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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested, detained, deported, and/or imprisoned many people that it has unilaterally determined to be undesirables.  At first, they claimed they would deport only criminals, but it has already gone beyond that.  We at the Free Press consider every person who has been sent to the Tecoluca (El Salvador prison), Guantanamo naval base, or detained in other prisons throughout the country to be innocent until proven guilty. We will include students who have been expelled for protesting genocide.  It appears the government will revoke Visa's to get rid of undesirable students.  This article will be updated as long as is necessary.

Feminism has a crucial role to play in modern life, but I sometimes wish it would leave our fairy tales alone. The results of its revisionist meddling are too often unconvincing and unsatisfying.

Remember last year’s Maleficent? It turned an age-old story on its head by revealing that the fairy (Angelina Jolie) who turned a princess into a “Sleeping Beauty” was not evil at all. No, she was merely wronged and misunderstood. Worst of all, we learned that the somnambulant princess could not be awakened by a kiss from the handsome prince, but only by a motherly peck from that same fairy.

How heartwarming. And how utterly unromantic.

Thank goodness Disney’s new live-action version of Cinderella doesn’t wear its feminism on its sleeve. It has nods to modern sensibilities, to be sure, but they’re handled with a lighter touch.

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Long-time Columbus “trucker country” band The Sovines are playing a special show at Cafe Bourbon Street, Thursday July 10 in support of community radio station WCRS. Joining them on the bill are Bee Humana and Closet Mix.

The Sovines formed in 1995 when a friend suggested to Bob Starker and Matthew Benz that they should form a band to play country truck driving songs and call themselves “the Sovines,” after famed country singer Red Sovine. It might have been said in jest, but Starker and Benz ran with it. With bass player Ed Mann and drummer Pete English (and later Gene Brodeur on drums), the Sovines took their revved-up take on truck-driving songs, punky rock n’ roll, country ballads and roots rock on the road and in the studio, through five albums and a lot of shows. This show will mark their first live appearance in over three years.

Governor Dewine at a podium in front of red pens

This article first appeared in the Buckeye Flame

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has signed the state’s two-year budget, vetoing three anti-LGBTQ+ measures and leaving three intact.

Shortly before the midnight deadline on June 30 to approve the budget, DeWine issued 67 line-item vetoes to the 5,500-page document. 

Three key vetoes

DeWine vetoed an amendment requiring all public libraries to place material related to sexual orientation or gender identity or expression out of the view of persons under the age 18.

In a document explaining his vetoes, DeWine said the language created “vague restrictions” and that current laws on obscenity and material harmful to juveniles can be used to ensure that “no child should have access to inappropriate materials or to materials that their parents or guardians deem inappropriate.”

Details about event

Sunday, July 6, 2025, 5-7pm
Global Gallery, 3535 N High St, Columbus, OH
In these challenging and chaotic times, we need the power of music now more than ever to make sense of and to heal the world from all that is currently happening. Come to this monthly meeting of the Social Action Song Swap (SASS for short). Join host JOANIE CALEM as she shares classic and original songs of Justice, Peace and ACTION! This event is OPEN to any musician who wishes to share their songs and vision! Bring yourself, bring a song, bring those who yearn for a better, just world. There is still hope!!! 

Movie poster

A central motif of the new horror film 28 Years Later is its statement about what normal looks like. From the outset, normality is encoded in the battle between normal humans vs abnormal, zombified ones. But another subtler message also makes itself known: normal isn’t about diversity. The film ministers to the idea of the ‘unwelcome other’ by apparently only casting people of colour in the role of zombies. And so, the real horror is in the thinking that seems to have informed the casting.

The film re-centres whiteness, under the guise of genre convention and nostalgia. In so doing, it echoes a lingering cultural mood that quietly reinforces exclusion. I should know. I’m Black and I’ve seen this mood afoot in many instances of procedural fluency - that automatic application of actions and behaviours that, in the case of race, leads to exclusion.

Trump and people clapping

Congressional passage of Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” provides the latest evidence that human greed, despite its primitive nature, remains alive and well.

Perhaps most noticeably, the legislation provides for over $3 trillion in tax cuts that disproportionately help the wealthy and their corporations.  This largesse is facilitated by slashing over $1.4 trillion in healthcare and food assistance for low-income Americans and increasing the national debt by $3.3 trillion.  Estimates reveal that at least 16 million Americans will lose health care coverage and 7 million people (including 2 million children) will lose food aid or have their food aid cut significantly.  Meanwhile, according to the Yale Budget Lab, the nation’s top 0.1 percent―people with an annual income over $3.3 million―will receive tax cuts of $103,500 on average.  Condemning the legislation, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops declared simply that it “takes from the poor to give to the wealthy.”

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