News in :90- March 6, 2019

St. Thomas students discovered photos of blackface in the Aquin newspaper and Aquinas Yearbook Online Archives recently. TommieMedia has confirmed three photos dated 1948, 1951 and 1979. The 1948 and 1951 photos depict students in blackface while performing in homecoming variety shows. The 1979 depicts a student government-sponsored “master-slave” costume contest.

Minnesota has joined a lawsuit with 20 states that challenges the Trump administration’s restrictions on federal family planning funds. The administration is attempting to prevent taxpayer-funded family clinics from referring patients to abortion providers and from being housed alongside abortion providers.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said Tuesday that programs affected by the restrictions, such as Planned Parenthood and the St. Paul-Ramsey County Public Health Department, serve tens of thousands of Minnesotans each year.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Oregon. The states who have joined the lawsuit claim that the restrictions are illegal and unconstitutional.

In an uplifting turn of events, doctors in London say they have apparently eradicated HIV from a patient’s body via a bone marrow transplant. This is the second time in history that this has happened, as the first patient has been HIV-free since after the transplant.

Over a year after the transplant, the doctors say there is no sign of HIV in his body. Scientists say that it is too soon to start calling this a “cure” for HIV, but the experiment has made the scientific community hopeful.

Kat Barrett can be reached at barr1289@stthomas.edu.