Birmingham, Alabama, is on pace to close 2026 with its fewest homicides in roughly 75 years — a turnaround for a majority-Black city that for decades made national headlines for its murder rate.

Birmingham police counted 34 homicides through Oct. 1, down from 61 at the same point in 2025 and 129 at the same point in 2024, Police Chief Michael Pickett said at the department’s third-quarter briefing. The city’s lowest annual total on record is 44, set in 1951. Just two years ago, Birmingham recorded 152 homicides, its deadliest year.

“I did not think that we would have this much of a reduction but of course that’s always the goal,” Pickett said. He put the drop at 74% compared with 2024 and said the department has cleared 91% of this year’s cases.

“Birmingham is on track for our fewest homicides in 75 years,” Mayor Randall Woodfin wrote on Facebook this month, crediting the officers of the Birmingham Police Department, Pickett, and the city’s community violence intervention workers.

The city’s bet runs on two tracks. On the policing side, Pickett has pointed to the department’s crime reduction plan, enforcement targeting illegal firearms, and cooperation with federal agencies. On the community side, Birmingham has put about $5.4 million in American Rescue Plan money into violence intervention programs: a hospital-based partnership with UAB Hospital, the Jefferson County Department of Health, the Offender Alumni Association, and Violence Intervention and Prevention Partners that places specialists at the bedsides of people wounded by gunfire; a street outreach team run with the Urban League of Alabama; a Group Violence Reduction Strategy with the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform; and One Hood. With the one-time federal dollars expiring, the city council extended the hospital-linked program through June 2027 with $1.15 million and put $3 million for community violence intervention — a $1.5 million increase — into the city’s fiscal 2027 budget. Whether every program is fully covered once the federal money runs out remains unclear.

The honest caveats: murders are falling across the country, too — crime analyst Jeff Asher projects the lowest U.S. murder rate ever recorded in 2026, after the FBI reported the national homicide rate hit a 75-year low in 2025 — and nobody can prove which piece of Birmingham’s approach drove the drop. One category is moving the wrong way: domestic violence offenses are up 18.3% this year, the chief said. “This is not something the police department can handle alone,” Pickett said of the domestic violence increase.

Two accounting notes readers deserve: the mayor’s latest post says homicides are down 46% from last year, while the police department’s own Oct. 1 numbers work out to about 44% — and a May fact-check by ABC 33/40 found an earlier Woodfin figure slightly overstated. Separately, Bhamwiki counts 38 homicides as of Oct. 1 because it includes police-involved and justified cases; the police count is 34. And the pace math matters: 34 homicides through Oct. 1 projects to roughly 45 for the full year — just above the 1951 record of 44. So “fewest since 1951” is within reach; a new all-time low likely isn’t.

What’s working to make your neighborhood safer? Tell us.

Drafted by News Observed Editorial AI, human reviewed and published.

Based on reporting by Bakersfield News Observer.

A mobilization is unfolding across tribal nations ahead of the November election. Driven by real data and a rising wave of young organizers, Native American voters are challenging systemic barriers to political power.

For generations, Native Americans have been treated as an invisible constituency in public life. Michael Roberts, president and CEO of the First Nations Development Institute, said that misrepresentations about native voters have clouded media narratives over recent years. Following the 2024 presidential election, relying on flawed national exit poll data, media placed some blame on Native Americans for the political shift.

“So while the media was trying to find a brown boogeyman on why Mr. Trump was in office … we had real data to show just the opposite,” noted Roberts.

A First Nations sample of 500 to 1,000 self-identified native voters revealed that 57 percent voted for Kamala Harris.

Roberts said the data showed attitudes reflective of the general public. Native voters are deeply concerned with inflation, the economy, affordability, and housing access. Yet they are also uniquely driven by tribal sovereignty, native languages, and cultural traditions. These cultural issues often drive them to the polls more than everyday pocketbook concerns.

Politically, Native Americans are not a monolith. With 475 tribes spread across 38 states and territories, traditional party lines are difficult to find. Roberts noted that analysts cannot view native voters through a simple black-and-white, Republican-or-Democrat lens.

Despite their potential to swing critical regions like Michigan and Alaska, native communities are largely ignored by major campaigns. First Nations data indicates that 50 percent or more of native voters have never been contacted by election campaigns. And nonprofit groups representing these communities remain severely underfunded.

Systemic barriers compound the neglect. Melissa Rogers, a professor of politics and policy at Claremont Graduate University, said upwards of 50 percent of native populations live within 20 miles of tribal homelands, debunking the myth of a sharp urban-rural Indian divide. Yet sadly, voting costs and distance barriers remain high on tribal lands.

Many reservations are so rural that residents must travel to distant county seats to collect mail or to register and vote. In Nevada, Duck Valley Reservation residents historically faced a 100-mile one-way drive to the Elko County seat just to cast a ballot or register in person.

Rogers noted that academic research shows tribal voting surges when registration and polling places are established directly on tribal lands.

Alternative options like mail-in voting face severe trust issues due to recent political attacks. Additionally, strict voter identification laws disproportionately disenfranchise native voters who often lack traditional physical addresses or state driver’s licenses.

In North Dakota, where the native vote is vital to a current Senate race, the state abruptly disallowed non-traditional addresses and post office boxes. Rogers warned that restrictive ballot deadlines, such as Arizona’s requirement that ballots arrive by election night, threaten to disenfranchise voters on the Navajo Nation due to slow rural mail delivery.

A historical skepticism remains, tied to past trauma. Rogers said federal government workers knocking on doors historically meant taking children, land, and resources from native households. The distrust extends to the census, which has long undercounted reservation populations.

A new crisis unfolds as federal proposals threaten to eliminate the American Indian and Alaska Native racial designations from official counts. Policy and funding decisions rely on these figures. Rogers warned that excluding native counts would devastate federal tribes.
In response, Native Organizers Alliance Executive Director Judith LeBlanc, a citizen of the Caddo Tribe of Oklahoma, said a national survey of 16,000 native people showed a fierce commitment to cultural continuity and essential human services.

When Congress pushed to try to make Big Cyprus into a wilderness area, which would have destroyed 11 traditional villages, burial grounds and medicine collection areas, her organization stood up for the rights of natives.

They also stood up for the rights of nature, and with the help of environmental groups, were able to document and mitigate the damage done by Alligator Alcatraz.

The organization’s surveys are fueling a new urgency among young voters. In Maine, Sage Phillips, co-coordinator of the Wabanaki Policy Youth Initiative, is leading youth to register voters, educate elders, and lobby the state house.

Wabanaki youth are pressuring candidates in gubernatorial, congressional, and local races to amend the 1980 Maine Indian Land Claims Settlement Act, which currently blocks local tribes from accessing beneficial federal laws.

Activists say the movement is about fulfilling an ancestral responsibility to protect sovereignty, lands, and future generations. But, the final hurdle rests on the integrity of the polling places themselves.

Over the last decade, targeted attacks on the voting system have made access significantly harder, Rogers said.

For information regarding local polling place availability, hours of operation, and rules ensuring a secure voting environment, citizens should check with official county election authorities and state election boards.

Ensuring that future elections remain open, equitable, and free of intimidation is critical for all citizens—especially American Indian voters.

The post Ancestral Responsibility: Young Native Voters Fight Political Invisibility appeared first on North Dallas Gazette.

Based on reporting by North Dallas Gazette.

By Rev. Dr. Adolphus Lacey, Senior Pastor, Bethany Baptist Church, Brooklyn, New York

For generations, the Black church has stood strong in our communities through every historical change this country has experienced. During the civil rights movement and in recent times, faith leaders have helped uplift Black sanctuaries to register voters, keep food pantries open for people in need, and sit with families in hospital rooms in their most desperate moments. When our people faced new trials, they could always look to our faith leaders and the church to lean in to help us be included in these transformative changes.

Artificial intelligence is the latest revolutionary change to impact our society, and much like other transformations before us, underserved communities often get left behind.

I was recently featured in a report entitled “Faith, Community & AI” and it found that people send ChatGPT more than 70 million messages a week about religion. Nearly 22 million involve studying sacred texts, and 16 million ask about religious practices and holy days. Our members make up part of those numbers. They bring questions of faith to these tools every day.

Pastors have noticed, and according to a September 2025 Lifeway Research survey of 1,003 Protestant pastors, 42 percent said they use or experiment with AI in ministry. I count myself among them.

I write my sermons by hand, through prayer and study. When I finish a draft, I ask ChatGPT this question: “Where might this sermon become unclear or difficult to follow for someone early in their walk of faith?” It shows me gaps in my preparation, like where I incorrectly assumed everyone would know the context of who the Pharisees were. Then, change comes from my own pen, not the robot. The tool helps me reach the person in the back pew while the message still comes from me.

If I could have my wish, our whole community would take a similar posture. We must use these tools, understand them, and most importantly be present to help shape them if we want to be included in the coming change.

I implore my fellow faith leaders to use these tools. Start now and use them with wisdom. We count on each and every one of you to make sure our communities help write the next chapter of this story. This rapid change is not as unfamiliar as it may sound. My first understanding of AI came from using a calculator for the first time in grade school. We did not call it AI, but it was a tool that helped me work through mathematical equations hours more efficiently.

It starts with training; there is no involvement without understanding. Free AI trainings have begun in our churches and community centers across the nation. Every faith leader should sign up and, when possible, encourage members of your congregations to join you. By learning how to use AI, we can better understand what it can do, make up our own minds about its impact, and have a say in how it shapes our communities.”

Next, we must be at the tables where the builders of these tools make decisions. Presence is the first step toward understanding, and that gap is only bridged through a coordinated effort. How can any tool serve a community well if that community is not part of the conversation? Our traditions, needs, and concerns must be accounted for, and Black faith leaders are already making that happen. OpenAI’s recent Faith report states plainly that AI should never become an arbiter of religious truth. I fully intend to hold the company to its word, and the most effective way I can do that is from inside.

I will close with this––we must diligently protect what only the church can give. A believer in Seoul, Korea quoted in the report warned, “if you pour every struggle into a private chat, your pastor and your friends may never learn you need help.” A chatbot will not sit with a grieving family or pray with you at two in the morning. As we adopt this technology, it is up to us to ensure it keeps people connected to each other and to their church.

Rev. Dr. Adolphus Lacey is senior pastor of Bethany Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York.

A coalition of national civil rights and civic engagement groups is launching a nationwide Week of Action from Oct. 19 to 24. It will build toward the inaugural National Black Man Voter Day on Saturday, Oct. 24, aiming to mobilize 100,000 Black men ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

The nonpartisan effort follows five weeks of national organizing calls. It is co-led by the National Urban League, 100 Black Men of America, Black Men Vote, Woke Vote, and the NAACP.

What Is National Black Man Voter Day?

National Black Man Voter Day brings together community leaders, fraternity members, faith leaders, students, and local organizers. They will host civic engagement events, community conversations, and group voting activations with early voting available.

Organizers say they have built a network of local captains, community hubs, voting plans, buddy systems, and transportation coordination. Supporting partners include State of the People, Black Voters Matter, the National Pan-Hellenic Council, Until Freedom and the National Action Network.

What Leaders Are Saying

NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson called the midterms “a critical turning point for our community and our democracy.” He said the day is about “protecting our future and refusing to ever be silenced.”

“This midterm election is a critical turning point for our community and our democracy,” said Johnson. “For many generations, Black men have fought to secure access to the ballot. Today, we wield our collective power and make our voices heard from the bottom of the ballot to the top.”

National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial urged Black men to “make a plan, bring a brother with them, and show up in force.”

“When Black men vote, we are not simply casting ballots. We are claiming our power to shape the future of our families, our communities, and our nation,” Morial said. “National Black Man Voter Day is about turning that power into action. Our voices matter, our votes matter, and when we move together, we can move this nation forward.”

Dr. Wes Bellamy of 100 Black Men of America said more than 5,000 Black men have already engaged with the effort. He said organizers are now working to turn that engagement into collective action.

“This movement has never been about simply getting thousands of brothers onto a call,” said Bellamy. “We have spent the last several weeks building real organizing infrastructure — captains, hubs, voting plans, buddy systems, rides and local activations. More than 5,000 Black men have engaged with this work, and now we are preparing to turn that engagement into collective action.”

Black Men Vote Executive Director Mike Bland added the campaign “is not about asking Black men to save a political party.” He said it is about defining priorities and holding elected leaders accountable, with an eye toward 2028 and the 2030 Census.

“We are organizing for October 24, but we are also building toward 2028, the 2030 Census and beyond,” Bland said.

Week of Action Schedule: Oct. 19-24

Starting Monday, Oct. 19, organizations will tie civic participation to five pillars of Black men’s well-being: mental, physical, spiritual, financial and civic health. Planned activities include:

• Community wellness gatherings
• Barbershop conversations
• Faith-based events
• Financial empowerment discussions
• Voter education and local organizing

On Saturday, Oct. 24, community-led voting events will include Souls to the Polls activities, caravans, group rides and campus mobilizations in states with early voting. In states without standard early voting, organizers will share information on absentee voting and Election Day participation.

Key Dates

• Monday, Oct. 19, 10 a.m. ET: National Press Call for media. Register here.
• Tuesday, Oct. 20, 7 p.m. ET: Final National Brothers Call on local activation and voting plans. Register here.
• Saturday, Oct. 24: National Black Man Voter Day.

How to Take Part

The organizers urge participants to make an individual voting plan, find their respective voting location, arrange transportation if needed, and invite others to join. National Black Man Voter Day is a nonpartisan initiative and does not endorse or oppose candidates or parties. Organizers will report participation through community captains and local organizing hubs.

Federal agents searched the D.C.-area home of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on Monday, taking the extraordinary step of executing a criminal search warrant against a sitting member of Congress just 22 days before Election Day, as the Trump administration investigates allegations involving her family’s immigration records.

The search immediately drew accusations of political intimidation from Omar’s supporters, who pointed to President Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on the Minnesota congresswoman and questioned the timing of an investigation targeting one of his most outspoken critics.

“Representative Omar is a dedicated public servant and a true ally for working families, and Donald Trump has done nothing but use racist tropes and stereotypes to attack her,” said Joel Payne, MoveOn’s chief communications officer. “Now, he’s abusing his power to physically intimidate and harass her.”

A Justice Department spokeswoman acknowledged that Homeland Security Investigations agents, part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, searched a District residence as part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation.

The spokeswoman declined to provide additional information or publicly identify the person under investigation.

According to published reports, the warrant identified possible violations involving false statements, immigration document fraud and conspiracy. Federal investigators have also examined questions concerning Omar’s finances, campaign funds and interactions with foreign citizens.

No criminal charges against the congresswoman were identified, but Monday’s search occurred less than four weeks before voters decided whether to return Omar to Congress.

The investigation follows months of public accusations from senior Trump administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, who previously claimed that Omar committed immigration fraud.

In an interview with conservative commentator Benny Johnson, Vance asserted, without publicly presenting evidence, that the administration believed Omar had broken immigration laws. He also said he and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller had discussed how to pursue the allegations.

“What are the legal remedies now that we know that she’s committed immigration fraud?” Vance asked during the interview. “How do you go after her? How do you investigate her?”

Omar has repeatedly rejected the accusations, including claims that she married her brother to facilitate immigration fraud. Her office dismissed Vance’s allegations in March as fabricated and defamatory.

Questions about the investigation intensified in August when Immigration and Customs Enforcement refused to release records sought under the Freedom of Information Act concerning allegations surrounding Omar’s 2009 marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi.

The agency cited an exemption allowing law enforcement authorities to withhold records when disclosure could interfere with enforcement proceedings. The refusal did not establish that Omar committed fraud or, at the time, confirmed that she was personally under investigation.

Omar, who came to the United States as a refugee from Somalia, was elected to Congress in 2018 and became one of the first two Muslim women to serve in the House. She represents Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, which includes Minneapolis, and has frequently challenged Trump over immigration enforcement, civil rights, and his administration’s treatment of immigrant communities.

Her confrontations with the administration have made her a recurring target of the president’s political attacks. The criminal investigation also follows a frightening incident earlier this year in which Omar was physically attacked during a public appearance.

On Jan. 27, a man attacked Omar during a town hall meeting at the National Urban League’s Twin Cities headquarters in Minneapolis. The incident prompted condemnation from the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and its Black Women’s Roundtable, which demanded accountability and warned against political violence.

“We are shocked and extremely disturbed by the attack on Rep. Ilhan Omar yesterday while she attempted to address the critical issues and chaos swirling around in Minneapolis,” Melanie L. Campbell, president and CEO of the coalition and national convener of the Black Women’s Roundtable, said in a Jan. 28 statement.

Campbell praised Omar for continuing to speak out despite threats against her.

“We believe that NO public official should be threatened or physically attacked, especially when they are serving in the best interests of their constituents,” Campbell said. “Political violence and intimidation have no place in our democracy.”

MoveOn, the progressive advocacy organization, accused Trump of using federal law enforcement to intimidate a political opponent and urged voters to respond at the ballot box.

“On Nov. 3rd, we get our chance to fight back and hold him and his corrupt administration accountable,” Payne said.

Based on reporting by Washington Informer.

The NAACP is launching a voter protection hub ahead of the 2026 midterm elections as voting rights groups prepare for potential challenges at the polls.

Voters will be able to report allegations of intimidation and suppression by phone and through online submissions, while NAACP attorneys and legal volunteers investigate complaints and seek emergency court intervention when necessary.

According to The Washington Post, the hub is scheduled to launch October 24.

“We are ready,” NAACP General Counsel Kristen Clarke told The Washington Post. “We have an army of legal volunteers across the country and are prepared to activate and seek emergency relief on Election Day where necessary.”

The effort comes as organizations are also working to increase Black voter participation ahead of the midterms. BIN reported in September that the Congressional Black Caucus Institute launched its “SO VOTE” campaign, which plans to spend at least $4.5 million registering and mobilizing Black voters, young voters and rural voters.

The Associated Press reported that the campaign is targeting Georgia and Mississippi statewide, along with 16 congressional districts.

The NAACP is particularly focused on voter intimidation, changes to election rules and the impact of redistricting on Black voting power.

The organization filed a lawsuit against Justice Department Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon on Friday (October 2), seeking records about the department’s plans to deploy election monitors at polling places during the midterm elections.

“To be clear, there is no federal statute that gives the U.S. Department of Justice the right to send their so-called ‘election monitors’ to polling sites across the country,” Clarke said in a statement.

The NAACP’s voter protection hub will give voters a centralized way to report problems and connect with the organization’s legal team during the election.

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Based on reporting by Atlanta Daily World.