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Cuomo to Create $15 Minimum Wage for New York State Workers

Jesse McKinley The New York Times
New York Gov. Andrew announced his support for a $15 minimum wage for state employees on the same day that fast-food workers across the country demonstrated for better pay and union representation. All told, 10,000 New York pubic employees will receive a pay bump. In July, Cuomo increased the minimum wage for fast-food workers in New York through a state wage board.

How Suffragists Used Cookbooks As A Recipe For Subversion

NINA MARTYRIS NPR
Between 1886, when the first American suffragist cookbook was published, and 1920, when the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted women the right to vote, at least a half-dozen cookbooks were published by suffragette associations in the country. They came garnished with propaganda for the Great Cause: the fight for getting women the right to vote. The suffrage cookbooks came garnished with propaganda for the Great C

Bernie Sanders' Momentum Stalls In An Unlikely Place: Union Halls

Evan Halper Los Angeles Times
Despite Sanders’ deep support for labor, the national nurses’ organization that Almada sought to join is the only major union to endorse Sanders in the race for the Democratic nomination for president. It is dwarfed by much larger labor groups that are lining up with his arguably less committed, less reliable rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The Black Panther Party and the “Undying Love for the People”

Flint Taylor In These Times
Recounts the short, complicated history of the Black Panther Party. Using remarkable black-and-white archival footage, the current voices of more than twenty former Panthers, a former FBI agent, several retired police officers, a number of Panther lawyers and community activists, and a collection of historians and accompanied by some soul stirring period music, the lessons to those engaged in today’s struggles against racism and for justice are there for all to see.

The Woman Who Stared at Wasps

Veronique Greenwood Quantum Magazine
Cooperative colonies — ants, termites, and some wasps and bees — have fascinated scientists for more than a century because they pose an evolutionary conundrum. Only a very small number of insects actually get to reproduce: the queens and their mates. The rest give up their chance to contribute to the gene pool, caring for the offspring of others instead. How did this lifestyle, known as eusociality, evolve?

An Insidious Way to Underrepresent Minorities

Gary D. Bass & Adrien Schless-Meier The American Prospect
Cuts in U.S. Census funding threaten to produce an undercount of minorities and the poor and to reduce their share of federal aid.

The Part of “Illegal” They Don’t Understand

David L. Wilson Monthly Review
Congress’s 1965 decision to limit immigration from Latin America and the Caribbean coincided with an increase in that immigration—largely, as a result of U.S. policies, including support for vicious dictatorships in many countries, the funding of civil wars in Central America, and the promotion of neoliberal economic programs throughout the region. The result is our current undocumented population of about 11.7 million, including some 8 million workers.