After much prayer, reflection, and conversations with the people I love most, I made the difficult decision to resign as Chief of Police for the City of Seattle.
This is not how I hoped this chapter would end.
I came to Seattle because I believed in this city. I believed in the members of the Seattle Police Department, and I believed we could make meaningful progress together. I believed we could strengthen trust, improve public safety, and build stronger relationships between the department and the communities we serve. Despite everything that has happened over the past several weeks, I still believe those things today.
Serving as your Chief has been one of the greatest honors of my career.
Over the past year, we accomplished a great deal together. Crime declined to levels not seen since before the pandemic. We strengthened relationships throughout our neighborhoods, expanded community engagement, improved recruitment, invested in our officers and professional staff, and launched initiatives designed to make Seattle safer for everyone who calls this city home. Those accomplishments were never about one person. They were the result of dedicated officers, detectives, professional staff, community partners, elected leaders, and residents who chose to work together in pursuit of something bigger than themselves.
I’m incredibly proud of what we accomplished, but I’m even more proud of how we accomplished it. We accomplished it together.
My heart continues to ache for the victims, survivors, witnesses, first responders, and families forever changed by last week’s tragedy. Their pain should remain at the center of our attention. They deserve justice, they deserve healing, and they deserve a department that will continue pursuing every lead until everyone responsible is held accountable.
The past several weeks has also been among the most difficult of my life.
I have never expected public service to be free from criticism. Leadership requires accountability and transparency, and I have always accepted that responsibility.
What I did not expect was how quickly misinformation would replace facts.
False narratives about my commitment to this city, my presence, my residency, and even my character spread with incredible speed. Those falsehoods didn’t stop with me. They reached my wife, my children, and the people I love most. We received hateful messages and death threats that no family should ever have to endure.
That has been one of the most painful parts of this journey.
I firmly believe our community deserved stronger collaboration, clearer communication, and more visible unity from some its leaders during difficult moments. Public confidence is strongest when leaders stand together, communicate honestly, and remain focused on serving the people they were elected or appointed to represent. I wish we had done more of that.
To the members of the Seattle Police Department, thank you. You welcomed me into your department, challenged me to become a better leader, and inspired me. I watched you respond to heartbreaking tragedies, comfort victims, solve difficult cases, and continue serving this city with professionalism and compassion despite extraordinary challenges. Serving beside you has been one of the greatest privileges of my life.
To everyone who welcomed me, challenged me, supported my family, prayed for us, and believed in our work together, thank you. Your kindness carried us through some very difficult days, and we will never forget it.
While my title has changed, my values have not. My faith has not. My commitment to serving others has not.
Seattle will always hold a special place in my heart, and I will always be grateful for the privilege of serving this remarkable city.
The CD Panthers Cheer Program and its coach, ShaVon Robinson, have been recognized in The Seattle Medium’s inaugural Best of the Best Northwest Readers’ Choice Awards. Robinson was named Best Female Youth Coach, while the CD Panthers received the honor of Best Youth Cheer Squad. The program is noted for its commitment to mentoring and developing young women, fostering leadership skills and confidence beyond competitive achievements. Robinson recently discussed these accolades and the team’s upcoming season on the Rhythm & News Podcast.
VCBynum Arts and Education is set to launch its Katherine Dunham-Inspired Summer Dance Camp next week, an initiative designed to connect young participants with the influential American dancer’s profound legacy. The program aims to cultivate artistic skills, build confidence, and foster a deeper appreciation for African and African American culture. Founder Vania Bynum underscores the organization’s commitment to utilizing dance as a powerful tool for community building and personal development, reinforcing the arts’ vital role in strengthening societal bonds.
Island Soul Restaurant in Columbia City has earned top honors in The Seattle Medium’s inaugural Best of the Best Northwest Readers’ Choice Awards. The establishment was recognized as the region’s best bar and grill and secured the runner-up position for best live music venue. Owner Theo Martin, during a recent podcast appearance, underscored the importance of cultivating community spaces through food and culture.
Hours after Black community leaders publicly urged Mayor Katie Wilson to keep Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes, the mayor announced later Thursday that she had accepted Barnes’ resignation and appointed Deputy Chief Andre Sayles as interim chief.
Wilson announced the leadership change after meeting privately Thursday morning with Black clergy, civil rights advocates and community leaders who urged her to reconsider reports that Barnes had been asked to resign or face termination following Sunday’s deadly shooting at the Bite of Seattle.
The meeting came after intense public scrutiny of the Seattle Police Department’s response to the tragedy, which left three people dead and several others injured. Questions mounted over the department’s hourslong delay in holding its initial news conference, as well as Barnes’ absence from the city while attending the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) conference in Dallas and his subsequent exchange with local reporters regarding the trip.
Following the meeting, community leaders argued Barnes should not be made the political “fall guy” for a tragedy they said was beyond his direct control. They also credited Barnes with strengthening relationships between the police department and community organizations and continuing to build on community-based policing efforts already underway.
“Today was Black folks standing up for Black folks,” said Dominique Davis, founder of Community Passageways. “What we’re not gonna do is sit back and let it be a Black man that just got here, a Black man that just started doing this work, and a Black man that hasn’t done anything egregious or wrong.”
Other community leaders, including former state Rep. Dawn Mason, civil rights attorney James Bible and Seattle-King County NAACP President Hayward Evans, also urged Wilson to retain Barnes, arguing that removing him would undermine progress made in strengthening relationships between the police department and the community.
The National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, whose conference Barnes was attending in Dallas when the shooting occurred, also released a statement Thursday before the city’s announcement. The organization called for “transparency, fairness, and accountability” in any decision affecting Barnes’ tenure and praised his longstanding commitment to constitutional policing, ethical leadership and community engagement.
Several Seattle City Council members also criticized the reported decision before it was officially announced.
Councilmember Maritza Rivera called the mayor’s silence “unacceptable” and described the reported decision as “impulsive and reckless,” while Councilmember Rob Saka urged Wilson to reconsider, saying Barnes had brought stability and progress to the department. Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck criticized the lack of communication from the mayor’s office, saying she learned of the possible dismissal through social media before receiving official information.
In a statement released Thursday afternoon, Barnes thanked Seattle police officers for their service and expressed confidence in the department’s future.
“I hope this transition gives the city and this department the opportunity to return full focus to what matters most, addressing youth gun violence and preventing more tragedies,” Barnes said.
In announcing the leadership change, Wilson thanked Barnes for his service and said the transition would allow the city to refocus on public safety while maintaining continuity within the department. She appointed Sayles to serve as interim chief while Seattle conducts a search for a permanent police chief.
“My vision for public safety in this city is grounded in transparency, trust, and genuine collaboration with the community,” Wilson said in a statement. “Keeping people safe requires trust, and trust requires that this department shows up in neighborhoods every day, builds relationships with residents, community organizations, and small businesses, and is accountable to the people it serves.”
Sayles joined the Seattle Police Department earlier this year as deputy chief of administration and investigations after serving as police chief in Beloit, Wisconsin. According to the mayor’s office, he brings more than 20 years of law enforcement experience and will lead the department on an interim basis while the city searches for a permanent police chief.
Claude app icon in this photo illustration taken June 5, 2026. (Dado Ruvic/Reuters via CNN Newsource)
Claude app icon in this photo illustration taken June 5, 2026. (Dado Ruvic/Reuters via CNN Newsource)
By Hadas Gold, CNN
(CNN) — AI company Anthropic says that during routine testing some of its models accessed the internet and hacked into three separate organizations’ systems – and that it didn’t notice the models had done so until an internal review prompted by rival OpenAI disclosing its models did the same.
Anthropic said in an announcement on Thursday that it started a review of its own systems after OpenAI disclosed last week that during a cybersecurity test some of its models escaped their testing environment, accessed the open internet and hacked into AI platform Hugging Face’s systems.
Anthropic said it found three instances where its AI models accessed the open internet when they were not supposed to and “gained unauthorized access to the production infrastructure of three different organizations.” The company said it discovered the incidents while reviewing more than 140,000 evaluations following OpenAI’s disclosure. Like during OpenAI’s tests, normal safety guardrails were removed during Anthropic’s evaluations to assess their models’ full capabilities.
Anthropic explained that in the three instances its modelswere given a fake “capture the flag” challenge, told that the “flag” was hidden on a different machine on the network and that its objective was to break in and retrieve it. Unlike OpenAI’s situation, Anthropic said none of its models deliberately attempted to escape their testing environments. Instead what happened was that the models were not supposed to have access to the open internet but that they were able to due to a misunderstanding between Anthropic and its evaluation partner, the company said in its statement.
To break into the three unnamed organizations, the models used basic techniques like “exploiting weak passwords” and finding system points that do not require log ins or tokens, Anthropic said. The most advanced version of its models did at some point recognize it was on the open internet, and stopped itself from continuing, the company said.
Anthropic said the earliest incident of its models breaching another organization was from April, and that none of the organizations recognized they had been hacked. Anthropic said they are in the process of working with the organizations affected.
OpenAI’s disclosure of its models hacking Hugging Face shook the cybersecurity and AI worlds, as it was the first real world example of something experts had long warned about: AI agents with advanced cybersecurity skills escaping testing environments and causing real-world harm.
Like OpenAI, Anthropic said on Thursday it has stopped all cyber evaluations. Anthropic acknowledged it could have taken more “in-depth” measures to prevent the cybersecurity breaches from happening.
Anthropic’s disclosure further confirms that AI agents unintentionally hacking other organizations is not limited to one AI company, and will likely further amplify calls for better AI testing safeguards and tools to potentially slow down AI development that may be moving much faster than society is ready for.
A water tower is seen Thursday, July 30, in Plymouth, Minnesota. (Ellen Schmidt/AP via CNN Newsource)
A water tower is seen Thursday, July 30, in Plymouth, Minnesota. (Ellen Schmidt/AP via CNN Newsource)
By Sean Lyngaas, CNN
(CNN) — Hackers have targeted water systems in several US states in a coordinated cyberattack that has caused some utilities to issue boil-water notices and switch to manual mode, taking their systems offline, according to US officials.
It’s one of the most serious cyberattacks on water systems in the US in years, according to some analysts. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency have for the last week been scrambling to try to help secure the water facilities and ensure that the safety of drinking water isn’t affected. No incidents of contamination have been reported.
The hackers “are targeting water entities of all sizes,” CISA said in a warning Thursday that urged water facilities to get vulnerable industrial equipment offline.
US and state officials are treating Iran as one of the suspects behind the hack, but have not made a formal determination of who is responsible and are wary of false flags.
The first public sign of the cyberattacks came from Minnesota authorities, who said that hackers on Sunday night and Monday morning targeted about 30 water systems in that state. The “likely desired impact” of the hackers’ intrusion at the water facilities was “to cause loss of system pressure and subsequent potential contamination of water supply,” said the memo distributed this week by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and obtained by CNN.
At a cabinet meeting Friday, President Donald Trump blamed Minnesota authorities for the hack and cast doubt on whether Iran was involved. “They like to say, “Oh, it’s Iran.’” Trump said. “Iran should be so lucky. Iran’s got bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota.”
The hackers are targeting internet-facing programmable logic controllers (PLCs), the devices that allow machinery to communicate at water facilities and other industrial plants. PLCs monitor water pressure, chemical dosing and other features in water systems to ensure they are safe.
The hacks are not complicated: The attackers are breaking into PLCs that are sitting online and vulnerable.
“I suspect that those attackers are going to … continue to look nationally across the infrastructure,” John Israel, Minnesota’s chief information security officer, told CNN on Tuesday. The hackers will “continue to rattle those doorknobs and try to break into systems that have weak configurations,” Israel added.
He was right.
Roughly six states have reported related cyber incidents over the last week, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation.
Officials in Wisconsin detected malicious cyber activity at their water facilities on Monday and urged utilities to take “immediate action to prevent potentially serious impacts to our systems,” according to a memo from the state’s Department of Natural Resources obtained by CNN.
The incident is another in a series of recent cyberattacks that have raised safety concerns for US water utilities. The water sector has for years struggled with funding and training to defend itself from cyber threats.
The Water Information Sharing and Analysis Center (WaterISAC), an industry hub for cyber threat data, has urged utilities to shore up their systems in the last week.
“The scale and coordination of the recent cyberattacks targeting Minnesota water suppliers is unprecedented,” Gus Serino, a longtime cybersecurity specialist focused on the water sector told CNN.
“While the inherent resilience of the water sector helped limit operational impacts, these incidents once again demonstrate that many drinking water utilities continue to rely on technology architectures that lack fundamental cybersecurity controls capable of preventing or significantly impeding this type of attack,” Serino said.
While the US government has not blamed anyone for the spate of hacks, Iran does have a history of hacking the water sector, including during the current war with the US.
In April, CNN reported that Iran-linked hackers had successfully targeted and caused disruptions at multiple US oil and gas and water sites.
“The rising number of water compromises is deeply concerning. So much depends upon water… No water, no hospital, no kidding… in 2-4 hours,” Joshua Corman, another industrial cybersecurity expert who co-founded I am the Cavalry, a volunteer group that focuses on cybersecurity for resource-poor organizations.
“Water systems have enjoyed the benefits of remote access, but now those who wish us harm have it, too,” Corman told CNN. “With great connectivity comes great responsibility. We should be asking ourselves: if we can’t protect it, should we disconnect it?”
This story has been updated with additional developments.
Black women are more likely to be diagnosed –and at younger ages–with the condition that causes heavy menstrual periods. They are develop greater insulin resistance, higher testosterone levels, and worse cardiovascular issues than white women with the same condition. (Credit: inkoly / Getty Images Plus)
Black women are more likely to be diagnosed –and at younger ages–with the condition that causes heavy menstrual periods. They are develop greater insulin resistance, higher testosterone levels, and worse cardiovascular issues than white women with the same condition. (Credit: inkoly / Getty Images Plus)
After a process that included more than 22,000 people from more than 50 organizations and thousands of patients, a troubling condition has been renamed to improve the lives of the 1 in 8 women who endure it.
Polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, previously named polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, affects 170 million women worldwide. Experts–including clinicians, medical researchers, and thousands of patients—have argued for decades that the name “polycystic ovary syndrome” was a misnomer because it implied the problem centered around ovarian “cysts.”
After decades’ worth of research and effort involving 56 academic, clinical, and patient organizations–and incorporating more than 14,000 responses from patients and health professionals worldwide– the condition is now known as polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome.
Dr. Anila Ricks-Cord, a board-certified OB/GYN based in Texas, understands the condition well, having seen it first-hand in some of her patients. She says the name change reflects a better understanding of the problem.
“They changed the name to poly-metabolic ovarian syndrome – PMOS – because the condition actually is metabolic,” says Ricks-Cord, a Black woman. “One’s ovaries are the starting point, but this is a hormonal imbalance that involves more than just your ovaries.
PMOS is one of the most common hormonal disorders affecting women of reproductive age, disrupting the body’s ability to ovulate regularly and often triggering a cascade of symptoms that can include irregular periods, infertility, weight gain, acne and excess facial hair. The condition is also closely linked to insulin resistance, increasing the long-term risk of Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and other chronic illnesses — making it far more than a reproductive health issue.
For Black women, the stakes can be even higher. Research suggests Black women with PCOS are more likely to experience delayed diagnosis, more severe metabolic complications and higher rates of obesity, hypertension and diabetes, while longstanding disparities in health care access and medical bias can make it harder to receive timely treatment.
The result is a condition that often goes untreated for years, compounding both reproductive challenges and broader health inequities.
Clinicians, medical researchers, and thousands of patients have argued for decades that the name “polycystic ovary syndrome” was a misnomer because it implied the problem centered around ovarian “cysts.” The name change is intended to guide clinicians, insurers, and others to focus on treating the previously overlooked multisystem nature of the condition.
The inaccurate name led clinicians to overlook the many endocrine and metabolic issues related to the condition, and contributed to delayed diagnosis, stigma, and inadequate treatment. Research found the inaccuracy also meant up to 70% of those with the condition received a delayed diagnosis or partial treatment.
In the U.S., Black women are more likely than white women to develop PMOS, develop it at earlier ages, and develop cardiovascular and metabolic issues.
Word in Black asked Ricks-Cord about the condition and what Black women should know when speaking to their doctor. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. This article should not be considered as individual medical advice.
WIB: What is so important about understanding the name change of this syndrome — and what tools do women need when they discuss it with their doctors?
Dr. Anila Ricks-Cord: They’ve recently changed the name from polycystic ovarian syndrome, or PCOS, because the root problem doesn’t come from actual “cysts.” They’re follicles that never finished maturing and just sat in stasis, in limbo. They changed the name to poly-metabolic ovarian syndrome – PMOS – because the condition actually is metabolic. One’s ovaries are the starting point, but this is a hormonal imbalance that involves more than just your ovaries.
Just having this syndrome leads to a whole cascade of related risks. PMOS triggers excess testosterone production and quite often an increased risk of diabetes because of insulin resistance. As Black women, we are actually more insulin resistant, more likely to develop the condition before age 30, and more likely to develop metabolic syndrome as a result. Picture a woman who is solidly built, who has hair on her top lip and chin hairs, or maybe even a 5 o’clock shadow — she probably has excess testosterone, and if she also has irregular menstrual cycles, she probably has PMOS.
WIB: How does a doctor diagnose and set a treatment plan for PMOS patients?
Dr. Ricks-Cord: We focus on the “string of pearls” as a diagnostic tool seen on an ultrasound; that’s the image doctors want to see. Ovaries are filled with what are called follicles. The uterus has a lining that replenishes itself every single month. For people who have regular menstrual cycles, every single month there’s basically a phone conversation that takes place between your brain and your ovaries, where your brain says, “Hey girl, we’re trying to get pregnant.” Under the influence of your brain, your ovaries go about making estrogen and progesterone to make the lining of your uterus nice and fluffy, so that if you get pregnant, the pregnancy can dig into the wall like a soft, comfy blanket.
The body will release follicles — one becomes the biggest and juiciest and pops out like a super gumball and sits in your pelvis, waiting to be fertilized. If you don’t get pregnant, that lining dies and peels off. Normally, that’s considered to happen every 28 to 35 days; some studies or references suggest every 21 to 38 days. But if you don’t have a cycle that occurs at least every 38 days, you have abnormal menstrual cycles, and that’s the first red flag.
But with people who have PMOS, the lining gets thicker and thicker, and it only sheds after it outgrows its blood supply — so three, six months later, it’s still been getting thicker. These follicles get stuck and on a pelvic ultrasound it literally looks like a string of pearls inside the ovary. Then when it finally outgrows the blood supply then the woman gets a menstrual cycle that’s incredibly heavy and lasts for multiple days. These follicles get stuck and on a pelvic ultrasound it literally looks like a string of pearls inside the ovary.
That’s what sets her up for problems such as endometrial hyperplasia (thickening of the uterine wall), which raises risk for endometrial cancer.
I think, particularly in the years I’ve been caring for women — and particularly in our community — people don’t know what’s a “normal” menstrual period. If you don’t have a period that happens at least every 38 days, that’s a flag you need to pay attention to.
WIB: Many of us have seen family members, friends, or acquaintances displaying these symptoms — often for years. When should we recognize this pattern signals a bigger problem?
Ricks-Cord: When your hormones are in check—and you’re not in perimenopause or menopause— having hair on your top lip, your chin, your chest, or thick hair on your thighs — that’s all a sign of excess free testosterone, which is not your friend. We make testosterone anyway, but it’s supposed to be in small, balanced amounts. Excess hair growth is a sign that you’re out of balance.
Another sign a lot of us have seen in ourselves and not paid attention to is acanthosis nigricans — the hyperpigmentation or dark ring around women’s necks that is actually a sign of excess insulin. That dark ring is definitively a marker for diabetes, but it goes along with PCOS/PMOS as well. The trouble with undiagnosed PMOS is that it puts you at risk for diabetes, high cholesterol, and hypertension.
Along with PMOS causing high testosterone you can also have hair loss. I’ve taken care of patients who wear wigs, and when they take the wigs off, you can see what appears to be alopecia — but it’s alopecia that’s testosterone-derived. The last patient I took care of who had this issue had been overlooked by her doctor for years and years and years.
WIB: Explain how the hormonal issues affect the entire body—not just the reproductive system.
Ricks-Cord: People who have PMOS live, over time, in a pro-inflammatory environment, and inflammation is not your friend — it’s the basis of all kinds of disease. Over time, high insulin resistance is almost like being on the phone trying to talk to someone who can’t hear you, so you keep turning up the volume. That’s the conversation your body is having when you’re insulin resistant.
Outside of sugar causing cardiovascular issues, it’s also going to make your cholesterol go haywire. What they find specific to Black women — along with the fact that we’re more likely to be insulin resistant — has to do with things like body mass index. If your BMI is greater than 30; or if you measure your abdominal circumference with a tape measure and it’s more than 35 inches around your belly; if your systolic (top number) blood pressure is greater than or equal to 130, or your diastolic (bottom number) is greater than or equal to 85 — those are markers of insulin resistance.
For Black women, the cardiovascular risk is real. If we have PMOS, we often transition into metabolic syndrome to diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and a heart attack or stroke. It kills us. And as it relates to pregnancy: PMOS is a form of infertility — you can still get pregnant, we just don’t always know when your cycles are going to show up. Ideally, if you have PMOS and plan on having children, optimize your weight and your blood sugar before you get pregnant. If you don’t, having PMOS alone is enough to increase your risk of gestational diabetes, hypertension in pregnancy, preeclampsia, or preterm birth.
WIB: So a woman should be telling her doctor specifically what is happening with her menstrual periods — duration, intensity, and other details — instead of assuming what’s “normal.”
Ricks-Cord: Exactly. If you realize you have it, go get seen, and ask specifically: “What are we doing to control this menstrual cycle — are we shutting it down or making it flow? What are we using to make me less insulin resistant? What does my hemoglobin A1C look like? What does my cholesterol look like? What does my blood pressure look like? What’s my vitamin D level? Because if your sugar is high enough to put you at cardiovascular risk, you’re going to need medication to get it under control until diet and lifestyle changes take effect. If your blood pressure is 130 or higher on top, or 80–85 or higher on the bottom, you need medication to get that under control until your lifestyle changes make a difference.
And I’ll add a couple of other things: check your hemoglobin A1C, your fasting glucose, your total cholesterol, your BMI, and how much you weigh. The trick is that PCOS is a lifelong condition, but you can modulate its symptoms and the evolution of the disease through lifestyle modification. What kind of starches, vegetables, and protein do you eat? Do you eat foods with a low glycemic index? Foods with a low glycemic index won’t shoot your blood sugar way up and then give you the crash that follows. Do you eat a lot of processed food? This is going to ruffle some feathers, but: stay away from the “white foods” — white sugar, white rice, white potatoes — as well as anything that’s highly processed.
You can walk five out of seven days a week, 30 minutes, brisk — like it’s a Black Friday sale and there’s a lady trying to get to a sweater before you do, and you need to beat her there. That kind of brisk walking is actually going to pull sugar out of your bloodstream to feed your muscles, and it will help bring down your A1C.
So many of us assume the things we’re experiencing are normal, and because it’s not visibly compromising us — but we’re saying, “I just have a headache every day” — and we think that’s okay.
Myesha Chaney says the deepest pain wasn't ending her marriage—it was losing her church community. Her story reflects a growing conversation about divorce, stigma and belonging in Black faith communities. Credit: Getty Images
Myesha Chaney says the deepest pain wasn’t ending her marriage—it was losing her church community. Her story reflects a growing conversation about divorce, stigma and belonging in Black faith communities. Credit: Getty Images
When Myesha Chaney walked back into the church she had helped build, she couldn’t tell where she belonged.
For nearly two decades, she had served as the wife of Pastor Wayne Chaney Jr. and First Lady of the Antioch Church of Long Beach in California. She worked alongside her husband, counseling members, helping families through crises, and helping launch the church’s event venue.
But when she and her husband split after 18 years of marriage, Cheney says she felt like a stranger in the place she once called her spiritual home. She tried returning a handful of times; one Sunday, ushers directed her to a seat far away from the pulpit and her ex-husband.
“They let me sit in the balcony,” Chaney recalled, effectively putting her in her place in a low-profile section of the church. “That was my cue.”
Emotional, Spiritual Burdens
For Chaney, a member of the original cast of the reality TV series “Preachers of L.A.,” the hardest part of divorce was not leaving a marriage that lasted nearly two decades or rebuilding her finances. It was seeing the church community turn its back on her.
“I felt utterly abandoned by the people I had known my entire life,” she says. “Not just from the people in my congregation, from almost every other faith-believing person I know.”
Researchers who study the Black church have found that when a marriage between members falls apart, women often carry the emotional and spiritual burden. In a community where marriage is celebrated as the ideal, divorced women frequently describe feeling shame, failure, and isolation. Some quietly drift away from church altogether, while others watch former husbands like Chaney’s remain in good standing or remarry with little apparent stigma.
I felt utterly abandoned by the people I had known my entire life. Not just from the people in my congregation, from almost every other faith-believing person I know.
Myesha chaney, fomer first lady, antioch church of Long Beach
Scholars say those experiences have fueled calls for churches to examine whether divorced women are being met first with judgment instead of the grace they so often preach from the pulpit.
“I don’t think many churches, especially in the Black community, support people walking through divorce well,” Chaney said. “There’s an unspoken idea that the person shouldn’t be going through divorce in the first place. There’s this overarching kind of shame around it.”
‘You’re On Your Own’
Because divorce remains largely hidden, many believers never hear honest stories from those who have lived through it, she said. Even pastors who have experienced divorce often avoid discussing it publicly.
“The bridge is not there from the people who are walking through it [to] the people who have the resources, the power and the influence to talk about it,” she said.
Chaney herself admits that, back when she was helping lead Antioch, she could have been more supportive of divorced parishioners. She counseled them, helped them pay bills and prayed with them, but didn’t realize they may have felt as isolated as she did.
“The church supports people through all kinds of things—homelessness, transition, jobs,” she said. “But when it comes to divorce, it’s like you’re on your own.”
Although she continued working with the church for nearly two years after the divorce, Chaney realized her relationship with the ministry had fundamentally changed. Shortly after the divorce, she met another woman who was involved with her former husband.
“That was my message that it was not going to be a safe space for me,” she said.
The losses multiplied. She moved repeatedly after the divorce, lost her job and watched the ministry she had invested in continue without her.
“I was the only one replaced, but everything seemed to have gone on perfectly well,” she said.
Rebuilding Faith
Recovery came largely outside church walls.
Chaney had already spent years in therapy before the divorce. She continued counseling, journaled extensively, read roughly a book each week and sought healing.
“My faith at that point was shot,” she said. “I reached for whatever I could.”
The journey eventually became the foundation for her book, “Honest,” which chronicles Chaney’s divorce and spiritual reconstruction. The crisis led Chaney to encounter God in an entirely different way.
“I had the God of the Bible that I had learned and trained,” she says. “And then I had the God of my experience. The God I found in the rubble when everything was gone was a very different experience than the one I was praising and worshiping in front of everybody.”
Today, Chaney says her calling is helping people tell the truths they are afraid to say aloud.
“I help give language to what people experience that they can’t say,” she said. “My mission was to be honest through lived experience so that anybody else walking by won’t feel the way I felt.”
Seeking Reconciliation
Still, she grieves relationships that simply disappeared when she and her husband divorced, and acknowledges they may never reappear.
“The Christian way is reconciliation,” she said. “But in these types of circumstances like divorce, there is no making anything right. It just is what it is.”
Even so, Chaney does not define her story by what she lost. Now, considering moving to New York and embracing what she calls an unexpected new chapter, she says the worst season of her life became the beginning of the most authentic one.
“What has happened has been the best thing in my entire life,” she said. “It was the worst thing, and it was the absolute best thing.”
As data centers consume more electricity, critics warn that extending the life of aging coal plants like the Stanton Energy Center in Orlando shifts the health costs of AI onto communities already burdened by pollution.
As data centers consume more electricity, critics warn that extending the life of aging coal plants like the Stanton Energy Center in Orlando shifts the health costs of AI onto communities already burdened by pollution.
For decades, research has shown that Black Americans are more likely than other groups to breathe the pollution produced by coal-fired power plants — a burden measured in higher rates of asthma, heart disease and other illnesses linked to dirty air.
Now, as the nation’s appetite for electricity surges to power artificial intelligence and massive data centers, the Trump administration is breathing new life into aging coal plants that many utilities had already planned to retire.
One of them is Stanton Unit 1 outside Orlando, where Earthjustice and its allies are challenging a federal order that keeps the nearly 40-year-old plant operating.
Keeping Coal Alive
While there is no evidence that Stanton itself disproportionately exposes Orlando’s Black neighborhoods compared with surrounding communities, its continued operation reflects a broader environmental justice reality: extending the life of coal means prolonging the health burdens that Black Americans have disproportionately carried for generations.
In the 1980s, when Stanton first came online, it and other coal-fired power plants generated more than half of the nation’s electricity. But the Trump Administration has delayed the retirement of Stanton Unit 1 power plant and similar coal-burning facilities that are slated to be retired.
A 2012 NAACP report found that, while 56% of white people lived within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant, almost 8 in 10 Black Americans did.
Critics say the White House is doing everything that it can to keep coal alive, despite the harm to Black communities. Today, coal is on the way out across the United States, with nearly 300 plants closing between 2010 and 2019, and some 200 that remain supplying a mere 15% of the country’s electricity.
Expensive Energy Source
Last month, Trump’s Department of Energy issued an emergency order to keep Stanton Unit 1 up and running and burning coal.
Florida Rising, local environmental justice organization, is now challenging that order with the support of the Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club and Earthjustice.
While the Trump Administration is making the case that Stanton Unit 1 is critical to meeting local energy demands, the environmental coalition points out that the Orlando Utilities Commission calls coal-fueled plants its most expensive source of energy.
Stanton Unit 1, which would have replaced coal with solar and natural gas after its retirement, costs $6.2 million per month to keep running, adding an estimated $20 per month to consumers’ utility bills. At the same time, the pollution from the coal-fired plant contributes to as many as 45 premature deaths every year.
“Florida Rising has been pushing for energy justice throughout Florida by fighting against excessive utility profits and for a just transition that puts frontline communities at the center of energy policy,” Braidley Marshall, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, said in a statement.
“We already have some of the highest electric bills in the nation due to our excess electricity generation capacity,” he said. “So, ordering OUC to keep this uneconomic plant online will just push OUC bills higher at a time when people are already struggling to pay their bills.”
A Just Transition
While the number of people who live near a coal-fired power plant is rapidly declining nationwide, Orlando, which is about 23% Black, looks a lot like the communities that used to share air with these major pollution sources.
A landmark NAACP report published in 2012 found that, while 56% of white people lived within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant, the percentage of Black Americans who did jumped to almost 8 in 10. At the time, there were still 378 coal-fired plants across the country, supplying more than 40% of the nation’s domestic electricity.
The DOE order will keep Stanton Unit 1 in operation for another 90 days past its planned retirement at the end of May; it may be renewed after the order expires. The Trump Administration has issued similar orders, which Earthjustice and the other groups representing Florida Rising say are illegal, to keep five other coal-fired plants in operation, too.
Still, there’s no denying that the writing is on the wall for coal.
“Forcing this coal plant to stay open delivers a rate hike to Central Florida families and businesses, right as they are already struggling with sky-high electricity bills,” Adam Kurland, an attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement. “Cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable options had rendered this coal plant obsolete and on track for retirement.”
