• Trumpcare went down in flames were the words Social Security Works used to described how the Republicans miserably failed to “repeal and replace” Obamacare after seven long years and more than 60 votes to repeal the law in the House. Now Social Security Works and other groups are again focused on expanding Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
  
  
• Yale University is renaming Calhoun College, which was named after a racist Vice President to Grace Murray Hooper College, who was a noted computer scientist.
  
  
• Two Controversial Statues are Relocating in Frederick - - The statues of the U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice, Roger Brooke Taney, and Maryland’s first governor and slave owner, Thomas Johnson, were removed from the front of the city hall to Mount Olivet Cemetery in Frederick, Maryland.

• How Descendants of a Slave and a Supreme Court Justice Righted a 160-Year-Old Wrong - - More than a century after the Supreme Court declared that Dred Scott and his fellow enslaved Americans were not U.S. citizens, descendants of Scott and the court's chief justice at the time, Roger Brooke Taney, have come together to heal a rift of anger and guilt that spanned generations.

• The Boy Scouts of America will now allow transgender children who identify as boys to enroll in its boy-only program.
  
  
• The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of higher educational standards for children with a disability in one of the most important education cases in decades.

• Women can now wear dreadlocks in the U.S. Army.

• Mahershala Ali became the first Muslim to win an Oscar Award, the day after Rep. Keith Ellison became the first Muslim congressperson to hold a leadership position in the Democratic Party.
  
  
• The conservative Wall Street Journal on 45 claiming that former President Obama had Trump Tower wiretapped: Trump is “clinging to his assertion like a drunk to an empty gin bottle.”

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Last month, Senators Tom Cotton (R-Ar) and David Purdue (R-Ga) introduced the RAISE Act, which seeks to significantly restrict family based visas and to completely eliminate the diversity visa lottery. Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) estimates that nearly 69% of Black immigrants come to the US via sponsorship by relatives or the diversity visa lottery.

BAJI and the New York University School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic just released a report The State of Black Immigrants. According to the report, the diversity immigrant category was added to the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) by the Immigration Act of 1990 to stimulate “new seed” immigration.

According to the group, NumbersUSA, which seeks to limit immigration, The RAISE Act would reduce legal immigration to the United States by 50% in an effort to diminish its impact on vulnerable American workers. First, it eliminates the visa lottery and limits refugee admissions to 50,000 per year, removing the ability of the President to unilaterally adjust upward refugee admissions. Further, it eliminates "chain migration" by limiting family-sponsored immigration to the spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.

Breitbart News reports Cotton saying the RAISE Act shuts chain-migration, so siblings, parents, and other members of a legal immigrant’s extended family are no longer automatically waved into the country.  However, the bill does allow for temporary visas for elderly parents, who are not coming to America to work or go on public assistance.

When he was 11, Oscar Ekponimo was so hungry he would stare at the kitchen cupboards in his home in Calabar, Nigeria, wishing they would magically fill with food. His father had stopped working after a partial stroke, and his mother earned so little as a nurse that he and his siblings ate just one substantial meal every two days. “My mom used to remind us that the hunger was not forever,” he said. “That always kept me going.”

Now 30 and a skilled software engineer living in Abuja (the capital city), Ekponimo is working to ensure others do not suffer as he did. He has developed an app called Chowberry, which connects grocery stores and supermarkets with NGOs (non government organizations) and charities to put wasted or leftover food to use.

As packaged food items near the end of their shelf life, the app initiates discounts that grow larger the longer the products remain unsold. Local aid groups and other selected nonprofits are alerted about these discounts and also when supermarkets are giving food away for free. Food that would otherwise have gone in the trash is instead distributed to orphanages and needy families.

Read the Full Story

The 16th Annual Baltimore Natural Hair Care Expo takes place Saturday, April 1 and Sunday April 2 at Coppin State University in Baltimore, MD. This year’s expo will feature three events plus cannabis education workshops. The three Saturday cannabis workshops says Phaedra High is subject to change, but here is the scheduled lineup:

Saturday's Lineup:

• Cannabis 101 presented by The History of Cannabis Museum (12:00p-1:15pm)
• Cannabis Education Question and Answer Panel (2p-3p)
• Cannabis Law, Policy + YOU presented by Maryland NORML (3:00p-4:15p)
• Cannabis: Natures First Creation. The Healing Effects on your Spirit, Mind and Body presented by Dr. Consir Thot: (5:00p-6:15p)

Sunday's Lineup:

• Cannabis in the Kitchen presented by Carolyn King (1:00p-2:15p)
• Cannabiz: Compliance + Business  in Cannabis presented by Greg Ewing: (2:30p-3:45p)
• Cannabis Education Q&A Panel (4p-5p)
• Cannabis Gro Workshop presented by The Gro Club DC (5:30p-6:45p)

The two-day Expo will include the Baltimore Beard and Barber Expo 2017 and the Baltimore Skin and make up Expo 2017. “In 2016, we had more than 10,000 people to attend the show,” says Malaika Cooper, the show’s organizer.

The three expo event will also include other free classes all day on both days from Transitioning from Chemical to Natural to Taking Back the Black Hair Care Retail Industry.

The event is from 11a to 7p. Admission is $20 for one day and $35 for a two day pass available on the web. Visit the Port Of Harlem booth while there.

BerNadette Stanis (Thelma) and Ralph Carter (Michael), from the television series Good Times, will be at the Black Memorabilia, Fine Art, and Collectible Show in Gaithersburg, MD to talk and take photographs with collectors and fans as they add to the air of nostalgia at the annual event.

The annual show and sale features vendors and artisans with Black memorabilia, fine art, and crafts including slavery artifacts and documents, Civil War artifacts, paintings, books, dolls, autographs, stamps, advertisements, toys, prints, textiles, kitchen collectibles, jewelry, postcards, cookie jars, sports memorabilia, political and civil rights memorabilia, entertainment memorabilia, photographic items, movie posters, coins, and much more.

The two-day event is Saturday, April 8, 10a -7p and Sunday, April 9, 10a-5p. All tickets are sold at the door for $7 - students enter for free. Parking is also free. Visit the Port Of Harlem booth while there.

Washington
A Raisin In The Sun
Arena Stage
Wed, Mar 31-Sun, May 7, $40-90

Millee Spears of
Khismet Wearable Art
Zawadi Arts
1524 U Street, NW
Apr 1, 1p-7p
Apr 2, 12p-5p, free

Anacostia River Festival
Anacostia Park
I-295 and Penn Ave, SE
Sun, Apr 9, 1p-5p, free

Library of Congress Bibliodiscotheque
Wed, Apr 12-Sat, May 6, 2017
See Full Schedule

New York
Awaiting  for Men (En Attendant les Hommes)
Cantor Film Center-NYU
36 East 8th Street (between University Place and Greene Street)
Fri, Mar 31, 6p, free, 
RSVP at (212) 998-4222

Burning an Illusion
Cantor Film Center-NYU
36 East 8th Street (between University Place and Greene Street)
Fri, Mar 31, 6p, free,
RSVP at (212) 998-4222

Coming
Lecture - Contemporary African Immigration
Dr. Nemata Blyden
Alexandria Black History Museum
902 Wythe Street
Alexandria
Sat, May 20, 11a.–1p, free

Getting the Most of Your Vacation for Less
Bernadette Champion
Alexandria Black History Museum
902 Wythe Street
Alexandria
Sat, May 27, 11a-1p, free

Fatherless Daughter Reconciliation
Jonetta Rose Barras
Alexandria Black History Museum
902 Wythe Street
Alexandria
Sat, Jun 17, 11a-1p. $5