✉️ FROM THE EDITOR
What's underneath the headlines this week.
Two weeks ago we were watching the US and China race to extract minerals from the same eastern provinces now at the center of a WHO global health emergency. The same mining towns. The same fragile infrastructure. The same armed groups blocking access. Now blocking health workers instead of journalists. The file doesn't change. Just the headline.
— Corey // Louisville, KY
Sunday, May 24, 2026
📰 THE BIG STORY
️🇺🇬Africa · DR Congo + Uganda
88 dead. No vaccine. The same ground.
The World Health Organization declared a global health emergency in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda last Sunday. More than 300 suspected cases. 88 deaths. The outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, a rare strain of Ebola with no approved vaccine and no approved therapeutics.
Here's what mainstream coverage keeps burying. The outbreak started in Ituri province, specifically in Mongbwalu and Rwampara, two mining towns where people move constantly for work. The same eastern Congo the US signed a minerals deal with in December. The same region where armed groups like the Allied Democratic Forces and M23 have been operating. Health workers trying to contain the virus are facing the same access problems journalists and aid workers have been describing for years. You can't do contact tracing in a war zone.
The US Agency for International Development, which previously played a central role in containing Ebola outbreaks, was shuttered earlier this year. The United States withdrew from the WHO in January. When this outbreak needed the fastest possible response, the two mechanisms that would have activated it weren't there. A confirmed case has already reached Kampala. Uganda recorded two imported cases within 24 hours of each other, with no apparent link between them. The DRC-Rwanda border has been closed. The region is on high alert.
The file on Congo doesn't change. The headlines do.
🌐 AROUND THE DIASPORA
Five things, five places.
🇧🇸 Bahamas re-elects Philip Davis and the PLP Prime Minister Philip Davis led the Progressive Liberal Party to a historic re-election. Caribbean democratic stability in a week heavy with everything else. Worth noting.
The Caribbean Camera → https://thecaribbeancamera.com/davis-plp-secure-historic-bahamas-re-election/
🇧🇧 Barbados at a critical crossroads Prime Minister Mottley is urging an urgent pivot to an export-driven economy. A Caribbean leader being honest about where her country stands. That's the whole story.
Barbados Today → https://barbadostoday.bb/2026/05/18/mottley-urges-export-pivot-as-nation-at-critical-crossroads/
🇭🇹 Four convicted in the Moïse assassination A federal court in Miami convicted four men in connection with the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse. Five years later. A verdict, not closure.
The Caribbean Camera → https://thecaribbeancamera.com/four-convicted-in-haiti-president-moise-assassination/
🇿🇦 Ghana and Nigeria evacuating citizens from South Africa Anti-immigrant violence in South Africa has prompted Ghana to evacuate 300 citizens. Nigeria has 130 requesting repatriation. Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Lesotho warning nationals to stay alert or remain indoors. African nations protecting their own people from another African nation. That's a sentence worth sitting with.
Africanews → https://www.africanews.com/2026/05/04/nigeria-to-evacuate-130-citizens-from-south-africa-amid-xenophobia-fears/
🇸🇱 Sierra Leone is now accepting US deportees A chartered flight carrying nine West African migrants, from Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, and Senegal, landed near Freetown. Sierra Leone has agreed to accept up to 300 US deportees per year. Human Rights Watch says deportations to third countries violate international human rights standards.
🔦 UNDERREPORTED
Stories that deserved more oxygen.
He fled genocide. Border Patrol left him at a closed coffee shop without shoes.
Nurul Amin Shah Alam was 56 years old, nearly blind, and spoke almost no English. He was a Rohingya refugee, a persecuted Muslim minority from Myanmar the US government itself has designated as victims of genocide. He came to the United States in December 2024 with his wife and two children, looking for safety.
In February 2025 he got lost on a walk in Buffalo. Used a curtain rod as a walking stick. Ended up on a woman's porch. Arrested on assault charges because he couldn't understand what police were saying to him. Held at Erie County jail for a year.
On February 19, 2026, he was released. Border Patrol agents took custody of him, determined he wasn't eligible for deportation, and drove him to a closed Tim Hortons in near-freezing temperatures. No shoes. No phone. Four miles from home. He was found dead five days later.
On April 1, the Erie County Medical Examiner ruled his death a homicide.
The NYT piece headlined it: "He was out there somewhere, forsaken in the city where he had sought sanctuary." That's the sentence. The rest is just the record.
CULTURE CORNER
⛺️ Outdoors
🐦 Black Birders Week
Starts May 24. Theme: "Flyways & Freedom." Black AF In STEM drawing a line between bird migration routes and the politics of human movement. Free events in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx. Worth knowing.
📚️ Books
Black Film - David F. Walker
A full history of Black representation in cinema from the beginning. Walker's argument: you can't call something problematic without giving it context.
📅 THE WEEK AHEAD
Date | Event |
|---|---|
MON · 26 | Memorial Day, US. Watch for coverage of Black veterans and military history. |
TUE · 27 | Follow DRC/Uganda border situation. Ebola case count updating daily |
THU · 29 | Watch for US response to Sierra Leone deportee policy. Human Rights Watch has flagged it |
SUN · 01 | Next issue lands |