Black residents in San Francisco could receive a life-changing amount of money in the form of reparations if a plan backed by the city's Board of Supervisors gets enacted.
The board voiced support for the city's reparations committee's recommendation to pay eligible Black adult residents $5 million and also recommended eliminating personal debt, tax bills, and instituting guaranteed yearly incomes starting at $97,000 for the next 250 years, according to the Associated Press.
There are estimated less than 50,000 Black residents living in San Francisco, only 6 percent of the current population.
Like other such plans explored around the country to improve Black generational wealth, it received some pushback from the local community.
"Those of my constituents who lost their minds about this proposal, it's not something we're doing or we would do for other people. It's something we would do for our future, for everybody's collective future," said Rafael Mandelman, San Francisco supervisor.
While the board said it was open to the reparations proposal in an effort to atone for slavery and institutionalized racism, some supervisors have said the city cannot afford major reparations payments. Lee E. Ohanian, a professor with Stanford University's Hoover Institution, estimated that the plan could cost non-Black families at least $600,000 per household.
"This conversation we're having in San Francisco is completely unserious. They just threw a number up, there's no analysis," said John Dennis, chair of the San Francisco Republican Party.
The stunning removal of Kevin McCarthy as speaker has left the House adrift as Republicans struggle to bring order to their fractured majority and begin the difficult and potentially prolonged process of uniting around a new leader.
New York City is challenging a unique legal agreement that requires it to provide emergency housing to anyone who asks for it, as the city's shelter system strains under a large influx of international migrants who have arrived since last year.
Warned to mind his out-of-court comments, former President Donald Trump returned to his New York civil fraud trial Wednesday as lawyers on both sides closely questioned an accountant who prepared financial statements at the heart of the case.
The third day of former president Donald Trump's civil fraud trial kicked off earlier Wednesday in New York, a day after a judge imposed a limited gag order on Trump.
The National Zoo's three giant pandas — Mei Xiang, Tian Tian and their cub Xiao Qi Ji — are set to return to China in early December with no public signs that the 50-year-old exchange agreement struck by President Richard Nixon will continue.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy plans to force a vote Tuesday on the far-right effort to oust him from his leadership position and insists he will not cut a deal with Democrats to remain in power, setting the stage for an extraordinary and unpredictable showdown on the House floor.
