Portside

During the midterm elections in 2014, for which there was a historically low showing, voters in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens, reached through Ms. Hackett’s initiative, turned out at a considerably higher rate than registered voters in the Bronx and Queens generally, 35 percent compared with 22 percent. Nearly half of those “community voters” had a household income of under $25,000. Among those reached in Queensbridge through Jacob Riis, turnout was 40 percent.

Between 13-15 December, the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, Mada al Carmel, the Birzeit University Institute of Law, the Stop the Wall Campaign, the Trans-Arab Research Institute (TARI), and the Arab Studies Institute (ASI) will be convening a conference under the banner: Alternative Strategies for Realizing Justice in Palestine. What follows is a summary of the ideas that led the aforementioned organizations to join together in this effort.

More than 2,000 workers remain on strike in Kohler, Wisconsin, a site of historic struggles for labor rights.

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Tuberculosis (TB) is winning a deadly race – this year it overtook HIV as the world’s deadliest infectious disease, killing 1.5 million people annually. The findings of the Out of Step report into national TB policies. The report will be launched on December 2 at the 46th Union World Conference on Lung Health, Cape Town, South Africa.

A half-century ago, Gabriel García Márquez, after yet another visit to the pawnshop, sent his now signature novel to his publisher. As Solitude turns 50, Paul Elie interviews Gabo’s longtime agent—just weeks before her death, at 85—and discovers the events that led to a literary revelation.

Forty-seven new restrictions passed, including clinic regulations, mandatory waiting periods, and measures aimed at Planned Parenthood.

The whole November 24 incident looks increasingly suspicious, and one doesn’t have to be a paranoid Russian to think the takedown might have been an ambush.

Through the secret 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, Britain and France reconfigured the boundaries of the Middle East, dividing Arab provinces of the former Ottoman Empire into areas of future British and French control. While the devious and unjustified character of the Sykes-Picot Agreement is indisputable, a century later there is growing talk of yet another remapping of the Middle East, a dangerous Balkanization along ethnic lines that will exacerbate communal hatred.

Speech given at the 79th Annual Celebration of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Berkeley, California 11/8/15