Portside

By controlling warehouses, pipelines and ports, banks gain valuable market intelligence, investment analysts say. That, in turn, can give them an edge when trading commodities. In the stock market, such an arrangement might be seen as a conflict of interest — or even insider trading. But in the commodities market, it is perfectly legal. In 2011, an internal Goldman memo suggested that speculation by investors accounted for about a third of the price of a barrel of oil.

Most workers in the U.S. look to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for standards to protect them from exposure to hazardous chemicals. Protection for farmworkers from pesticides is left to the EPA's authority under the Worker Protection Standard of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act ("FIFRA"), a standard that is far more lenient than OSHA rules and is fundamentally inadequate.

An inspiring grassroots movement is fighting back against the GOP’s outrageous budget cuts and attacks on democracy.

When the Earth caught fire, killing the dinosaurs, fresh water ecosystems did ok.

The logical consequences of Silicon Valley capitalism: Social stratification and class antagonism

“The simple fact is that there are no economic constraints to solving mass unemployment. For Washington, however, it’s just not a priority.”

President Obama recently paid tribute to South Africa's anti-apartheid leader – we need to bring Mandela's example home

Trayvon Martin, National Organization of Women, inequality, Lawrence Summers

"We have moved on from the verdict. Of course we're hurting of course we're shocked and disappointed, but that just means we have to roll up our sleeves and continue to fight."

Women’s-health clinics have been under assault for years. Abortions make up just 3 percent of the services Planned Parenthood performs. Planned Parenthood estimates that 130,000 women in Texas go without preventive health care, like breast-cancer screenings, due to Texas' anti-abortion cuts to women’s-health-care funding, and a lot of those women will die as a result.