U.S. Briefs: Tulsa kicks off reparations for 1921 race massacre

Tulsa, Okla., Mayor Monroe Nichols announced a reparations initiative June 1 in the form of a $100 million private trust to assist neighborhoods suffering from the aftermath of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Rather than providing direct cash payments, the fund will set aside $24 million for housing and homeowners benefits for descendants of the massacre’s victims. Another portion will go toward scholarships, and $60 million will fuel a cultural preservation fund to revitalize neighborhoods still bearing the massacre’s scars. During the 1921 attack, a white mob ransacked Greenwood, one of Tulsa’s most prosperous black neighborhoods, also known as “Black Wall Street.” The perpetrators killed an estimated 75-300 people during the murderous looting spree. “The Greenwood District at its height was a center of commerce,” Nichols, the city’s first black mayor, told the Associated Press. “So what was lost was not just something from North Tulsa or the black community. It actually robbed Tulsa of an economic future that would have rivaled anywhere else in the world.” Nichols referred to the plan as a “road to repair” rather than “reparations,” calling the latter a politically fraught term. —Addie Offereins

Hawaii

The Alliance Defending Freedom is representing satire website The Babylon Bee in a federal lawsuit, filed June 4, that challenges Hawaii’s recent online content law. The 2024 law bans digitally created content that depicts a politician doing or saying something that didn’t actually happen. Hawaii’s law says such content could harm a political candidate’s reputation or change voter decisions based on false information, and its penalties include jail time, fines, and potential civil lawsuits. But The Babylon Bee argues the law is overly broad and penalizes satire and parody, which are protected free speech. About 10,000 people from Hawaii read The Babylon Bee monthly. The Bee and ADF previously teamed up to challenge a similar law in California. That suit is ongoing in a U.S. District Court. —Elizabeth Russell

Oregon

In June, Oregon lawmakers sided with homeowners and small-business owners experiencing hefty electricity rate hikes due to power demands from the state’s rapidly expanding data center market. The POWER Act directs Oregon’s utility regulatory commission to put newly created data centers in a customer category separate from residential consumers, ensuring the latter don’t shoulder the cost for data centers’ high energy needs. As the AI market booms, internet data centers are popping up across the U.S. In eastern Oregon, tech giants like Amazon, Apple, and Google house data centers that can guzzle as much energy as a small city. Electricity rates for the 1.4 million customers of Oregon’s two biggest power providers have risen 50% since 2020, outpacing the inflation rate. —Grace Snell

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Montana

On June 2, the Missoula City Council voted 9-2 to adopt the LGBTQ Pride flag as the municipality’s official emblem. The move was an act of defiance against a new state law that restricts the display of “politically charged” flags on public buildings. Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed the bill into law in May, but Missoula exploited a loophole that allows the display of the official flag of “Montana, or any county, municipality, special district, or other political subdivision within the state.” That means that currently, any Montana city can now fly Missoula’s Pride flag. Gianforte condemned Missoula officials for prioritizing “flying a divisive Pride flag” rather than focusing on the city’s other problems, according to CBS affiliate KPAX. The state law’s sponsor, state Rep. Braxton Mitchell, a Republican from Columbia Falls, indicated the Legislature will address Missoula’s new flag in its next session. Missoula Mayor Andrea Davis defended the city’s maneuver, arguing the law “specifically alienated other parts of the community that in fact felt marginalized and in danger.” But Sandra Vasecka, a council member who voted against the resolution, said the new flag will alienate others. —Mary Jackson

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Wyoming

The federal Bureau of Land Management announced it will start removing all wild horses from a 40-mile area in the southwestern part of the state in mid-July. More than 2,700 horses roam the “checkerboard” of federal and private land, but the number of horses removed could grow to over 3,300 before the yearslong operation ends. Urged by cattle and sheep ranchers, the bureau decided in 2023 to stop managing the herd and instead redesignate the land to allow removal when officials determine free-roaming horses are overgrazing the area. Teams will use helicopters and bait to move the horses into capture areas before trucking them to corrals for adoption or relocation to other pastures. The BLM received more than 3,000 public comments—mostly negative—while assessing the project. Horse advocates have previously challenged the proposal in court. The bureau plans to remove about 10,000 wild horses from herds in several Western states this fiscal year despite criticism over its methods and rationale. —Todd Vician

Maine

Lawmakers in June approved a bill that could expand schools’ use of physical restraint and seclusion to manage student behavior. The bill, which has sparked debate among educators, disability advocates, and student rights supporters, revises 2021 legislation that allowed school staff to immobilize students or forcibly isolate them in rooms only if their behavior “poses an imminent danger of serious physical injury.” The new bill, introduced by Rep. Holly Sargent, would clarify the definition of “serious physical injury” to include any injury meriting examination by a school nurse. Sargent proposed changes after visiting schools where teachers described escalating violence. “They were being bruised, they were being bitten, they were being attacked, they were being sworn at,” Sargent said. “They felt that there were no consequences, there was no way for them to get control.” Maine has historically led the country in its use of restraint and seclusion, practices critics say disproportionately affects students with disabilities. Maine schools have restrained and secluded students as many as 22,000 times some years. —Kim Henderson