Politics and Current
Fairway Mortgage reaches $8 million Redlining settlement after mocking Black Neighborhoods

In May 2020, a top loan officer at Fairway Independent Mortgage Company sent an email to a loan processor regarding a possible property purchase in Ensley, a majority Black neighborhood in Birmingham, that stated: “Ensley is a GHETTO. I assure you we do not have a house there. A LOT OF LAUGHTER!”
The Fairway mortgage processor replied, “ROFLOL,” which likely meant “rolling on the floor laughing out loud,” in accordance with a court document that noted the lender didn’t accept any loan applications within the Ensley area between 2018 and 2021 .
No one at Fairway Mortgage is laughing now, after a four-year investigation this week by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the U.S. Department of Justice forced the mortgage lender to succeed in an $8 million settlement to deal with its alleged discriminatory lending practices, including redlining black neighborhoods in and around Birmingham.
Redlining is an illegal, discriminatory practice wherein lenders and other firms make credit and other financial services out of reach for people in certain areas based on race or national origin.
According to a criticism filed by each federal agencies on Oct. 15, Madison, Wisconsin-based Fairway, doing business in Birmingham as MortgageBanc, operated retail lending offices in predominantly white areas of metro Birmingham from 2015 to 2022. The company also solicited lending referrals from individuals and organizations in majority-white areas and targeted its marketing efforts at them, while ignoring majority-black neighborhoods.
As a result, just 3.7 per cent of the ten,247 Fairway mortgage applications reported to the federal government between 2018 and 2022 were for properties in predominantly black areas, compared with 12.2 per cent for other lenders in Birmingham, in accordance with complaints. Only 3.3 percent of the 7,913 mortgages Fairway actually originated within the metro area were for properties in predominantly black neighborhoods, compared with 10.1 percent from other mortgage lenders.
At that point, the Birmingham Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) comprised six counties in north-central Alabama with a complete population of 1.1 million made up of residents that were 62% white, 30% black, 5% Latino, and three% other races.
Such Fairway policies and practices constitute an override because they “were intended to disclaim and, in effect, resulted within the denial of equal access to home loans to majority Black (a minimum of 50 percent Black) and high Black (a minimum of 80 percent of the Black population) residents black) percentage of black people) residential areas and applicants for loans for properties situated in those areas,” argued the 2 federal agencies, which found that Fairway violated the federal Fair Housing Act, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and the U.S. financial consumers.
The agencies argued that Fairway must have been well aware that it was not adequately serving majority Black areas because the corporate had been using third-party vendors since 2017 to review credit data to evaluate the danger of redlining in majority Black areas. and minorities. Those annual risk-mitigation reports “should have brought attention to Fairway,” the feds argued, but the corporate “failed to take any significant action to increase (loan) applications and originations in majority-black areas” in metro Birmingham .
The criticism also noted that piece of email between several white Fairway employees between 2018 and 2020 used offensive language in reference to majority-Black areas of Birmingham, “indicating a culture consistent with discrimination, including by discouraging applications.” for real estate loans in these areas.”
In addition to calling Ensley and one other majority-Black neighborhood, Tarrant, a “ghetto,” Fairway loan officers in a 2018 email chain referred to an African-American male loan applicant as having “thug friends” and wrote that “(w)e don’t need him as a client. He is a burden waiting to occur. The black applicant withdrew his application.
The settlement announced Tuesday requires Fairway to offer $8 million for a loan subsidy program to supply reasonably priced loans for home purchases, refinances and residential renovations in predominantly black neighborhoods in Birmingham, in addition to pay a civil penalty of 1.9 million dollars to the CFPB Victim Assistance Fund. It has not yet been certified by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
The Birmingham settlement is the fifteenth settlement the Justice Department has reapproved in three years as a part of its settlement Anti-redlining initiativewhich has now raised greater than $150 million in settlements “to benefit communities of color across the country who have experienced lending discrimination,” including Houston, Memphis, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.
“This settlement…will help ensure that future generations of Americans inherit the legacy of home ownership that has been too often denied,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland. “This case is a reminder that redlining is not a relic of the past.”
“This is good news for those looking to buy or renovate a home in this area,” George McCall, 81, president of the Ensley Neighborhood Association, told Atlanta Black Star in regards to the settlement.
“This is not a ghetto as they said. Our homes are not neglected or neglected, but many of the homeowners are seniors who have had a hard time getting loans to make needed improvements,” McCall said, adding, “I hope this will help more young people be able to buy a home.” It’s really hard for them to get financing for anything.
Eric Guster, an attorney and developer who grew up in Ensley and who recently built a $2.5 million shopping mall in nearby Five Points West, told Atlanta Black Star he hopes the settlement and loan assistance program will result in more homeowners in mostly Birmingham -Black neighborhoods.
“When people start owning homes, they take more pride in their homes, they become attached to their neighborhood, and that promotes social responsibility,” he said. “When there is no inflow of cash and investment, when people are disenfranchised, it is a faster path to collapse and decay. And that was what the mortgage company was doing, helping the decomposition process.”
Fairway released statement on Tuesday, denying that he participated in redlining and noting that the federal lawsuit was filed a day after the settlement was reached. He called the criticism “inflammatory” and said it incorrectly characterizes Fairway’s actions as “willful and reckless, a claim that was mutually denied by the parties prior to the settlement.”
In the primary half of 2024, the corporate ranked twelfth amongst the most important U.S. mortgage lenders, with $11.8 billion in home loan production. HousingWire reported. The criticism says Fairway is among the many top five lenders within the Birmingham area for application volume.
“Fairway has vigorously defended itself against the government agencies’ allegations and continues to deny that the Company engaged in any discriminatory conduct,” Fairway said in an announcement. “Fairway also maintains its strong opposition to government agencies’ legal and statistical approaches to identifying potential discrimination. However, to resolve this issue and reduce further expenditure of resources, Fairway concluded that a settlement with the Bureau and the Department of Justice can be probably the most appropriate solution.
The company said the settlement “gives Fairway the opportunity to redirect financial resources to majority-Black neighborhoods through loan subsidies, consumer financial education and community development.” Fairway hopes these efforts will further expand lending options for people seeking to purchase properties within the majority-Black census tracts of the Birmingham MSA.
Politics and Current
Donald Trump under fire after he was caught on Hot Mic

In some ways, the White House tried to manage the narrative on Wednesday.
After taking on the rotation of reporters allocated to cover the day by day schedule of the president – work previously carried out by Association of White House Corresponders -President Donald Trump went a step further, asking one in every of the reporters of the brand new within the press pool, together “Fox and Friends” by Lawrence Jones to say to the viewers: “We did a great job, please. Ok? “
“Say it was unbelievable,” said the president after casting the primary meeting of the office of the second term on February 26. The White House was already cut off, however the Audio Associated Press channel remained and captured the moment of a hot microphone.

Jones, who has already lobbyed a number of inquiries to Softball for the president (including “Who is your favorite member of the office?”) I didn’t disappoint.
“The president chose members of the office who can really present their ideas and their ideas. He does not have to worry that they will leave and blow up everything-they are on the same side, “said the co-host Steve Doocy.
“I also think it’s great,” Jones replied. “They are guys who normally – and girls – are used to communicate their ideas. They divide the president’s vision and communicate it in such a concise way. I don’t think we’ve ever seen it in administration. “
“It is people who show how uncertain this president is,” said one in every of the critics who responded to a viral report on the moment of Caugh-on-Camera. “He knows that most of them we watched, right?” Someone said.
In fact, the meeting was dominated by Elon Muskwho opened with a weak joke, saying: “Well, I should simply call myself modest technical support,” and from there he initiated. Photos showed that the president was napping through the presentation of Musk.
Referring to his work as “necessary”, Musk presented one other federal agency within the Doge chopping block. “We spend lots within the defense department, but we spend that over a trillion dollars for interest. If this happens, the country goes, it is going to turn into de facto bankrupt – he said.
Jones was not the one Trump friendly correspondent who joined the press pool on Thursday.
The correspondent of Brian Glenn’s chief house from Real America, perhaps essentially the most absorbing the Networks Pro-Trump network, and the correspondent of the White House Newsmax, James Rosen, were a part of Gaggle, replacing older media, including the Associated Press, which was blocked within the events of the White House for refusing to call the Mexican bay with Mexico with Mexico with Mexico with Mexico with Mexican America after the president announced a change performed by the manager.
Meanwhile, the Association of White House correspondents announced that it might now not coordinate the common range of the White House until the dispute over unlimited access to the media is sustained. Also on Wednesday, the president announced He will sue reporters who use the common practice of anonymous quotes in unfavorable stories or books about it. Such quotes are sometimes used to cause greater honesty from the source, which otherwise might be afraid to talk.
What does all this mean for residents? Less difficult questions and a more favorable relationship for the president, whose crossing of the management has now not checked by Congress.
This explains why this clip He was on the web on Thursday with “The Simpsons”. When the owner of the nuclear plant, Montgomery Burns, decides to use for the governor, his campaign suggests dinner with the Simpsons family to assist the energy director involved with voters from the working class. Lisa Simpson is forced to ask This is an issue From a guest dinner of a guest:
“Mr. Burns, your campaign seems to have a fugitive momentum. Why are you so popular?”
Get used to it.
(Tagstotransate) Donald Trump
Featured
USAID cuts are already hitting countries around the world. Here are 20 projects that have been closed

Countries around the world already feel the influence of Trump’s administration decision to eliminate over 90% of foreign assistance contracts and reduce the financing of around $ 60 billion. A number of hours after the announcement at the starting of this week, The programs have been closed, Leaving tens of millions of individuals without access to life -saving care.
About 10,000 contracts with the American International Development Agency were accomplished on Wednesday, in letters sent to non -governmental organizations around the world.
Letters said that the programs were rejected “for the convenience and interests of the US government”, based on an individual with knowledge of the content that they spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk publicly on this subject.
Many programs are present in the fragile countries that are highly depending on American help with a purpose to support healthcare systems, nutrition programs and stop hunger.
Here, several key projects around the world, which AP confirmed, have been closed:
1: In Congo, the motion of a bunch of help against hunger will stop to treat tens of hundreds of malnourished children from May, which, based on a charity, will make children put children in “deadly danger”.
2: According to the Committee on Cadastral Risk Management in Ethiopia in Ethiopia, help stopped for over 1 million people. The Ministry of Health was also forced to terminate the contract of 5,000 employees throughout the country, focused on stopping HIV and malaria, vaccination and assist in a difficult situation in coping with the trauma of war.
3: In Senegal, the largest malaria project was closed. According to a USAID worker, who was not authorized to talk over with the media. Mother and youngsters’s health and nutrition services were also closed. They provided look after tens of hundreds of pregnant women and treatment that would prevent acute malnutrition.
4: In South Sudan, the International Emergency Committee closed a project that provides access to prime quality health and nutrition services over 115,000 people.
5: The program closed by the Norwegian refugee council in Colombia left 50,000 people without saving their lives, including in the northeast, where the growing violence caused a humanitarian crisis once a generation. This included food, shelter, clean water and other basic items for people displaced in the region.
6: According to the International Rescue Committee, 90 community cuisines closed in the capital in the torn war of Sudan, leaving greater than half 1,000,000 people without consistent access to food.
7: According to Bangladesh, 600,000 women and youngsters will lose access to mother’s critical health care, protection against violence, reproductive health services and other life -saving care, in accordance with the United Nations Fund.
8. In small critical assistance, equivalent to access to water, food and health services for over 270,000 people, based on a help group, which didn’t wish to be listed for fear of repression.
9. Over 400,000 people in North Burkina Faso lost access to services equivalent to water. According to the help group, which didn’t want to get replaced for fear of a repressiveist.
10. In Somalia, 50 health centers serving over 19,000 people were closed per thirty days because health care employees are not paid, based on the American help group.
11. In Ukraine, based on money, humanitarian programs, which last yr reached 1 million people, were suspended, based on the spokesman for the Secretary General of the UN.
12. Hundreds of mobile health teams and other services were suspended in Afghanistan, they concerned 9 million people, based on the UN spokesperson.
13. According to the UN Secretary General in Syria in Syria, for about 2.5 million people in the northeast of the country ceased to supply services. Also in the north, a dozen or so health clinics, including the primary hospital recommending this area, closed, said doctors without borderlines.
14. In Kenya, over 600,000 people living in drought -harassed areas and chronic sharp malnutrition will lose their access to the rescue lifetime of food and nutrition, based on Mercy Corps.

15. At Haiti, 13,000 people lost access to dietary support, in accordance with actions against hunger.
16. In Thailand, hospitals help around 100,000 Refugees from Myanmar According to the Border Consortium of the Help Group, closed.
17. According to the International Emergency Committee in Nigeria, 25,000 extremely malnourished children will stop to receive food assistance until April.
18. A program to enhance access to warning systems for disabled people for disabled people was detained in the Philippines.
19. In Vietnam, a program helping disabled people through training carers and providing medical care at home stopped, in accordance with humanity and integration.
20. In Yemen, 220,000 resettled people will lose access to mother’s critical health care, protection against violence, treatment of rape and other life -saving care, in accordance with the United Nations Fund.
———————–
The Associated Press Writers Sylvie Corbet got here in Paris, France, Robert Badendieck in Istanbul, Turkey, Evelyn Musambi in Nairobi, Kenya, Thalia Beata in New York and Edith Lederer in the United births contributed to this report.

(tagstransate) @AP
Politics and Current
Speaker of the New York Council Adrienne Adams is considering Burmoral Run

The speaker of the City Council in New York Adrienne Adams submitted documents to the financial council of the New York campaign to be able to create a campaign committee in the upcoming mayor’s race.
“We currently have chaos and we have reduced confidence in the other side of the town hall,” Adams said in an interview with Gothamist. “That is why I am seriously considering the campaign to become the first woman of the mayor of New York.”
In addition to becoming the first woman chosen as the mayor, Adams could be the first black woman and the first speaker of the city council who took the highest elected place in New York.
confirmed that Adams would do it Wait until the next week to make the final decision to launch. It is expected to offer the address of the “city state” on March 4.
“I wasn’t looking for it; It was not in my plans – she said, adding, “I believe someone have to be the soul of the city.”
A possible Adams offer for the mayor comes amongst the precipitation with the current mayor, Eric Adams. Adams, who is not related to the mayor, recently joined other city leaders, asking him to subside because of the corruption scandal.
If he joins the race, Adams will join the crowded, qualified field. Comptroller City Brad Lander and his predecessor Scott Stringer, Queens Assemblymber Zohran Mamdani, senator of the state Queens Jessica Ramos and senator of State Brooklyn Zellor Myrie.
There were also rumors that the New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was considering returning to politics and applying for the mayor.
A recent survey with the Honan Strategy Group showed that Cuomo has a most important role in a democratic basic race of 38%. Mamdani is second at 12%, and the mayor of Adams is in third place with 10%. The Adams speaker received only 2% support from survey respondents.
(Tagstranslate) Mayoral Race (T) Adrienne Adams (T) New York City (T) Eric Adams
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