Portside

UNITE HERE's Culinary Union Calls for Immediate Contract Negotiations. We voted yes to make our jobs good jobs with fair wages and job security, said Celia Vargas, a housekeeper at the property. We won that vote, so our voices and votes should be respected.

One book that's making it onto lots of people's best-of-the-year lists is Counternarratives, a collection of stories and novellas by John Keene. It's an extraordinary collection that uses historical fiction to make visible the human beings that racism and imperialism have pretended were not there. Not only that, but, as McDowell shows us in his review, this is a set of awfully good stories, too.

Based on actual events and characters, Short focuses on the fall of the housing market, leavening what many might find extremely dry, complicated subject matter with humor. While the so-called business press completely missed the story until this 'shit' hit the fan, the film tells how a few investment outsiders stumbled upon the unfolding crisis and bet against it. ('Short' is Wall Street-ese for 'bet').

According to The Associated Press, Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber has acknowledged the students' concern about Wilson's racism. But he's urged them to take the rest of Wilson's career into account, including the fact that he was president of both Princeton and the United States. Unfortunately, a true accounting of Wilson's full impact goes far beyond his well-known racism.

Big oil, big lies; Muslims to the rescue in San Bernardino; Trudell walks on; NRA mojo slipping; Mockin' the bros

During the midterm elections in 2014, for which there was a historically low showing, voters in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens, reached through Ms. Hackett’s initiative, turned out at a considerably higher rate than registered voters in the Bronx and Queens generally, 35 percent compared with 22 percent. Nearly half of those “community voters” had a household income of under $25,000. Among those reached in Queensbridge through Jacob Riis, turnout was 40 percent.

Between 13-15 December, the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, Mada al Carmel, the Birzeit University Institute of Law, the Stop the Wall Campaign, the Trans-Arab Research Institute (TARI), and the Arab Studies Institute (ASI) will be convening a conference under the banner: Alternative Strategies for Realizing Justice in Palestine. What follows is a summary of the ideas that led the aforementioned organizations to join together in this effort.

More than 2,000 workers remain on strike in Kohler, Wisconsin, a site of historic struggles for labor rights.

The Seattle City Council voted 8-0 Monday afternoon to enact an ordinance giving taxi, for-hire and Uber drivers the ability to unionize. The backdrop for the council’s vote is a nationwide conversation about what role governments should play in the country’s growing app-powered gig economy.

Using synthetic biology, scientists, innovators and entrepreneurs are working on a series of cutting-edge projects to affect the future of food.