Portside

What's the future of our environment? A poisonous wasteland, says Sam Friedman, offering a bleak view of what's imminent.

One consequence of the rough times unions are facing today is a loss of institutional memory and history. This new book seeks to preserve that memory, and the how-to-be-a-militant-union knowledge that goes with it, by focusing on how one United Electrical Workers local union was built, and how it fared during the McCarthy years and afterwards.

Resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline and other extractive projects was a recurring theme in the NWIF festival, which highlights motion pictures by and about indigenous females. 'Standing Rock: A New Nation' encapsulates what the movement there is all about and kicked off the NWIF’s screenings. New Nation explores the heightened consciousness created by the radicalized village that sprang up to resist DAPL and the extraction industries that threaten Mother Earth.

With rural issues in the spotlight following the election, Iowa's poet laureate, Mary Swander, speaks about her work with farmers, the concerns of her neighbors in this political moment, and the role of art in challenging times.

Bharara was in part the inspiration for the Rhoades character who holds the same job in the Showtime drama “Billions.” Paul Giamatti plays the oh-so-intense federal prosecutor in the much-praised series, which is now in its second season and was renewed earlier this week for season three.

"What does it mean to have/a child in prison?" asks New Orleans poet Karen Maceira, observing how her mother answers and can't answer that question.

The lynching of Emmett Till some six decades ago still stands as a singular moment in the movement for black liberation, racial equality, and against racism. This new book revisits that history.

Raol Peck's attention to historical detail characterizes the film as a whole, and testifies to the clearly loving amount of research that went into making it. The result is an entertaining and surprisingly funny portrait of the young Karl Marx as the film follows Marx and Friedrich Engels and their joint struggle against various other contemporary socialist leaders, culminating in their collaboration on the Communist Manifesto.

Scientists who cracked quinoa's gene code say it could solve the world's looming food shortage. Quinoa has never been fully domesticated or bred to its full potential even though it provides a more balanced source of nutrients for humans than cereals. Researchers say that quinoa could provide a healthy, nutritious food source for the world using land and water that currently cannot be used, and the new genome makes it one step closer to that goal.

“Saturday Night Live” took a departure with its cold open this week, taking us out of the Trump White House — and into the universe of the 1994 movie “Forrest Gump.” Instead of Tom Hanks, it was Attorney General Jeff Sessions (Kate McKinnon) at the bus stop, eating chocolates and confiding in strangers about a rather momentous week.