Housing, Evictions, and Social Services Cited as Brazil Protests Broaden
What began less than two weeks ago as a protest over a 20-cent bus fare increase has become the largest wave of demonstrations Brazil has seen in two decades — and the grievances driving people into the streets now extend far beyond public transportation. From a Fare Hike…
Mexican Police Raid Neighborhood of Striking Farmworkers as Labor Negotiations Stagnate
Mexican police stormed into a neighborhood of striking farmworkers in Baja California’s San Quintín Valley this week, firing rubber bullets at residents fleeing through dirt streets and beating people inside their own homes — an escalation that came as talks between strike leaders and growers remain deadlocked nearly…
Bahrain Activists Call for Release of Nabeel Rajab, Cite Ongoing Abuse and Government Crackdown
A Bahraini court ordered the release of prominent human rights defender Nabeel Rajab this week — and authorities immediately took him back into custody anyway, opening a new investigation on entirely separate charges before he could walk free. A Pattern of Arrest, Release, and Re-Arrest Rajab, president of…
Bid to Free Khaled Sid Mohand, FSRN Contributor Detained by Syria’s Authorities
Khaled Sid Mohand vanished on a Saturday. The 40-year-old journalist — a regular contributor to French Public Radio’s France Culture, an occasional correspondent for Le Monde, and an occasional contributor to FSRN — missed his daily security check-in call to a colleague in Beirut on April 9, and…
California to Make Condoms Available in Prisons Statewide
California has begun rolling out condoms to inmates across its state prison system this year, the first phase of a five-year plan that will make California just the third state in the country, alongside Vermont and Mississippi, to provide condoms behind bars — even though sex between inmates…
Thousands March Across the Country for Immigrant Rights
Hundreds of thousands of people marched in cities across the United States on May Day, in the largest coordinated immigrant rights mobilization the country has seen since 2006 — driven not just by the annual tradition of May 1 organizing, but by outrage over a new Arizona law…
First Nations Treaty Alliance Says Newly-Approved Tar Sands Pipelines Will Not Be Built
Just weeks after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government approved two major tar sands pipeline projects, the Indigenous-led alliance formed specifically to block them says the approvals change nothing — the pipelines, they insist, simply will not be built. A Treaty Built for This Exact Moment The Treaty…
California Labor Activists Celebrate Wage Theft Bill and Vote to Hike Minimum Wage in Los Angeles County
California’s labor movement notched two significant wins within days of each other this month — a new state law targeting employers who steal wages from workers, and a Los Angeles County vote setting the region’s minimum wage on a path to $15 an hour. Going After “Deadbeat Employers”…
California’s Unemployment Worse Than National Average
California’s unemployment rate climbed to 11.9 percent in July, the state’s Department of Finance reported — running two and a half percentage points above the 9.4 percent national rate, and underscoring how much harder the recession has hit the country’s most populous state than the country as a…
US Job Losses Increase in June
The U.S. economy shed 467,000 jobs in June, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this week — a sharper monthly loss than economists had hoped for, and evidence that the labor market’s brief signs of stabilizing the previous month hadn’t yet translated into a durable trend. A Step…
