Portside

Managers and supervisors can now legally require their workers to participate in politics as a condition of employment. For instance, in most states, managers have the legal right to mandate worker attendance at a political rally for a favored candidate—and fire or punish workers who decline to participate.

While President Obama is certainly correct in saying that "Turkey, like every country, has a right to defend its territory and its airspace," exactly how it may do so is more complicated than the president implies. In fact, the Russians may have strong legal arguments that any such right under international law was wrongly asserted in this instance.

Fossils established the Brain Boom as fact. But they tell us next to nothing about how and why the human brain grew so large so quickly. In the last eight years, however, scientists have started to answer the “how” of human brain expansion — that is, the question of how the supersizing happened on a cellular level and how human physiology reconfigured itself to accommodate a dramatically enlarged and energy-guzzling brain.

Despite a long list of abuses by Canadian mining companies in Africa (and elsewhere) it’s incredibly difficult to hold them accountable domestically. The previous Stephen Harper government opposed legislation modeled on the U.S. Alien Torts Claims Act that would have allowed lawsuits against Canadian companies responsible for major human rights violations or ecological destruction abroad. Is Justin Trudeau prepared to defy Canada’s powerful mining industry?

Though the People's Party lost, Weaver managed to win 5 states (Kansas, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho and North Dakota) and 22 electoral votes—the most electoral votes won by a third party since the Civil War. The impressive third-party turnout illustrated the bipartisan frustration of the period and the extent to which Populist rhetoric resonated with voters at the time.

The victory of the therapists, counselors, and social workers at Kaiser Permanente in California is a landmark, in healthcare and above all in mental healthcare. The bottom line: these workers have won patient care ratios, they’ve won the right to advocate for patients, and they won these in a context of a nationwide drive to cut costs and press productivity in an industry awash in cash.

This new series on Amazon imagines a world in which the Axis powers triumphed in World War II and carved up America into three zones: the Greater Nazi Reich in the East and Midwest, ruled from New York; the Japanese Pacific States, ruled from San Francisco; and a derelict neutral zone splitting them, running roughly along the Rocky Mountains.

We urge President Obama to replace Holder with a public interest not a corporate lawyer; that will put the rule of law before corporate power. This appointment is an opportunity to shut the revolving door between big business and government. We also hope the next attorney general will put rule of law ahead of the security state, prosecute torture and other war crimes, protect privacy from US intelligence agencies and protect Freedom of Speech, Assembly and Press.

Under the settlement, these workers, who were supported by the hospitality union Unite Here, also will receive preference in hiring at future Boston-area Hyatt hotels, although many said they would be reluctant to return to a Hyatt unless it is unionized. Nationwide, about a quarter of Hyatt hotels have a union presence, and Marc Ellin, senior vice president at Hyatt, said future Hyatts in Greater Boston “could involve union representation

Last Sunday’s march was an important step toward building a popular movement for climate justice, which, in turn, is a necessary condition for more radical actions—like the ones FWS organized. The dichotomy between the PCM and FWS is a false one. What the world saw last week in New York was a vibrant movement ecosystem in which a broad mobilization and its radical edges engaged in a critical interplay.