Portside

The violence plaguing Africa remains far too invisible to most Americans and the world. Unlike the pillage of Africa in earlier periods of the slave trade and colonial rule, illicit financial transactions are most often hidden from public view. They happen through fraudulent invoicing of trade, "creative accounting" by multinational corporations, tax giveaways by African governments, and the use of shell companies based in tax havens around the world.

At some colleges and universities, it’s common for students to introduce themselves, in class or in student group meetings, by name, followed by a string of pronouns. “I’m Lizzie; she/her/hers,” for example. I decided to adopt a compromise solution for this semester: students should list their pronouns along with their names only if they were so inclined. I also said that as a class we will refer to one another by our first names or the pronoun "they" (grammar evolves!).

There was something disturbing in seeing Trump once again being normalized by being made part of an ordinary contest in coherence and “presentation” and “preparation.” In truth, that was the least of it, because what was really outside any norm of decency was what he thought even after you had dutifully distilled away the incoherence and the manic improvisations.

While prisoners refuse to perform their jobs, some guards are not showing up to work.

UK media eats crow; Facebook gets political; Rurals get unplugged; No jack makes jack; Times ethics; Detoxing from tech

Up for Debate: The Lesser Evil. "We can't ignore the ways that having a Democrat in the White House matters."

Besides birtherism and anti-Blumenthalism, Donald Trump basically ignored the entire Republican agenda of the past eight years. The upshot of last night is not merely that one candidate is hyper-qualified to be the next president of the United States and the other one is not even a decent beauty-queen host; it’s that the entire Republican Party agenda of the past eight years has been a hoax.

“The horrible night has ceased,” said Santos, quoting a phrase from Colombia’s national anthem. ‘I can’t believe this is really happening. This is a great day for Colombia,’ says Alonso Cardoza from the remote town of Uribe where the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia formally took its name.

The American Council of Employees, a business-financed rival to the United Auto Workers at Chattanooga’s VW plant, no longer meets the minimum membership threshold to qualify for meetings with management as part of the company’s so-called “Community Organization Engagement” policy. It could not prove it had a minimum of 15 percent of the workforce as active members.

As Obama's presidency enters its final months, thousands of people imprisoned on federal drug sentences fervently hope he will grant them clemency. But family members, loved ones and those who have spent time behind bars are determined to help push as many people as possible out the prison doors before Obama leaves the Oval Office.