Exclusion of Jewish Jurors Prompts Review of California Death Row Cases

At The New York Times, Tim Arango reports that in California, recently surfaced evidence of prejudiced jury selection against Jewish jurors from a 1990s trial for convicted murderer Ernest Dykes has prompted a review of capital cases in Alameda County, home of Oakland. Historically, prosecutors have sought to exclude Jews from death penalty juries under the assumption that they would oppose capital punishment in the decades after the Holocaust, despite their exclusion being unconstitutional. In 2014, PRRI found that among Jewish people, support for capital punishment was notably lower than among white Protestants and white Catholics, while higher than among Hispanics and among Black Protestants.

School Segregation Surges 70 Years After Brown V. Board of Education Ruling

Russell Contreras at Axios reportsthat as the nation marks the anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling this week, new data finds that racial segregation in schools across the country has increased significantly over the last 30 years. While UCLA’s Civil Rights Project report found that there has been a decrease in the number of all-white schools from 5,339 in 1990 to 551 in 2021, an additional report found that the number of schools that are 90-100% nonwhite students nearly tripled from 1988 to 2021. PRRI research finds 37% of Hispanics report that their social networks are homogenous, 46% of Black Americans’ networks are also Black, and 67% of white Americans networks are entirely white.

Ancient Trees Unlock an Alarming New Insight Into Our Warming World

CNN’s Rachel Ramirez reports on a new analysis of tree rings, which found that 2023 was the warmest summer in at least two millennia. Thousands of patterns in tree rings across nine regions of the Northern Hemisphere were examined to gather information on sunlight, rainfall, and temperature. Jan Esper, lead author of the study and professor of climate geography at Johannes Gutenberg University, stated: “There are potential irreversible processes in the system, and I am afraid not of myself. I’m old. I’m concerned for the kids.” According to PRRI, Gen Z is the age group the most likely to believe climate change is a crisis (34%).

How a Missionary’s Gift to a Family in Mexico Changed the Trajectory of Generations

For NPR’s “My Unsung Hero,” Joy Diaz tells a personal story of how a missionary watched her parents’ devotion to humanitarian work in Mexico City, despite their own financial struggles. The missionary unexpectedly gifted them enough money to buy a house – an act that enabled her family to move to a middle-class neighborhood and allowed Diaz to attend college. Diaz believes that what her parents lacked in money, they had in faith. PRRI research finds that 31% of Americans agree with the statement, “God always rewards those who have good faith with good health, financial success, and fulfilling personal relationships.”