Portside

Philadelphia teachers and their union were surprised today when they learned that the School Reform Commission had decided to unilaterally cancel their contract.

Inside the American Terrordome, the chorus of hysteria-purveyors, Republican and Democrat alike, nattered on, as had been true for weeks, about the "direct," not to say apocalyptic, threat the Islamic State and its caliph posed to the American way of life. The media, of course, continued to report it all with a kind of eyeball-gluing glee. The result by the time I met that woman: 71% of Americans believed ISIS had nothing short of sleeper cells in the U.S.

"There can be no question that just a handful of clinics left to offer safe, legal abortion care to all women across the vast state of Texas is a dire emergency in need of an immediate response," said Nancy Northrup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), which is representing the health care facilities.

Wall Street really, really wanted Marina Silva to win. Too bad for Wall Street.

Pride, which features a cast including Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton and Paddy Considine, tells how Ashton co-founded Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), a movement that raised tens of thousands of pounds for striking miners, the two sides finding solidarity in their enmity towards Thatcherism and shared feelings of alienation.

The union election was remarkable for a couple reasons: First, because of the margin of victory, with 86 percent voting yes on 77 percent turnout. And second, because it took place in the anti-union South.

Ebola evades Big Data; Underground networks in Hong Kong; PBS pouts; Streaming battles; Virtual Ponzi; Battlefield Twitter

This year Bolivia is chairing the G77+China group of what are now 133 countries of the global South. The Morales government has used its position to feature the issues of climate change, sustainable development and “Living Well in harmony with Mother Earth.” These were prominent themes of Evo’s opening speech to the G77 summit in Santa Cruz in mid-June, which directly attributed climate crisis to “the anarchy of capitalist production.”

Ilan Pappe on Israel's 'post-Zionist moment' and the triumph of 'neo-Zionism'. A book review of Pappe's latest book, "The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge".

The Philadelphia School Reform Commission voted Monday to unilaterally cancel its teachers' contract. The Teachers Union has been in negotiations with the SRC since January 2013.