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Who's Behind Unpaid Prison Labor in Texas?

Aaron Cantú LittleSis News
Several of the officials charged with regulating Texas’s prison labor program, wherein thousands of workers behind bars are compelled to produce goods and provide services for free, are connected to some of the richest and most powerful institutions and people in the state.

Gimme Shelter (From the Tax Man)

Nomi Prins with Craig Wilson TomDispatch
What do Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have in common? he two leading candidates for the presidency actually share a secret life. A kind of private address -- for their monies, if not themselves -- in a place that may still be located in the United States but is nonetheless offshore from where most of the rest of us live. They are both tax haven aficionados, and in this election season if you want to become one, too, then head offshore with Nomi Prins' article.

MSF Pulls Out of World Humanitarian Summit

Doctors Without Borders Doctors Without Borders
Last year, 75 hospitals managed or supported by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) were bombed. This was in violation of the most fundamental rules of war which gives protected status to medical facilities and its patients, regardless if the patients are civilians or wounded combatants.

Producing Poverty: The Public Cost of Low-Wage Production Jobs in Manufacturing

Ken Jacobs, Zohar Perla, Ian Perry and Dave Graham-Squire UC Berkeley Labor Center
Much attention has been given in recent years to low-wage work in the fast-food industry, big-box retail, and other service sector industries in the U.S. The rise of low-wage business models in the service sector has often been contrasted to business models of the past, when blue collar jobs in the manufacturing industry supported a large middle class in the U.S. Recent research found that manufacturing production wages now rank in the bottom half of all jobs in the U.S.

TUG OF WAR: Foreign Fire

William Shakespeare adapted and directed by Barbara Gaines Broadway World Chicago / Chicago Shakespeare Theater
In launching a cycle of plays grounded in English history, Shakespeare was able to show his audiences the blood-soaked story of their own becoming, the history of their creation as a nation. (From an American vantage, it would be as though a present-day playwright were to track our history from Jamestown to World War II, focusing most intently on the span stretching from the Revolutionary through the Civil Wars.

Snowden Interview: Why the Media Isn't Doing Its Job

Edward Snowden, Emily Bell Columbia Journalism Review
There’s an argument that was put forth by an earlier journalist, I.F. Stone: “All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.” In my experience, this is absolutely a fact.

Children in Farm Communities Pay Dearly for the Food We Eat

Elizabeth Grossman Civil Eats
Citing an alarming increase in the incidence of childhood cancers and neurological disorders, the Pesticide Action Network’s new study concludes pesticide use is having a devastating impact on the health of children in agricultural communities. A child’s growing body is particularly vulnerable to the harms of pesticide exposure. Yet, according to the report, children in agriculture communities are being exposed to a “double dose” of pesticides.