Portside

An estimated 80,000 of US prisoners are locked up in solitary confinement, and one third are thought to be mentally ill. Are their health needs being neglected?

Fossil footprints show that five diminutive humans walked on a beach in northern Europe nearly a million years ago. Just what kind of humans were they?

Operation Jumpstart plans to carry out a thousand "projects" across North Carolina by Election Day: trainings, forums and other outreach to people and groups needing help to navigate the state's bewildering -- and potentially intimidating -- laws that aim to restrict voting rights.

Portrait of a Haitian Graffiti Artist. What Did You Learn in School Today? Where Have All the Flowers Gone? Woody Guthrie Sez What Songs He Hates.

The millions of miles of distribution and service pipelines crisscrossing the nation mean that countless Americans - even those living far from gas fields - find themselves on the frontlines of fracking.

When workers want to vote on whether to form a union, they should have a fair chance to do so. The National Labor Relations Board is set to issue rules that aim to do that. A rule that Romney scorched and judges killed is being revived by Obama appointees. While the proposed rule is a basic step toward protecting workers' rights, much more needs to be done to fully address the significant challenges people face when they try to come together for a voice on the job.

"The Second Machine Age," by MIT professors Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, has gotten a lot of attention for its bold predictions of a forthcoming giant leap forward in the kinds of tasks that smart machines (robots) will be capable of performing. This could have a major impact on the nature of work, the number of jobs, the kinds of jobs, and the kind of society we will have in the future.

Reader Comments - Pete Seeger; Jews and Mayor de Blasio; Atlanta; NSA; Staples & Postal Jobs; Minimum Wage; Wars of Reconstruction; Brooklyn College CWE; Drugs and Philip Seymour Hoffman; Christie Scandal; Unions and Keystone Pipeline; Announcements - New Music Video-Close Guantanamo; Egyptian Revolution in Perspective -NYC-Feb 8; Fight Against VEOLIA Privatization -SF-Feb 8; Book Signing-William L. Patterson bio -LA-Feb 11; Labor - A Poor People's Movement -NYC-Feb 21

Say what you will about the boycotting, divesting from and sanctioning Israel. The tactical brilliance of BDS becomes clearer with every passing month. Amid faltering peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, Israeli politicians and business leaders are forced to consider a host of international boycotts that threaten to damage the economy of the Jewish state.

Did you know many African countries continue to pay colonial tax to France since their independence till today! 14 African countries forced by France to pay colonial tax for the "benefits of slavery and colonization."