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Contamination at Largest US Air Force Base in Asia: Kadena, Okinawa

Jon Mitchell The Asia Pacific Journal
Located in the center of Okinawa Island, Kadena Air Base is the largest United States Air Force installation in Asia. Documents obtained under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act reveal how years of accidents and neglect have polluted local land and water with hazardous chemicals including arsenic, lead, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), asbestos and dioxin.

Could Trump Help Democrats Gain Ground in Southern State Politics?

Chris Kromm Facing South
With Donald Trump now the presumptive Republican nominee for president in the race against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, attention is now turning to the impact the White House contest will have on down-ticket races, including state offices in the South.

Could the Left Finally Win in Spain This June?

Bécquer Seguín and Sebastiaan Faber The Nation
A new progressive alliance could break the stalemate—but whoever wins will face a hamstrung economy and deep discontent with politicians.

Fervently Singing Timely History of Chicago’s ‘Haymarket’ Affair

Hedy Weiss Chicago Sun-Times
“Songbook” frames its story through the memory of Lucy Parsons, the daughter of a slave who later becomes the widow of “anarchist martyr” Albert Parsons, a white man who had served in the Confederate Army, but then found his calling as a charismatic labor leader. There are unquestionably distant echoes of terrorist activity in our own time in this show, along with enduring issues of income inequality, police brutality, and a compromised judiciary and media.

American Power Under Challenge Masters of Mankind (Part 1)

Noam Chomsky TomDispatch
This piece, the first of two parts, is excerpted from Noam Chomsky’s new book, Who Rules the World? (Metropolitan Books). Part 2 will be posted on May 10, 2016. Noam Chomsky is still writing with the same chilling eloquence about the updated war-on-terror version of this American nightmare. At a moment when the Vietnam bomber of choice, the B-52, is being sent back into action in the war against the Islamic State, Chomsky, too, is back in action.

Slowly Abolishing Solitary Confinement for Children

Bernardine Dohrn Leiden Law Blog
Children are still being held in isolation in detention and correctional facilities across the United States. Children can be found curled up on cement floors in bare cells for 22 hours a day, and for days at a time. In order to use bathroom facilities in Los Angeles County Jail, young people must bang on their cell door and hope that someone comes to escort them to a bathroom.