The East Los Angeles-based band Quetzal, known for blending Chicano rock with son jarocho and a long history of politically engaged songwriting, withdrew from a scheduled performance at an event called Fiesta Shalom — a decision consistent with the cultural boycott principles the Palestinian-led BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement has asked international and domestic artists…
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 remains a criminal offense under state law….
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 that has become a lightning rod for…
More than 80 young immigrants are wrapping up a ten-week fellowship this summer, placed inside social justice and labor organizations across the country as part of a program built on a simple premise: the next generation of immigrant rights leadership should be led by immigrants themselves. Born From a Legislative Defeat The program, known as…
A federal program that has tracked the human toll of outsourcing and offshoring for nearly two decades is being shut down — a casualty not of policy debate, but of across-the-board budget cuts that have left statisticians scrambling to protect core operations by sacrificing others. A Program Built to Track Globalization’s Fallout The Bureau of…
California’s fight over same-sex marriage is headed to a federal appeals court, after the state’s top elected officials declined to defend a voter-approved ban that a federal judge struck down as unconstitutional last month. A Sweeping Ruling, and a Governor Who Won’t Appeal It Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled in August that Proposition…
Russian police detained hundreds of demonstrators in Moscow this week, as opposition activists staged unauthorized protests against their government’s military intervention in Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. A Fast-Moving Crisis The protests came immediately on the heels of a formal vote by Russia’s Federation Council authorizing President Vladimir Putin to deploy Russian armed forces in Ukraine —…
The Senate has moved Trade Promotion Authority one step closer to becoming law this week, but as the fight over so-called “fast track” trade legislation shifts to the House of Representatives, opponents are increasingly pointing to a recent World Trade Organization ruling on meat labeling as a warning of what’s really at stake. A Canary…
In the closing weeks of the Obama administration, supporters of imprisoned Native American rights activist Leonard Peltier have found an unexpected new ally: the very federal prosecutor whose office secured his conviction four decades ago. A Prosecutor’s Change of Heart James H. Reynolds, the former U.S. attorney for Iowa who oversaw the government’s prosecution and…
French voters head to the polls this weekend for the first round of what’s being called the country’s most unpredictable presidential election in decades — a contest unfolding under heightened security just days after a gunman opened fire on police along Paris’s famed Champs-Élysées, killing one officer. An Eleven-Candidate Field, and a System Under Strain…