FEBRUARY

February 13

The US Economic Policy Institute released a report saying that average wealth for white families was seven times higher than average wealth for black families. Median white wealth was 12 times higher than median black wealth. More than one in four black households have zero or negative net worth, compared to less than one in 10 white families without wealth.

February 21

The Forbes website reported that student loan debt was the secondhighest consumer debt category — higher than both credit cards and auto loans. There were more than 44 million borrowers with $1.3 trillion in student loan debt in the US alone. The average student in the Class of 2016 had $37,172 in student loan debt.

February 22

The CNN website reported that a total of 214 people have been indicted since Jan 20 on felony rioting charges in connection with the Inauguration Day protests in downtown Washington.

February 23

The Washington Post website reported that on the evening of Feb 22, hundreds of people took to the streets of Anaheim, California, for a protest against an off-duty Los Angeles police officer firing his gun during a confrontation with teenagers a day earlier. A total of 23 people were arrested during the protest.

The National Registry of Exonerations reported that African-Americans are far more likely to be wrongfully convicted of crimes such as murder, sexual assault and illegal drug activity than white people, according to a review of exonerations from 1989 to October 2016. Of the 1,900 defendants convicted of crimes and later exonerated, 47 percent were African-Americans — three times their representation in the population.

March 14

The CBS website reported that a retired Navy admiral is among nine military officers who have been indicted in a burgeoning bribery scandal. Retired Admiral Bruce Loveless and the other officers accepted the services of prostitutes, lavish meals and fancy trips from a businessman in exchange for helping his company. The indictment has charged more than 20 former or current Navy officials so far.

March 15

The Gallup company issued a poll showing that 42 percent of US citizens say they personally worry a “great deal” about race relations in the US, up 7 percentage points from 2016 and a record high in Gallup’s 17-year trend. This is the third straight year worries about this issue have increased by a significant margin.

On the same day, the website of the Institute for Policy Studies reported that Wall Street banks handed out $23.9 billion in bonuses to 177,000 New York City-based employees in 2016, which were 1.6 times the combined annual earnings of all 1,075,000 US full-time minimum wage workers. Since 1985, the nominal value of the average Wall Street bonus has increased 890 percent, whereas the minimum wage has risen only 116 percent.

March 28

The Daily Mail website reported that Twitter had received an administrative summons in March demanding it reveal who is behind an account opposed to the US president’s tough immigration policies. The government gave no reason for the demand. Twitter said the summons was an abuse of the law.

April 11

A report on the Economic Times website quoted WikiLeaks as saying that the US National Security Agency operators have hacked into Pakistani mobile networks and have been spying on hundreds of IP addresses in the country.

April 11

The Washington Post website reported that a passenger was forcibly dragged off an overbooked United Airlines plane. The passenger, bleeding, appeared to be of Asian origin and was overheard complaining that this might have been a factor in his treatment.

April 30

Website of the Independent reported that the Pentagon said at least 352 civilians have been killed in the US-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since operations began in 2014. Transparency project Airwars claimed that over 3,000 civilians have been killed in the bombing campaign.

May 11

According to data released on May 10 by the US Census Bureau, an estimated 61.4 percent of US citizens who were qualified to vote cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election, dipping to the lowest rate in 16 years, The Hill website reported. Only 49 percent of Asian-Americans and 47.6 percent of HispanicAmericans turned out to vote; voter turnout among black voters fell almost 7 percentage points from 2012 to 59.4 percent.

May 14

The Zero Hedge website reported that a group of hackers used the US National Security Agency’s “Top Secret Arsenal” of tools, which allow anyone to “back door” into virtually any computer system, to create a ransomware virus and launch a global malware cyberattack, holding at least 200,000 computer systems around the globe hostage.

May 15

According to data released by the US Census Bureau, there were 245.5 million US citizens aged 18 and older in November 2016, about 157.6 million of whom were registered to vote, the Pew Research Center website reported. By international standards, only 55.7 percent of the US voting-age population cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election, putting the US behind most member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

CNN reported that William Boucher, a 23-year-old white man in Chicago, spat at a black man for no reason, telling him that his children are “disposable vermin” and calling a second black man a slave.

The Al Jazeera website reported that Adam Purinton, a 52-year-old white man, shouted “get out of my country” as he shot dead one Indian man and injured another at a bar in Kansas.

In a poll of more than 1,000 political scientists in the US, most respondents believed that US democracy had been plateauing for decades and that the US government has failed to meet democratic standards for granting citizens an equal opportunity to vote or stopping officials from exploiting their public office for private gain, The Atlantic website reported.

June 22

The San Diego Union Tribune website reported that disability advocacy organization ADAPT organized a demonstration to protest against cutting Medicaid funding. Bruce Darling, an organizer, wrote in a statement that the American Health Care Act caps and significantly cuts Medicaid which will greatly reduce access to basic medical services for elderly and disabled US citizens who rely on them.

June 30

July 26

The Washington Post reported that two police officers went to the wrong address and shot dead an innocent person when executing an arrest warrant. The victim had no criminal record.

August 6

The Mother Jones website reported that the US-led coalition’s use of white phosphorus munitions on the outskirts of al-Raqqa, Syria, was unlawful and might amount to a war crime.

August 12

CNN reported that some white nationalists and right-wing protesters converged on Charlottesville, Virginia, shouting “blood and soil”, a phrase invoking the Nazi philosophy of “Blut und Boden”.

August 12

The CBS website reported that James Alex Fields Jr, a 20-year-old white nationalist, drove a car that plowed into a group of counterprotesters, killing one person and injuring 19 others.