In a Los Angeles classroom, mostly freshman actors are rehearsing a scene few teenagers should ever need to practice: what to do when immigration agents show up. Members of a student theater group called Colores Unidos are performing videotaped skits playing both ICE agents and terrified immigrants, preparing themselves and their community for a wave…
Indigenous marchers converged on Quito this week, capping weeks of mobilization against Ecuador’s newly passed water law — legislation that Indigenous organizations argue prioritizes mining companies’ access to water over the rights of the communities who have depended on those same water sources for generations. A Law Years in the Making, Passed Over Objection The…
Human rights organizations are demanding urgent action from Papua New Guinea’s government following the killing of a young woman accused of sorcery — the latest in a pattern of brutal, sometimes fatal violence targeting women blamed for deaths or illnesses in their communities. A Killing That Drew International Outrage The case that has galvanized international…
A new United Nations report on Syria’s civil war has documented war crimes and crimes against humanity committed not just by government forces, but by non-state armed groups as well — a rare instance of the UN’s independent investigators assigning direct culpability to virtually every major party controlling territory inside the country. Starvation as a…
Thousands of Mexicans have taken to the streets and flooded social media over the past month, protesting a sweeping telecommunications reform bill that critics say would hand the government unprecedented power to surveil internet users and censor online content — transforming a law originally pitched as pro-competition reform into what digital rights advocates are calling…
Community groups across Philadelphia are pushing back against Mayor Michael Nutter’s decision to shutter dozens of city swimming pools this summer, part of a sweeping package of budget cuts the administration says is necessary to close a shortfall exceeding $100 million. A Budget Crisis Arrives a Year Into Nutter’s Term Nutter took office in January…
Nearly 80 mothers detained with their children at a private immigrant family jail in South Texas have launched a hunger strike, refusing to eat, work, or use the facility’s services until they and their families are released — a direct challenge to a detention system that has locked up thousands of Central American women and…
A panel of legal experts, technologists, and journalists gathered at Yale University this year to confront an uncomfortable reality: government use of hacking tools has outpaced the legal framework meant to govern it, leaving courts and Congress scrambling to catch up. The conference examined the growing use of sophisticated hacking software by law enforcement agencies…
Imprisoned journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal has released a new Prison Radio commentary addressing last week’s massacre at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, where a gunman killed nine Black parishioners during evening Bible study. Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther and award-winning journalist who has spent decades on Pennsylvania’s death row and later in general population…
On the eve of another round of Common Core-aligned math exams, parents and students rallied in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park this week, urging families across New York to refuse the tests entirely — part of a boycott movement that has swelled to unprecedented numbers this spring. Organizers say more than 3,100 New York City students opted…