Portside

No one knows how many innocent people have been convicted based on junk forensic science, but the National Research Council report recommends substantial funding increases to enable labs to conduct experiments to improve the validity and reliability of the many forensic subfields.

A detailed look at the surprising demographics of the fast-rising Neo-Confederate movement of North Carolina.

The inside story of a planned, and aborted, Israeli attack on the nuclear installations of Iran.

Historically, the public sector has served as an equalizing institution through the expansion of job opportunities for minority workers. This study examines whether the public sector continues to serve as an equalizing institution in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Results point to a post-recession double disadvantage for Black women: they are concentrated in a shrinking sector of the economy, and they are substantially more likely be without work.

History has shown that Guatemala’s elite will fight viciously to protect their wealth and privilege, regardless of the incalculable human costs of doing so. But its people have demonstrated remarkable resilience, courage and tenacity in their pursuit of justice and democracy. At this critical juncture, the U.S. should not send more money, nor should it insist on blind allegiance to elections that would stabilize the status quo when Guatemala needs profound change.

Is there too much hyperbole in digital activism? Should activists really follow the rules of modern marketing in online movements? James Turner, a senior strategist for Greenpeace International, asks whether all the online "urgency" risks damaging public trust at a time when activists have an opportunity to build a new model of participation. He argues activists should replace the cynical tricks of commerce with appeals that are more honest and participatory.

According to a new study released August 25th, chronic homelessness in Los Angeles County, especially among children and youth, overwhelms the dwindling supply of affordable housing there. The report by the Economic Roundtable, a Los Angeles research organization, says, chronic homelessness is such a daunting problem in Los Angeles County that about 13,000 people on public assistance slip into homelessness every month, one half of whom are children.

With all the concern over the militarization of police in the past year, few noticed that the state of North Dakota became the first state in the country to allow police to equip drones with so-called “less than lethal” weapons such as rubber bullets, sound cannons, pepper spray, Tasers and tear gas. North Dakota House Bill 1328 wasn’t drafted that way, but then a law enforcement lobbyist with close ties to the drone industry got his hands on it.

The slaying of two journalists Wednesday presents us with a moment to mourn but also a moment to learn lessons and demand action. The horror isn’t just one macabre double-murder, but the unrelenting toll of gun violence that claims one life every 16 minutes in the United States. It is time we address gun deaths as a public health crisis, and move from our passive horror to take steps to reduce the 92 lives claimed by gun violence in the United States daily.

The language of social justice has been used to sell intensified neoliberalism in post-Katrina New Orleans. On the tenth anniversary of the failure of the federally maintained levees, the keynote speaker at the annual Rising Tide Conference on the Future of New Orleans was DeRay Mckesson, a standard-bearer for Teach For America and the New Teacher Project — education “reform” organizations that played a crucial role in the destruction of the black middle class.