How Two Recent Cases Of Violence Illustrate The Lives of LGBTQ People

Suicide rates for queer and trans people are disproportionately high. They’re also routinely targets of violence and hate crimes.

While some states have protections for queer and trans people, many other states have passed laws that restrict the rights and visibility of transgender individuals.

The stories of Nex Benedict and Dime Doe illustrate both those trends.

Benedict died by suicide the day after a physical altercation in their school bathroom. Benedict had been bullied by other students for more than a year.

Dime Doe, a Black trans woman, was killed in 2019. Last month a man who had been in a relationship with Doe was found guilty of killing her. It’s the first time a hate crime against a trans person was brought to trial.

What do these cases tell us about the lives of trans and queer people in America?

If you or someone you know needs help, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

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Can America Win The Chips Manufacturing Race?

President Biden just awarded $8.5 billion dollars to the company Intel to help fund semiconductor factories in Arizona, Ohio, New Mexico, and Oregon.

At a visit to Intel’s campus outside Phoenix this week, Biden said the money will help semiconductor manufacturing make a comeback in the US after 40 years.

The money for Intel comes from the CHIPS and Science Act, which was signed in 2022 to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing. The administration’s goal? For 20% of the world’s leading-edge semiconductor chips to be made on American soil by 2030.

The US currently makes zero of the world’s leading-edge semiconductor chips. By 2030, the Biden administration wants to make a fifth of them. So how will America get there?

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Is Netanyahu’s Endgame Achievable?

Next week representatives of the Israeli government are scheduled to fly from Tel Aviv to Washington, DC. When they arrive, they’ll head to the White House, where they’ll meet with representatives of the US government.

On the agenda – the next steps in Israel’s war against Hamas. The meeting comes as famine is imminent for roughly 300-thousand Palestinians in Northern Gaza.

At the same time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to be losing US support. Still, Netanyahu insists that Israel won’t stop until it has achieved, quote, “total victory.” But what does that mean – and how close is Israel to achieving that?

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What Another Putin Term Means For Ukraine

Vladimir Putin has ruled Russia for a quarter century. This weekend’s election results confirmed that he will reign for another six years.

Putin’s hold on the Kremlin gives him control of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal and a military that’s been at war in Ukraine for more than two years, ever since he launched an invasion in February 2022.

That war has killed or wounded hundreds of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers, but despite these losses, the Russian military is pressing forward.

Ukraine faces the stark prospect of a fight in which key US military assistance is in question. So what will six more years of Vladimir Putin mean for the war in Ukraine? And where do both militaries stand at this point in that brutal war?

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