Portside

In cities all across the country, workers stand on street corners, line up in alleys or wait in a neon-lit beauty salon for rickety vans to whisk them off to warehouses miles away. Some vans are so packed that to get to work, people must squat on milk crates, sit on the laps of passengers they do not know or sometimes lie on the floor, the other workers’ feet on top of them.

Alarmingly, the Lone Star state has plenty of company when it comes to extreme measures that will harm women and families.

US Army Blocks Access to Guardian Website, Americans Get More Leisure Time, Whether They Want It or Not; Ed Snowden Tries to Cool It to Stop Snooping; Paula Deen Hires DC's Real Fixer Queen; Big Tech And Gay Rights Arm-in-Arm; Fire Island Gets Switched to the Slow Lane on the Broadband Highway

Statement by Edward Snowden, whose attempt to gain safe passage to a destination country willing to offer him political asylum has become increasingly complex.

The opposition Tamarod (Rebel or Rebellion in Arabic) June 30 protests clearly marks a new and higher stage of the revolution, distinguished not just by their enormous size but by their far-reaching popular demands.

It is true that marriage equality is a real step forward for LGBT folks and is a real change in American and global perceptions of non-heterosexual sexualities. This is no small thing. However, another problem is that there seems to be a failure to understand marriage equality as part of a strategy for expanding our understanding of family and community. What exactly are the next steps in redefining those terms to be more inclusive?

A Book Review by the Nobel Laureate, Nadine Gordimer, on Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid, a new biography of South Africa’s revolutionary couple. One is reading not of self-perceived martyrs but individuals greedy for life even while giving up so much personal fulfillment for a way of intense certain risk. A level of involvement, the process in making a life, living, hardly to be imagined.

One year ago, many Egyptians had hoped the inauguration of the country’s first-ever democratically elected president would mark a turning point following decades of autocratic rule and a turbulent transition. Yet since Morsi took office, the political quagmire has only deepened, the economy has been in decline and daily life has become harder for most Egyptians.