skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Friday, March 29, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

First-Ever Call for Diversity in National Parks

play audio
Play

Monday, January 16, 2017   

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Martin Luther King Jr. Day has deep significance for many Americans this year with the fulfillment of what some thought an impossible dream: a black president serving two terms in office. And the Obama administration's last days have been marked by grand gestures - including a call for public lands agencies to be more inclusive in hiring practices and community outreach.

Rue Mapp, CEO of nonprofit, outdoor-enthusiast group Outdoor Afro, said this latest move is the perfect bookend to the administration's 2014 "America's Great Outdoors Initiative", a call to improve public access to lands and waters.

"By him taking this action at the very end of his administration is the most elegant follow-through on his promise,” Mapp said. “And that it lands on the MLK weekend has absolutely sentimental value."

President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for Interior secretary, Montana's Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke, has often diverged with environmental activists on land-use issues. But he has said he supports the American public having access to federal lands. Whether he will support this specific outreach to minorities remains to be seen.

Outdoor Afro is part of a coalition of groups focused on making sure the next 100 years in national parks reflect America's diversity. Mapp said there is a historical narrative in this country that has caused many African-Americans to be weary of the great outdoors.

"We have a legacy in this country of lynching. We have terror that's happened in nature, in the cover of night, within generational memory for many African-Americans,” she said. "And one of the ways that we can help find healing and atonement is by helping to make sure that everyone feels welcome in our parks and public lands."

This first-ever presidential memorandum is aimed at the Department of the Interior, the Forest Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as others. In a related move, last week Obama expanded national monuments in California and Oregon and named three civil rights-era monuments in the South.



get more stories like this via email

more stories
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week about the popular abortion pill Mifepristone and will weigh in on whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was correct in how it can be dosed and prescribed. (Ascannio/Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Missouri residents are worried about future access to birth control. The latest survey from The Right Time, an initiative based in Missouri…


Social Issues

play sound

Wisconsin children from low-income families are now on track to get nutritious foods over the summer. Federal officials have approved the Badger …

Social Issues

play sound

Almost 2,900 people are unsheltered on any given night in the Beehive State. Gov. Spencer Cox is celebrating signing nine bills he says are geared …


The U.S. teaching workforce remains primarily white while the percentage of Black teachers has declined. However, the percentage of Asian and Latinx teachers is rising.(WavebreakMediaMicro/Adobestock)

Social Issues

play sound

Education advocates are calling on lawmakers to increase funding for programs to combat the teacher shortage. Around 37% of schools nationwide …

Environment

play sound

New York's Legislature is considering a bill to get clean-energy projects connected to the grid faster. It's called the RAPID Act, for "Renewable …

Social Issues

play sound

Earlier this month, a new Arizona Public Service rate hike went into effect and one senior advocacy group said those on a fixed income may struggle …

Social Issues

play sound

Michigan recently implemented a significant juvenile justice reform package following recommendations from a task force made up of prosecutors…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021