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Coalition seeks ban on flavored tobacco products

WAVE NEWSPAPERS — ity and county officials have examined the idea of banning flavored tobacco products in recent months, and a coalition of health experts, educators and students gathered Aug. 14 to voice their support of such a prohibition. The L.A. Families Fighting Flavored Tobacco coalition hosted a news conference in front of the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration after they spoke at a county Health and Mental Health Services cluster meeting. Supporters held inflatable candy and signs to protest the ways in which flavored nicotine products are marketed to children.

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The L.A. Families Fighting Flavored Tobacco coalition (Photo by: wavenewspapers.com)

By Wire News Service

LOS ANGELES — City and county officials have examined the idea of banning flavored tobacco products in recent months, and a coalition of health experts, educators and students gathered Aug. 14 to voice their support of such a prohibition.

The L.A. Families Fighting Flavored Tobacco coalition hosted a news conference in front of the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration after they spoke at a county Health and Mental Health Services cluster meeting. Supporters held inflatable candy and signs to protest the ways in which flavored nicotine products are marketed to children.

“Products like e-cigarette flavors such as cotton candy, lemonade, bubble gum, they’re clearly marketed toward young people,” Annie Tegan of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids said. “Menthol cigarettes would also be banned because they’re a flavored product.”

Tegan said there have been reports of children as young as 10 using the flavored tobacco products.

“Flavored tobacco products have been around a long time, and e-cigarette companies have taken a leaf out of big tobacco’s book, and now they’re marketing it to young people,” Tegan said.

She said one of the biggest concerns is that the Food and Drug Administration has not yet stepped in to regulate electronic cigarettes nor its flavored products, and it’s also troubling that some of the long-term effects of “vaping” are not yet known.

The coalition members said they have given suggestions to county officials but are still waiting to see what the proposed laws to ban them would look like. The county banned vaping nicotine products in public areas, along with cannabis, in March.

The Los Angeles City Council voted in April to investigate ways to curb the sale of flavored tobacco products to youth and young adults and study how other cities are tackling the issue.

“We need to tell these companies to get the candy out of these products,” said Jackie Goldberg, an LAUSD school board member. “We have not had, until recent years, a problem with smoking cigarettes and tobacco in our middle schools. It’s been a problem at the high school level for years, but not middle school.”

Goldberg said the school district is working with law enforcement and the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, which announced similar plans last year, to increase enforcement against sales of flavored tobacco products to minors.

LAUSD received a two-year, $4 million grant to create a student-led campaign to try to educate pupils and families about the potential dangers of using flavored nicotine products. In California, the legal age to purchase flavored tobacco products is 21.

“Nicotine taken by youth has a serious health impact,” said Jessica Simms, a board member of the Los Angeles division of the American Heart Association. “[Children] can’t study well, they can’t concentrate when their brain is exposed to nicotine. Once they’re hooked, it’s likely to be a lifelong addiction.”

Simms said people who use nicotine products before the age of 25 are more likely to use the products longer into their lives, which makes that age group a target for the companies.

Two students from Animo Leadership Charter High School spoke about their experiences with flavored nicotine products and how peer pressure led one of them to try the devices, which got her into trouble. Today, they are part of organizations supporting the ban on the products.

“This is not a small issue,” Goldberg said. “This is a health crisis.”

According to a survey released Aug. 19, cigarette smoking has reached a historic low among Los Angeles County high school students, but vaping is on the rise, with more than 30 percent of students reporting that they have used e-cigarette products,

The 2017-18 California Student Tobacco Survey and the California Healthy Kids Survey reported that 10% of Los Angeles County high school students regularly use e-cigarettes, up from 6.4% the previous year. E-cigarettes used for vaping were the most commonly used tobacco product among high school students, the survey found. Only about 1.7% of students expressed a preference for cigarette smoking.

“A new generation has become addicted to nicotine through flavored vape products like e-cigarettes,” Barbara Ferrer, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “The epidemic of our youth becoming addicted to nicotine by flavors and flavored tobacco is unacceptable, and we will work to reverse this trend as we partner with others to ensure a tobacco-free generation.”

According to the survey, 83% of high school students who use tobacco reported using a flavored product, with fruit or sweet flavors the most popular.

This article originally appeared in the Wave Newspapers.

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Fighting to Keep Blackness

BlackPressUSA NEWSWIRE — Trump supporters have introduced another bill to take down the bright yellow letters of Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., in exchange for the name Liberty Plaza. D.C.

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By April Ryan

As this nation observes the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, the words of President Trump reverberate. “This country will be WOKE no longer”, an emboldened Trump offered during his speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. Since then, Alabama Congresswoman Terri Sewell posted on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter this morning that “Elon Musk and his DOGE bros have ordered GSA to sell off the site of the historic Freedom Riders Museum in Montgomery.” Her post of little words went on to say, “This is outrageous and we will not let it stand! I am demanding an immediate reversal. Our civil rights history is not for sale!” DOGE trying to sell Freedom Rider Museum

Also, in the news today, the Associated Press is reporting they have a file of names and descriptions of more than 26,000 military images flagged for removal because of connections to women, minorities, culture, or DEI. In more attempts to downplay Blackness, a word that is interchanged with woke, Trump supporters have introduced another bill to take down the bright yellow letters of Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., in exchange for the name Liberty Plaza. D.C. Mayor Morial Bowser is allowing the name change to keep millions of federal dollars flowing there. Black Lives Matter Plaza was named in 2020 after a tense exchange between President Trump and George Floyd protesters in front of the White House. There are more reports about cuts to equity initiatives that impact HBCU students. Programs that recruited top HBCU students into the military and the pipeline for Department of Defense contracts have been canceled.

Meanwhile, Democrats are pushing back against this second-term Trump administration’s anti-DEI and Anti-woke message. In the wake of the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, several Congressional Black Caucus leaders are reintroducing the Voting Rights Act. South Carolina Democratic Congressman James Clyburn and Alabama Congresswoman Terry Sewell are sponsoring H.R. 14, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Six decades ago, Lewis was hit with a billy club by police as he marched for the right to vote for African Americans. The right for Black people to vote became law with the 1965 Voting Rights Act that has since been gutted, leaving the nation to vote without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. Reflecting on the late Congressman Lewis, March 1, 2020, a few months before his death, Lewis said, “We need more than ever in these times many more someones to make good trouble- to make their own dent in the wall of injustice.”

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Rep. Al Green is Censured by The U.S. House After Protesting Trump on Medicaid

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — His censure featured no hearing at the House Ethics Committee and his punishment was put on the floor for a vote by the Republican controlled House less than 72 hours after the infraction in question.

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By Lauren Burke

In one of the quickest punishments of a member of the U.S. House of Representatives in the modern era, Congressman Al Green (D-TX) was censured by a 224-198 vote today in the House. His censure featured no hearing at the House Ethics Committee and his punishment was put on the floor for a vote by the Republican controlled House less than 72 hours after the infraction in question. Of the last three censures of members of the U.S. House, two have been members of the Congressional Black Caucus under GOP control. In 2023, Rep. Jamal Bowman was censured.

On the night of March 4, as President Trump delivered a Joint Address to Congress, Rep. Green interrupted him twice. Rep. Green shouted, “You don’t have a mandate to cut Medicare, and you need to raise the cap on social security,” to President Trump. In another rare event, Rep. Green was escorted off the House floor by security shortly after yelling at the President by order of GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson. Over the last four years, members of Congress have yelled at President Biden during the State of the Union. Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor-Greene was joined by Republican Rep. Lauren Bobert (R-CO) in 2022 in yelling at President Biden. In 2023, Rep. Greene, Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), and Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI) yelled at Biden, interrupting his speech. In 2024, wearing a red MAGA hat, a violation of the rules of the U.S. House, Greene interrupted Biden again. She was never censured for her behavior. Rep. Green voted “present” on his censure and was joined by freshman Democrat Congressman Shomari Figures of Alabama who also voted “present”.

All other members of the Congressional Black Caucus voted against censuring Green. Republicans hold a four-seat advantage in the U.S. House after the death of Texas Democrat and former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner yesterday. Ten Democrats voted along with Republicans to censure Rep. Green, including Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, who is in the leadership as the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “I respect them but, I would do it again,” and “it is a matter of conscience,” Rep. Green told Black Press USA’s April Ryan in an exclusive interview on March 5. After the vote, a group of Democrats sang “We Shall Overcome” in the well at the front of the House chamber. Several Republican members attempted to shout down the singing. House Speaker Mike Johnson gaveled the House out of session and into a recess. During the brief recess members moved back to their seats and out of the well of the House. Shortly after the vote to censor Rep. Green, Republican Congressman Andy Ogles of Tennessee quickly filed legislation to punish members who participated in the singing of “We Shall Overcome.” Earlier this year, Rep. Ogles filed legislation to allow President Donald Trump to serve a third term, which is currently unconstitutional. As the debate started, the stock market dove down over one-point hours from close. The jobs report will be made public tomorrow.

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Trump Moves to Dismantle Education Department

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The department oversees programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), serving 7.5 million students. Transferring IDEA oversight to another agency, as Trump’s plan suggests, could jeopardize services and protections for disabled students.

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By Stacy M. Brown
BlackPressUSA.com Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

The Trump administration is preparing to issue an executive order directing newly confirmed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin dismantling the Department of Education. While the president lacks the authority to unilaterally shut down the agency—requiring congressional approval—McMahon has been tasked with taking “all necessary steps” to reduce its role “to the maximum extent permitted by law.” The administration justifies the move by claiming the department has spent over $1 trillion since its 1979 founding without improving student achievement. However, data from The Nation’s Report Card shows math scores have improved significantly since the 1990s, though reading levels have remained stagnant. The pandemic further widened achievement gaps, leaving many students behind.

The Education Department provides about 10% of public-school funding, primarily targeting low-income students, rural districts, and children with disabilities. A recent Data for Progress poll found that 61% of voters oppose Trump’s efforts to abolish the agency, while just 34% support it. In Washington, D.C., where student proficiency rates remain low—22% in math and 34% in English—federal funding is crucial. Serenity Brooker, an elementary education major, warned that cutting the department would worsen conditions in underfunded schools.

“D.C. testing scores aren’t very high right now, so cutting the Department of Education isn’t going to help that at all,” she told Hilltop News. A report from the Education Trust found that low-income schools in D.C. receive $2,200 less per student than wealthier districts, leading to shortages in essential classroom materials. The department oversees programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), serving 7.5 million students. Transferring IDEA oversight to another agency, as Trump’s plan suggests, could jeopardize services and protections for disabled students.

The Office for Civil Rights also plays a key role in enforcing laws that protect students from discrimination. Moving it to the Department of Justice, as proposed in Project 2025, would make it harder for families to file complaints, leaving vulnerable students with fewer protections. Federal student aid programs, including Pell Grants and loan repayment plans, could face disruption if the department is dismantled. Experts warn this could worsen the student debt crisis, pushing more borrowers into default. “With funding cuts, they don’t have the materials they need, like books or things to help with math,” Brooker said. “It makes learning less fun for them.”

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