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In N.C., Populist Mobilization Buoys Democrat Kay Hagan

By Katrina vanden Heuvel The Washington Post
Hagan presents herself as above the fray, but she is propelled by a populist mobilization that will help get out the vote, despite the voting changes and despite the off-year malaise afflicting voters generally and Democratic voters particularly.

CIA Finally Admits that Arming Rebels Does Not Work

By Joshua Keating Slate
In the context of the Cold War, there’s an argument to be made that this strategy worked—the Soviet Union collapsed, after all—but in the actual conflicts, the outcomes were ambiguous and the wars longer and bloodier than they might have been otherwise. (Angola’s civil war lasted 27 years.)

The Making of Ferguson

By Richard Rothstein The American Prospect
Long before the shooting of Michael Brown, official racial-isolation policies primed Ferguson for this summer’s events.

When the Guy Making Your Sandwich Has a Noncompete Clause

By Neil Irwin The New York Times
American businesses are paying out a historically low proportion of their income in the form of wages and salaries. But the Jimmy John’s employment agreement is one small piece of evidence that workers, especially those without advanced skills, are also facing various practices and procedures that leave them worse off, even apart from what their official hourly pay might be.

Climate Change is Already Hurting Poor Workers

While world leaders look for ways to supply a promised $100 billion a year by 2020 to help poorer nations curb their emissions and adapt to climate change, “the poor are already paying the costs with their labour and their time,” said Atiq Rahman, executive director of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies. Two articles highlight serious negative impacts of climate change: on farmers and farmworkers who harvest coffee in Central America, and farmworkers in Nepal.

Climate Change is Already Hurting Poor Workers

While world leaders look for ways to supply a promised $100 billion a year by 2020 to help poorer nations curb their emissions and adapt to climate change, “the poor are already paying the costs with their labour and their time,” said Atiq Rahman, executive director of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies. Two articles highlight serious negative impacts of climate change: on farmers and farmworkers who harvest coffee in Central America, and farmworkers in Nepal.