Sanders Unveils Bill Guaranteeing Up to 7 Days of Paid Sick Leave for US Workers
On Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) introduced a bill that would, for the first time, guarantee paid sick leave for workers across the U.S. and end the country’s streak as the only wealthy nation on earth that doesn’t ensure that its workers can take off work when they’re sick. The bill would allow workers to earn up to seven days of paid sick leave per year, accruing a minimum of one...
The US Failed Jordan Neely and Banko Brown Long Before They Were Murdered
The murders of Banko Brown in San Francisco and Jordan Neely in New York City have illuminated the demonization that unhoused people, who are disproportionately Black in both cities, face from political leaders, media and the public alike. The senseless murders of Brown — a 24-year-old Black transgender man struggling with housing insecurity who was shot to death by a Walgreens security guard on...
What Is Restorative Justice? An Alternative Approach to Addressing Harm.
What do successful alternatives to policing, prosecution and prison actually look like? And how would they work? A group of Chicago’s leading public safety, health and justice innovators gathered at the DePaul Art Museum last summer to provide much-needed clarity on these crucial questions. Artists, survivors of violence, entrepreneurs and business leaders, public defenders, policy experts...
Detained “Cop City” Journalist Sues Atlanta Police, Alleges Intimidation
An independent filmmaker and producer covering the “Defend the Atlanta Forest” protests who was detained and interrogated by police for more than 90 minutes on June 15, 2022, has filed a federal lawsuit alleging civil rights violations that are part of a pattern of retaliation against free speech by the Atlanta Police Department (APD). The journalist, Michael Watchulonis, alleges in the lawsuit...
New Montana Law Bans Agencies From Considering Climate Impacts in Analyses
Montana is now home to one of the most extremist anti-climate, pro-fossil fuel and big developer laws in the country after Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a GOP-sponsored bill banning agencies from considering climate impacts in major project analyses last week. H.B. 971, which passed both chambers of the state legislature largely by party lines last month, bans agencies like the Montana...
Rules Limiting Gender-Affirming Care in Missouri Abruptly Removed by State AG
On Tuesday, an emergency rule that sought to ban almost all gender-affirming care in the state of Missouri (for both children and adults) was abruptly removed from a state website, signaling it was no longer applicable. State Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s office confirmed to St. Louis Public Radio later in the day that the rule was eliminated. In a subsequent statement, Bailey claimed that the...
A New Report Finds That the “War on Terror” Led to More Than 4.5 Million Deaths
America’s post-9/11 wars have led to more than 4.5 million deaths, according to a major new report from the Costs of War Project at Brown University. Roughly 1 million of these deaths came from direct combat in war zones across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen, while the remaining 3.5 million are “indirect deaths” that resulted from the conflicts’ “destruction of...
In Louisiana, Rock-Bottom Minimum Wage Is Becoming a Liability for Republicans
May 11 saw a surprise in the Louisiana legislature, where lawmakers advanced a bill that would raise the wage floor for the first time since Congress set the federal minimum wage at $7.25 an hour back in 2009. Advocates and Democrats in the minority propose a wage hike during every legislative session, but a bill hasn’t made it to a floor vote in years. Two Republicans on the Louisiana Senate’s...
GOP Lawmakers in North Carolina Override Veto of 12-Week Abortion Ban
North Carolina’s Republican-led legislature overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of a 12-week abortion ban. It will take effect July 1. The ban will further erode access to abortion in one of the last Southern states to permit the procedure past six weeks. Until now, abortion was legal up to 20 weeks in North Carolina, making it a haven as surrounding states passed near-total or very limited abortion...
New Report Details Dozens of Patients’ Complications in a Post-Roe America
A joint report from two university programs studying the impact of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade abortion rights protections last summer has some startling and disturbing findings, showcasing dozens of cases in which healthcare providers have been unable to provide patients with necessary care, including in dangerous or life-threatening situations. The “Care Post-Roe Study” was...
DeSantis Signs Law Banning Diversity Programs at Public Colleges in Florida
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has signed legislation into law that will defund diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at Florida’s public colleges and allow the state to remove programs, majors and minors that teach “identity politics” or critical race theory. “[These laws are] part of a coordinated attack by partisan politicians on our right to learn about systemic racism, sexism...
Billionaires Spent More on 2022 Elections Than Any Year in History
Americans for Tax Fairness on Monday released the group’s latest report on “the threat posed to American democracy by billionaire political spenders,” revealing that last year their collective congressional campaign contributions topped $1 billion for the first time. “That ‘Billionaires’ Billion’ was almost three-quarters more than the tycoons’ total spending on the last midterms, in 2018...
Research Reveals Staggering Rate of Premature Black Deaths in US
Research has long shown that Black people live sicker lives and die younger than white people. Now a new study, published Tuesday in JAMA, casts the nation’s racial inequities in stark relief, finding that the higher mortality rate among Black Americans resulted in 1.63 million excess deaths relative to white Americans over more than two decades. Because so many Black people die young — with many...
Rep. Paul Gosar’s Aide Pledged Loyalty to White Supremacist Nick Fuentes
We look at a newly confirmed direct connection between a white supremacist leader and a staffer for one of Trump’s staunchest supporters in Congress. The digital director for right-wing Arizona Congressmember Paul Gosar has been revealed as a prominent follower of neo-Nazi online influencer Nick Fuentes. Gosar himself is linked to organizers of the January 6 insurrection and was censured for...
Biden’s Carbon Capture Regulation Is Just What the Fossil Fuel Industry Wants
On May 11, President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed regulations to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, primarily by requiring plants to capture emissions from their smokestacks. Limiting greenhouse emissions from power generation is a good thing. Unfortunately, relying on “capturing emissions” to do it is a singularly bad idea. Biden’s plan is a reference...
Profiteers of Holmesburg Prison’s Medical Experiments Have Yet to Redress Harm
A crowd of students, professors, and community members gathered in a packed room at St. Joseph’s University on April 26 to hear about “Philadelphia’s lasting shame” from the people who are still living under the pain of it. That shame — the horrific medical experiments conducted by dermatologist Dr. Albert Kligman in Pennsylvania’s Holmesburg Prison for more than 20 years beginning in the 1950s...
New Study Quantifies Fossil Fuel Companies’ Impact on Western Wildfires
The American West has always had forest fires — just not like this. Blazes are spreading further and burning longer, incinerating towns and exposing millions of people to noxious smoke. While a century of fire suppression and other land management choices contribute to the severity, climate change is a key factor fueling these fires, roughly doubling the acreage burned over the last 40 years.
Surveillance Technologies Don’t Create Safety. They Intensify State Violence.
In late October 2022, a police officer in Wichita, Kansas, was arrested for stalking his estranged wife. The officer had been using the police department’s automated license plate reader technology (ALPR) to monitor her movements, without permission or authority to use the technology. The officer was removed from the force and charged for both stalking and the unlawful acts related to his use of...
Biden Admin Says Mountain Valley Pipeline Can Run Through National Forest
The U.S. Forest Service on Monday gave a green light for the 300-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline to run through the Jefferson National Forest, a decision that sparked outcry from conservationists who say the Biden administration is ignoring the fracked gas project’s potentially devastating impacts on the environment and wildlife. The Forest Service’s new Record of Decision (ROD) approves...
Border Industry Peddles Robot Dogs and AI Surveillance Amid End of Title 42
El Paso, Texas — Mere blocks from a church where desperate migrants with nothing but the clothes on their backs took refuge under Red Cross-emblazoned blankets, security industry officials in clean-cut suits sipped coffee and complained about the catering at the El Paso Convention Center, where they hawked the latest dystopian tech designed to accelerate brutal repression of migrants.