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What were the top BDS victories of 2017?

Nora Barrows-Friedman Electronic Intifada
bds demonstrators
2017 saw artists, performers, athletes, politicians, cultural workers, faith-based organizations, students, academics, unions and activists grow the movement for Palestinian rights.

Trump's Year in Islamophobia

Maha Hilal Alternet
trump speaking
Five ways the administration has waged war on Muslims at home and abroad in its first year.

Ten Awesome High School Protests that Defied the Trump Agenda in 2017

Dawson Barrett Truthout
youth demonstrating
On a wide range of issues, high schoolers across the United States opposed the Trump agenda this year, both directly and in principle. At the end of a bleak political year, here are ten stories about awesome high schoolers who led the charge in 2017. Plus five youth organizing victories in 2017 in California.

“How Can Political Shift to the Right Be Stopped?”

Immanuel Wallerstein The Stansbury Forum
This is the question people left of center have been asking for some time now. In different ways, it is being posed in Latin America, in much of Europe, in Arab and Islamic countries, in southern Africa, and in northeast Asia. The question is all the more dramatic because, in so many of these countries, this follows a period when there were significant shifts leftward.

Calorie Counts on Menus Make a Difference

Editor, University of Technology Sydney University of Technology Sydney
Calorie counts make a difference! Listing them on menus influences consumer choices.

Nurses in Several Chinese Cities Strike over Low Pay and Benefits

Australia Asia Worker Links China Labour Bulletin
Despite a crackdown on labor activists there, Chinese workers continue to strike. The strike wave continues to grow, and strikes are not only in the private sector or in companies that manufacture for export. Last year saw a large wave of teacher strikes, and as this article shows, nurses in public hospitals are also striking.

Sustainability through local food

Rose Hayden-Smith UC Food Observer
A farmland mapping project by a UC Merced professor indicates that most areas of the country could feed between 80 percent and 100 percent of their populations with food grown or raised within 50 miles. The study immediately generated comment, including positive accolades from author and influencer Michael Pollan (also a UC professor). Many have noted the importance of the study in filling a research gap about local food.

What Sparked the Cambrian Explosion?

Douglas Fox Nature
An evolutionary burst 540 million years ago filled the seas with an astonishing diversity of animals. The trigger behind that revolution is finally coming into focus.

Poorest Areas Have Missed Out on Boons of Recovery

Nelson D. Schwartz The New York Times
While some communities are currently enjoying the fruits of the recovery, others have sunk further into poverty. According to the authors, this pattern of distress vs. prosperity not only “diverges between cities and states but even more starkly within cities at the neighborhood level." In the period of recovery following the Great Recession, the authors find, jobs in the median U.S. ZIP code grew at less than half the national rate.