Amid all the pageantry, hoopla and media circus that is UN week in New York there is always some interesting and substantive work being done on important global issues. Sometimes these issues are not on top of the agenda of world leaders (though they probably should be) and conversations around them do not get the kind of attention they deserve for one reason or another. 

So, I was very glad to catch up with Carolyn Miles, President and CEO of Save the Children to have a conversation about the challenges of getting refugee children in quality schools. 

According to a new report from Save the Children, 700 million days of school have been missed by 3.5 million registered refugee children. 

More than half of all refugee children globally are out of school.

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The U.S. Senate passed legislation on Wednesday aimed at penalizing website operators that facilitate online sex trafficking, chipping away at a bedrock legal shield for the technology industry. 

The bill passed the House of Representatives last month and was expected to be signed into law as soon as this week by President Donald Trump. 

The legislation, which passed the Senate on a 97-2 vote, would make it easier for state prosecutors and sex-trafficking victims to sue social media networks, advertisers and others that failed to keep exploitative material off their platforms. 

Law enforcement has lobbied for years for such a law, an effort which resulted in part from a crackdown on backpage.com, the second largest U.S. classified ad service and which is used for sex advertising. 

Passage of the bill represented a rare defeat for the internet industry, which despite coming under renewed scrutiny for how companies protect user data or guard against Russian meddling has for years avoided meaningful regulation in Washington.

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The thing that hurts most about an abusive relationship is realizing that you were tricked into it. Most abusive relationships don’t start out with a black eye. Commonly, they begin just like any other relationship or may seem too good to be true, but slowly, your partner may begin to subtly blame you for things beyond your control or pick at your faults. This may slowly evolve into full blown verbal or physical abuse. 

The trauma suffered in an abusive relationship gradually ramps up. It slowly drains you of self worth and alienates your support system, leaving you feeling trapped and miserable before you even realize the signs. 

Regardless of if you suffer from emotional, verbal, or physical abuse, it can be difficult to comprehend that someone you love, and who claims to love you, could victimize you. And sometimes, your partner may not even realize what they’re doing is wrong.

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Several mayors from across the country -- including Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. -- have joined a coalition to find solutions to the lack of affordable housing in their cities. 

Fourteen mayors and CEOs have joined the Mayors & CEOs for U.S. Housing Investment coalition. Part of their goal is to form public-private partnerships to ensure the federal government continues to fund federal housing and homeless assistance.

In 2017, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated that on any given night, 553,742 people are experiencing homelessness in the United States. Nearly one-third of these people were in an unsheltered location while experiencing homelessness — a 9 percent increase from 2016.

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Domestic and intimate partner violence (DV/IPV) is a “family secret” in our Black communities. While I’m not suggesting that all Black people think and function in similar enough ways that we could all be labeled simply as one “community,” I do know we have pervasive problems that require nuanced discourse — especially in light of the national conversation about domestic abuse that has erupted over the last week. 

Since Ray Rice, former Baltimore Ravens running back, was indefinitely suspended because a video was released of him punching his then-fiancée Janay until she was unconscious, there have been many conversations about violence between partners, and about the particular vulnerability of Black female victims. Much of the discussion has centered around the level of empathy and compassion shown toward victims like Janay, who choose to remain with their abusers.

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