Portside

When the District Attorney says, "we'll present the evidence and let the grand jury decide," that's malarkey. If he takes that approach, then he's already decided to abdicate his role in the process as an advocate for justice. At that point, there's no longer a prosecutor in the room guiding the grand jurors, and — more importantly — no state official acting on behalf of the victim, Michael Brown...

Marion Barry touched the lives of numerous people in Washington DC as tributes to him from individuals from all walks of life give a small glimpse.

We need your help to keep going. We don't intend to stand still. In the next year, we will improve and expand Portside, making it easier to use, to search and to share. Early next year we will initiate a new daily post, dealing with books, films, poetry, food -- with a left slant. We plan to add music, sports and health. Even with volunteer effort and modern technology, Portside costs money. We need your financial contributions to guarantee that we survive and grow.

We know historically in this country that every social justice movement that has been effective has come under attack by law enforcement, and we believe very strongly that this is what is happening to Palestinians here now, We are winning some battles now, and Palestinians around the world are winning this battle against Israel for the hearts and minds of the world, with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. So, this is how the US and Israel are reacting.

Facing increasing opposition abroad, over the past several decades, global water privatizers like Veolia and Suez have begun to see U.S. cities as expansion markets. These corporations have aggressively interfered in the democratic governance of water and have sought to trap cities in unfavorable privatization contracts.

The latest round of violence in Jerusalem is reminiscent of the Second Intifada, sparked by then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's provocative visit to the Haram al-Sharif compound (Noble Sanctuary/Temple Mount) in 2000. Last week's events come in the wake of other "structural forms of violence" directed at Jerusalem's Palestinian residents, and are evidence of the "alarming transformations taking place in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

Kathryn Stinson, a South African epidemiologist, recently returned from fighting Ebola in Sierra Leone, travelled to Europe with Kaci Hickox, the American nurse later quarantined in a tent outside a New Jersey hospital. Stinson writes about the courage of health care workers there, her own 21 "post-mission" days, and the need to confront the "hysteria and stigma" surrounding returning staff from Ebola-affected areas with science and evidence-based insight.

The violent disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa teachers college in Guerrero state has caused a political earthquake the likes of which Mexico has not seen in generations — perhaps even since the revolution of 1910. That makes it all the more baffling how little attention most people in the U.S. have paid to the unfolding tragedy. Americans must face the fact that the drug-related corruption and violence in Mexico is a "binational affair."

Washington state's Attorney General Bob Ferguson intends to sue the U.S. government for not protecting workers involved in the decades-long cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, a decommissioned nuclear site. Dozens of workers, including 44 in the last 12 months, have been sickened by toxic vapors while trying to clean up the site. "Hanford workers face a very real and immediate health risk," Ferguson said in announcing his intent to file the lawsuit.

More than 20 million people, and nearly one-third of all hourly employees over 18 make more than the existing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour but less than the $10.10 per hour increased federal minimum wage unsuccessfully promoted by the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats earlier this year. The Pew Research Center's Fact Tank provides a profile of where these "near-minimum-wage" workers work and what they are paid.