Chicago Mayor Johnson to Trump: Stay Out!

Responding to Trump’s threats, Mayor Johnson says his city will not “cower or bend or be intimidated by these attempts to divide and conquer our communities.”

This Week in People’s History, Aug 20–26, 2025

Wall mural of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee activist (and murder victim) Jonathan Daniels
Voting Rights Trial By Fire (1965), Take Your Racist Law and Shove It (1850), Let Slip the Dogs of War! (1775), Never Forget How We Got Here (1791),Thirty Years Too Many (1945), Born to Run, Indeed (1975), Nothing to Lose But Your Chains (1970)

Abandoning mRNA Is a Dangerous Decision

If the United States abandons mRNA, it will not simply be forfeiting a public health advantage. It will be ceding a strategic asset. In national security terms, mRNA is the equivalent of a missile defense system for biology.

Red-State Republicans Thwart the Their Voters Desires

Voters in GOP-controlled states are passing progressive policies at the ballot—only to watch Republican legislators repeal them. Will it change how voters choose candidates?

A Tale of 10 Cities

Metro areas signal what’s at stake for Black Americans under Trump’s anti-equity agenda

For Some Patients: ‘Inner Voice’ May Soon Be Audible

In a recent study, scientists successfully decoded not only the words people tried to say but the words they merely imagined saying.

What Decertification of Federal Employee Unions Means

The Trump administration moved ahead last week with its plans to void the collective bargaining agreements covering hundreds of thousands of federal workers. The labor movement appears largely quiescent in the face of this historic union busting.

CA Gubernatorial Candidate Che Ahn: Militant Christian

"Joel’s Army"—the militant Protestant movement that fueled both the January 6 insurrection and the recent political assassinations in Minnesota—is rearing its head once again, this time in the 2026 race for California governor.

Why Lelo Juarez Chose Self-Deportation

How the current conditions of immigrant detention and Trump Administration policies impelled a farmworker organizer to return to Mexico.

Putin/Trump Ukraine Proposal Centers on Donbas

The traditionally Russian-speaking area is at the heart of what the Russian president calls the “root causes” of the war, and taking it over is near the top of his list of territorial and political demands.
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Culture

poetry

My California

Beau Beausoleil
West Coast poet Beau Beausoleil reflects on the momentary beauties which somehow compensate for our everyday sense of exile and displacement.

books

Genocide in Perspective

David Finkel Against the Current
"It must be said," writes reviewer Finkel, "that this book is essential reading, but not pleasant for anyone."

Labor

labor

What Trump’s Decertification of Federal Employee Unions Means

Marc Kagan Jacobin
The Trump administration moved ahead last week with its plans to void the collective bargaining agreements covering hundreds of thousands of federal workers. The labor movement appears largely quiescent in the face of this historic union busting.

labor

Trump Termination of Bargaining Agreements

Rebecca Beitsch The Hill
The Trump administration has quietly terminated collective bargaining agreements at the Department of Veterans Affairs; the Environmental Protection Agency; Department of Agriculture Food Safety Inspection Services; the Coast Guard;...

labor

How Mass-Based Community Unions Could Transform the Country

Keith Kelleher The Forge
Colorful drawing of stick figures floating with puzzle pieces. Over-reliance on outside funding threatens organizations’ long-term stability. Veteran labor organizer, Keith Kelleher, proposes for member-driven “community unions” as a sustainable alternative.

Friday nite video

video

Alcohol Is Amazing

Alcohol kills more people each year than wars, terrorism, homicides, and car accidents combined. Why do we cling to something so harmful?