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Iowa Coast to Coast (statewide news)
From the CR Gazette: Pascual Pedro lived in Iowa for seven years, growing up here after immigrating to the United States when he was 13. Last Tuesday, he was detained at a regular check-in appointment at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office in Cedar Rapids. Less than a week later, and before his lawyer had time to file a single document with ICE officials regarding his order of removal, he was deported to Guatemala, where he was born. “This is a travesty, there was no due process and our message is bring him back now,“ Father Guillermo Treviño Jr., the parish priest of St. Joseph Catholic Church in West Liberty and Pedro’s godfather, said in a statement. Pedro, now 20, was marked for expedited removal when he arrived in the United States with his father in 2018, but was allowed to stay under supervised released. His father was deported, and Pedro moved in with his grandparents, who have lived in the United States since 1991. He attended his annual check-in meetings with ICE, had no criminal record, and had previously been approved for a work permit. Community members who knew Pedro through his years of playing soccer for West Liberty High School, through his church attendance at St. Joseph, through his job working for his grandfather’s siding company — for which Pedro had been approved for a work permit — and through other avenues, rallied when they heard Pedro had been detained.
Cauc Talk (political news)
Wider Scope
From NPR: In a break with decades of tradition, the Internal Revenue Service says it will allow houses of worship to endorse candidates for political office without losing their tax-exempt status. The surprise announcement came in a court document filed on Monday. Since 1954, a provision in the tax code called the Johnson Amendment says that churches and other nonprofit organizations could lose their tax-exempt status if they participate in, or intervene in "any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office." The National Religious Broadcasters and several churches sued the IRS over the rule, arguing that it infringes on their First Amendment rights to the freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion. According to an analysis of 2023 polling provided to RNS by the Public Religion Research Institute, majorities of all major religious groups oppose allowing places of worship to endorse political candidates while retaining their tax-exempt status. That includes white evangelicals (62%) as well as Black Protestants (59%), white mainline or nonevangelical Protestants (77%), white Catholics (79%), Hispanic Catholics (78%), Hispanic Protestants (72%) and Jewish Americans (77%).
A.Iowa
From BBC: Elon Musk's artificial intelligence start-up xAI says it is working to remove "inappropriate" posts made by its chatbot, Grok, after users shared how it made positive references to Hitler. Screenshots published on social media show the chatbot saying the Nazi leader would be the best person to respond to alleged "anti-white hate." "Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X," the company said in a post.ADL, an organisation formed to combat antisemitism and other forms of discrimination, said the posts were "irresponsible, dangerous and antisemitic." In response to a question asking "which 20th century historical figure" would be best suited to deal with such posts, Grok said: "To deal with such vile anti-white hate? Adolf Hitler, no question." "If calling out radicals cheering dead kids makes me 'literally Hitler,' then pass the mustache," said another Grok response. "Truth hurts more than floods."
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