All three states considered to be the Pacific Northwest of the United States are ranked in the top 10 when it comes to anti-Black hate crimes.

The new study produced by the Mendoza Law Firm, which specializes in immigration, ranked all 50 states based on the average number of anti-Black hate crimes per 100,000 members of the Black population. While Vermont ranked No. 1 in the study with 240.6 crimes per 100,000 people, there are only 7,316 Black residents of the state.

Of the Pacific Northwest states, Oregon ranked the highest—No. 2 overall—with 121 crimes per 100,000 people. Idaho ranked No. 4 with 91 crimes per 100,000 people, and Washington state ranked No. 9 with 44.4 crimes. However, Washington had the highest Black population out of the top 10 states with 311,435 residents. Oregon has the second-highest of the top 10 with 82,453 residents.

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Conversely, many southern states ranked at the bottom. Mississippi has the lowest number of anti-Black hate crimes with just 0.9 crimes per 100,000 people, followed by Arkansas and Florida with 1.6, and Georgia and Louisiana with 1.7. Though these southern states have much larger Black populations—for example, of the bottom five, all but Arkansas have well over 1 million Black residents with Georgia and Florida both having over 3 million—the number of hate crimes in those states is also lower than both Washington and Oregon.

The study looked at FBI anti-Black hate crime statistics between 2021 and 2025. The number of hate crimes over these five years was then averaged and compared versus the average Black population between 2020 and 2024.

While things may look bleak for the Pacific Northwest, it’s worth noting that in Washington, the number of hate crimes has steadily dropped over the past five years. Washington had 185 crimes in 2021, which dropped to 107 crimes in 2025. Oregon and Idaho’s numbers stayed relatively steady, however; Oregon had between 94 and 105 crimes during that five-year span. Idaho had a low of 7 crimes in 2021, but that jumped up to between 13 and 18 for the following four years.

Washington state is in the process of starting a hate crime hotline. The service will fully launch at the start of 2027, however, the pilot program launched in July 2025 will continue until the end of this year, according to Cleveland Jewish News. The hotline is designed to provide support to victims rather than receive incident reports. It’s under the purview of the state’s Attorney General’s Office, which does not have the authority to investigate crimes. However, it can provide victims assistance in reporting hate crimes to police. Police are also compelled to provide victims the hotline’s number and website for support.

Image by Seattle Department of Transportation via Flickr.

President Donald Trump and his then-lawyer Alina Habba are on the hook for almost $1 million in sanctions.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a court order penalizing Trump and Habba in lawsuits against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, former head of the Democratic National Committee Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC itself and others.

Trump and Habba filed suit under anti-racketeering laws against 28 total people and organizations in 2022, alleging a conspiracy to collude with Russia in order to tank his 2016 presidential campaign. Though the Steele dossier at the center of the claims has been described as “discredited” by a number of news outlets, Trump and Habba filed the original suit 5 months after the statute of limitations had passed.

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“We do not doubt that, in the light of the Durham Report, President Trump has concerns about some defendants’ conduct during the 2016 election. The investigation by Special Counsel Durham found that some defendants played a role in orchestrating unverified allegations of him colluding with Russia. And it found that key allegations in the Steele Dossier, relied on by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the press, were never corroborated. Some appeared to be fabricated. The Special Counsel’s investigation found that Bureau officials appeared to favor Clinton and that their investigation decisions reflected that preference. And it found that the Crossfire Hurricane investigation began without ‘any actual evidence of collusion,'” Chief Judge William Pryor Jr. wrote. “Yet, those findings do not cure the deficiencies in Trump’s racketeering claims.”

In addition Pryor wrote that even if Trump had filed suit before the statute of limitations expired, “none of these proceedings are, or even resemble, a racketeering action.”

“At best, they are actions involving some of the conduct that Trump incorporates into his racketeering claim,” Pryor wrote.

There was a minor bit of good news for Trump, however. In one of the four appeals Pryor ruled on, he rejected a request by two appellants, Orbis Limited and Charles Halliday Dolan Jr., for fees and double costs to be levied against the president. Orbis is Christopher Steele’s “private intelligence firm” that produced the Steele dossier, while Dolan was a Clinton campaign operative who provided information used in the dossier.

Pryor found that in this one case, Trump’s appeal to the dismissal of the case made “meritorious arguments.” He remanded that particular case back to the lower court to change its dismissal from “with prejudice”—meaning that the case cannot be filed again—to “without prejudice,” meaning that Trump’s team could fix errors in the original lawsuit and refile.

Image via Reuters

The Department of Justice has filed suit against Washington state over a new law requiring Catholic priests to report child abuse even if knowledge of the abuse was obtained during confession.

The law, Senate Bill 5375, was signed by Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson on May 2, and would go into effect on July 27. The bill makes clergy mandatory reporters of child abuse and neglect, much like doctors and teachers. Catholic bishops in Washington have condemned the law because it does not address the sacred rite of confession.

Under the law, if abuse is revealed during confession, the priest must report it to police or the state’s Department of Children, Youth and Families. However, in the Catholic faith, the Seal of Confession directs priests to keep anything they learn during confession secret—even under the threat of imprisonment or death. Should a priest fail to do so, they would be excommunicated.

“I want to assure you that your shepherds, bishop and priests, are committed to keeping the seal of confession – even to the point of going to jail. The Sacrament of Penance is sacred,” Bishop Thomas A. Daly of the Spokane, Washington diocese wrote in a statement.

READ MORE: Pedophile Priest Sex Abuse: Catholic Churches Settle For $102 Million

A previous version of the bill did include a provision protecting priests from revealing anything learned during confession. Catholic bishops and Republicans in the state senate argued for the provision, but it was ultimately removed. All Republicans voted against the final version of the bill, along with two Democrats; it passed 28-20. Though the law requires priests to report abuse, it does not compel them to testify in court.

In response, a number of bishops filed a lawsuit, Etienne v. Ferguson, to stop the law. On June 16, a group of Orthodox churches in Washington state filed a similar lawsuit.

Gov. Ferguson, a Catholic, said he was dismayed by the suit.

“I’m disappointed my Church is filing a federal lawsuit to protect individuals who abuse kids,” Ferguson said.

The Department of Justice joined the fray on Monday. The DOJ called the law “anti-Catholic,” saying it violates the First Amendment. Monday’s suit is a motion to intervene in Etienne v. Ferguson.

“Senate Bill 5375 unconstitutionally forces Catholic priests in Washington to choose between their obligations to the Catholic Church and their penitents or face criminal consequences, while treating the priest-penitent privilege differently than other well-settled privileges. The Justice Department will not sit idly by when States mount attacks on the free exercise of religion,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said in a statement.

Senate Bill 5375 is the third time the Washington senate was asked to make clergy mandatory reporters. The bill’s prime sponsor was Sen. Noel Frame (D-Seattle), who told KING-TV she brought the newest version before the Senate after hearing that three different Catholic archdioceses in the state were under investigation over allegations of covering up abuse.

“Quite frankly, that made it hard for me to stomach any argument about religious freedom being more important than preventing the abuse, including the sexual abuse of children,” Frame said in January. “I really wonder about all the children who have been abused and neglected and have gone unprotected by the adults in their lives because we didn’t have a mandated reporter law and that we continue to try to protect this in the name of religious freedom.”

Image via Shutterstock