Portside

Slow but significant progress was made in the peace talks to end the five decades of armed conflict in Colombia being held in Havana, Cuba. But, many complex problems remain in a peace process the United Nations representative termed "a unique experiment that has not been seen anywhere else." The Colombian conflict is the last civil war in Latin America, costing an estimated 220,000 lives since 1958.

In the wake of the police killing of 18 year old Michael Brown, a black teacher in South Los Angeles describes how "death is intimately woven into the experience of being a black child in America." She says the trauma of constant death, loss and mourning shapes all of her students' lives. She argues the movement response to the "spate of police murders and beatings" must also expose the "apartheid policies and mentalities" that plague American schools.

A new report released by the non-profit Public Accountability Initiative is critical of the Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD), and its relationship with the oil and gas companies. The report questions whether CSSD and other environmental organizations' work with industry may cross ethical lines and serve to promote the oil and gas industry's agenda with a green "stamp of approval."

Ferguson, Brought to You by the Black Internet; NYT Gets Called Out by Its Own on Ferguson; What 1 Million Net Neutrality Comments Look Like; Boston and Big Blue Look You In the Face; CWA Challenges Local Media Consolidation; Gov't Info Plays Favorites

Microsoft Corp. is currently sitting on almost $29.6 billion it would owe in U.S. taxes if it repatriated the $92.9 billion of earnings it is keeping offshore, according to disclosures in the company's most recent annual filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Such maneuvers -- although often legal -- threaten to signficantly reduce U.S. corporate tax receipts during an era marked by government budget deficits.

The activist and co-author of "I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World" relished "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," the first book she read in the hospital when recovering from an attack by the Taliban.

In the repressive one-state reality of today's Israel, which Mr. Netanyahu clearly wishes to make permanent, we need a joint Israeli-Palestinian movement to attain those rights and the full equality they imply. Only such a movement can lay the groundwork for the necessary compromises that will allow the two peoples' national cultures to flourish. They should know that Israel is not Judaism. Jewish history did not culminate in the creation of the state of Israel.

The “crisis” of Central American children crossing the U.S.-Mexican border, which lasted for months amid fervent and angry debate, is now fading from the news. Since late June 2014, the “surge” of those thousands of desperate children entering this country has been in the news. Sensational stories were followed by fervent demonstrations and counter-demonstrations with emotions running high. There is so much more to the story than what we read in the news.

Violence has been an important element of law enforcement in majority-black communities since virtually the day that African Americans began moving to cities in large numbers during the first Great Migration of the late 1910s and 1920s. Put differently, to be black in an American city at the very moment that those cities were becoming the homeplaces for sizable numbers of black people meant to live in fear of what the police were capable of.

The Hospital Trust Fund accounts for only about half of total Medicare spending. Most of the rest goes to cover physician fees, prescription drugs and to provide incentives for health insurance companies to participate in the Medicare Advantage program and administer the Medicare drug program. The Affordable Care Act could have done much more than it does to curb spending in those areas.