a border problem they’re trying to figure out first, and that’s the first concern before whether they’re going to be harsh to both children and adults.”
When the BBC asked the Trump transition team what plan they have for the undocumented migrant children, spokesman Taylor Rogers said only that “Democrats’ wide-open border policies” have led to the children going “missing”.
“President Trump and leaders in his administration will deliver on their promise to end the invasion at our southern border that puts innocent children in harm’s way,” she added.
Israeli strikes pounded the Gaza Strip overnight and into Wednesday, with one attack ripping through a home where displaced people were sheltering in the isolated north. The strikes killed at least 33 people including children, Palestinian health officials said.
Violence also flared in outside Jerusalem, where an Israeli bus came under fire from a suspected Palestinian attacker late Wednesday, wounding three people including a 10-year-old boy, according to the military and hospital officials. The attack took place on a highway near major Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and the army was looking for the shooter in the area around Bethlehem.
The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza shows no end in sight, even after Israel reached a ceasefire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants and attention shifted to the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad by insurgents. Both the current and incoming U.S. administrations have said they hope to end the war in Gaza before the inauguration in January, but ceasefire talks have repeatedly stalled.
The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approved resolutions Wednesday demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and backing the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees that Israel has moved to ban.
General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, although they do reflect world opinion. The votes in the 193-nation assembly were 158-9 with 13 abstentions to demand a ceasefire. Israel and its close ally the United States were in the tiny minority voting against.
Israeli strike in north Gaza wipes out 3 generations
The strike on the home killed 19 people in the northern town of Beit Lahiya near the border with Israel, according to nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital, which received the bodies. Hospital records show that a family of eight was among those killed: four children, their parents and two grandparents.
The Israeli military said it targeted a Hamas militant in the vicinity of the hospital. It said reports about the number of casualties in the strike were inaccurate, without elaborating. The military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and accuses militants of hiding among them, putting their lives in danger.
The hospital said another strike near its entrance on Wednesday killed a woman and her two children.
The hospital director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, said Israeli drones struck nearby residential blocks overnight, causing explosions that sparked panic among the facility’s more than 120 sick and wounded patients.
“We have received distress calls from neighbors and trapped people, but we’re not able to leave the hospital because of the continued risk,” he said. “We are witnessing a massive loss of life, with many martyrs in the targeted areas.”
Another strike in the decades-old Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least seven people, according to the Awda Hospital. The dead included two children, their parents and three other relatives, it said. Later, the hospital said another attack hit the same camp, killing four people and injuring 16 more.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the other strikes.
In Lebanon, where near-daily Israeli attacks have continued despite the ceasefire, at least five people died Wednesday in Israeli strikes in the south, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry and state news agency.
Elsewhere in southern Lebanon, Israeli forces withdrew from a strategic town and handed it back to the Lebanese army in coordination with U.N. peacekeepers, the two militaries said. It appeared to be the first Israeli pullout from a Lebanese border town captured during the ground invasion.
In Syria, the Israeli military estimates it has destroyed 70% to 80% of Syrian military assets in recent days, according to an official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss an intelligence assessment. The military has said it has carried out hundreds of airstrikes.
Evacuation orders in camp after rocket fire
Militants in central Gaza fired four projectiles into Israel on Wednesday, two of which were intercepted, the military said. The other two fell in open areas, and there were no reports of casualties.
The military ordered the evacuation of a five-block area of the built-up Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, saying the rockets had been fired from there. The orders indicated that Israel would soon carry out strikes in the area.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 people, including children and older adults. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third believed to be dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 44,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health officials. They say women and children make up more than half the dead but do not distinguish between fighters and civilians in their count. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
UN says Gaza civilians face ‘utterly devastating situation’
Israel has been waging a renewed offensive against Hamas militants in Gaza’s heavily destroyed north since early October. Troops have surrounded Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and the urban Jabaliya refugee camp, allowing in almost no humanitarian aid and ordering tens of thousands to flee to nearby Gaza City.
Israeli officials have said the three communities are mostly deserted, but the United Nations humanitarian office said Tuesday it believes around 65,000 to 75,000 people are still there, with little access to food, water, electricity or health care. Experts have warned that the north may be experiencing famine.
Sigrid Kaag, the senior U.N. humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, told reporters on Tuesday that civilians trying to survive all across Gaza face an “utterly devastating situation.”
Kaag said she and other U.N. officials repeatedly ask Israel for access for convoys to northern Gaza and elsewhere, to allow in commercial goods, to reopen the Rafah crossing from Egypt in the south and to approve dual-use items.
The Israeli military says it allows in enough humanitarian aid and blames U.N. agencies for not distributing it, saying large amounts of aid have accumulated just inside Gaza’s borders. U.N. officials say Israeli restrictions, the breakdown of law and order and ongoing fighting make it difficult to access the aid and distribute it, and have repeatedly called for a ceasefire.
The United States, Egypt and Qatar have mediated talks between Israel and Hamas for nearly a year, and diplomats say those efforts have recently gained momentum.
But Hamas has said it will not release the remaining hostages without an end to the war and a full withdrawal of Israeli troops. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed and all the hostages are returned and has said Israel will maintain a lasting military presence in some areas.
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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel, Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Edith Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
Scottie's Playtime 