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Turning race and extremism into healing

Join Common Ground Committee and sponsoring partner Bridge Alliance for a special virtual event today to kick off the National Week of Conversation 2021.

Special guest Daryl Davis, an award-winning Black musician, race reconciliator and renowned lecturer, has used the power of human connection to convince hundreds of people to leave white supremacist groups. Fellow guest Ryan Lo'Ree, a former white supremacist and extremist, is an interventionist working to deradicalize people who have been lured into extremism and white supremacy. Register now to join them today for a Zoom conversation moderated by New York Times columnist David Brooks on strategies that work to combat hate, and how we can all play a part.

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Project 2025: Anti-Abortion Blueprint Quietly Taking Hold

A stethoscope and gavel.

Getty Images, ATU Images

Project 2025: Anti-Abortion Blueprint Quietly Taking Hold

Last spring and summer, The Fulcrum published a 30-part series on Project 2025. Now that Donald Trump’s second term has started, Part 2 of the series has commenced.

While the national spotlight often falls on state-level abortion bans or Supreme Court rulings, a quieter but more transformative effort is underway in Washington. In his second term, President Donald Trump is not simply revisiting past culture war battles—he’s enacting a structural overhaul of federal reproductive health policy, rooted in a sweeping plan known as Project 2025.

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Chicago Head Start Programs Face Uncertainty After Regional Office Closure

Morning drop-off at the Carole Robertson Center for Learning.

Claire Murphy

Chicago Head Start Programs Face Uncertainty After Regional Office Closure

ALBANY PARK – The laughter of preschool children permeates the hallways of the Carole Robertson Center for Learning on a sunny Thursday morning in Albany Park.

Teachers line their students up outside classrooms, counting names off one by one. Children congregate by their playmats and colorful rugs, about to be served breakfast.

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Man looking at stocks on his phone. Stock market.

As Trump pushes disruption, the markets push back.

Getty Images, Alistair Berg

The Markets Strike Back: Why Trump’s Economic Fantasies Keep Crashing into Reality

Trump may have won the election, but he’s losing the markets. In just 100 days, Wall Street has erased nearly $6 trillion in global equity value, according to Bloomberg data cited in The Guardian. The S&P 500 has logged one of its worst openings to a presidential term since the Nixon years. And fund managers—the real-world referees of economic confidence—are sending a message Congress seems unwilling to deliver: enough.

While Trump’s second term has been marked by a tsunami of executive orders, tariff threats, and regulatory purges, the financial markets are refusing to play along. From panicked sell-offs to jittery consumer sentiment and retreating business investment, U.S. capital is staging its own quiet rebellion. Consumer confidence has dropped to its lowest level since 2020, with Americans’ outlook on jobs, income, and business conditions sinking to a 13-year low, according to The Conference Board.

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Who Really Pays for Congress? Local Donors All but Disappear in 2024

Hundred dollar bills.

Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

Who Really Pays for Congress? Local Donors All but Disappear in 2024

WASHINGTON, D.C. - There is an old saying: All politics is local. However, many voters may get the impression this is becoming less and less a reality -- particularly in US House and Senate elections where candidates are elected to represent specific districts or states, but campaign to a national audience.

This is because local influence in the most contested races is dying out -- a statement not contrived from opinion, but fact.

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