Contributing Writers

New York Mayor Eric Adams announced this week that police and emergency medical workers will start hospitalizing people with mental illness against their will, even if they pose no threat to others. Rights groups and community organizations have slammed the move as inhumane and are demanding better access to housing and other support for people struggling with mental illness and homelessness. “That does require funding. That does require investment.

With a new Congress being sworn in next month, Democratic lawmakers have a busy lame-duck session during which they will try to pass as many bills as possible before losing their majority in the House of Representatives.

When high school students in Rockland County, New York, invited renowned activist and professor Angela Davis to speak, the event got shut down in two different venues over protests that she was “too radical.” But the students persevered, and Angela Davis addressed a packed church Thursday night.

More than six months since the Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed while reporting in the occupied West Bank, “there is still no accountability in what happened,” says journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous. He is the correspondent on a new Al Jazeera documentary for the program “Fault Lines” that investigates Abu Akleh’s May killing.

Puerto Rico’s financial oversight board has voted to extend a contract with LUMA Energy — the private U.S.-Canadian corporation that took over the island’s power grid and is widely denounced by residents on the island for its inconsistent service and high prices. The privatization of Puerto Rico’s power grid, supported by an unelected board appointed by the U.S.

New York Mayor Eric Adams announced this week that police and emergency medical workers will start hospitalizing people with mental illness against their will, even if they pose no threat to others. Rights groups and community organizations have slammed the move as inhumane and are demanding better access to housing and other support for people struggling with mental illness and homelessness. “That does require funding. That does require investment.

With a new Congress being sworn in next month, Democratic lawmakers have a busy lame-duck session during which they will try to pass as many bills as possible before losing their majority in the House of Representatives.

Jurors in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday found Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes guilty of seditious conspiracy for plotting to keep Donald Trump in power after the 2020 election, resulting in the deadly January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Kelly Meggs, who led the Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers, was also convicted of seditious conspiracy, and three other insurrectionists were found guilty of other felonies.

In a remarkable courtroom scene, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg asked a New York judge Monday to dismiss murder charges against Tracy McCarter, who says she acted in self-defense when her estranged husband died from a stab wound in the chest in 2020. Bragg campaigned on a promise to fight to free McCarter of murder charges, though, when elected, advocates say his actions initially fell short.

Puerto Rico’s financial oversight board has voted to extend a contract with LUMA Energy — the private U.S.-Canadian corporation that took over the island’s power grid and is widely denounced by residents on the island for its inconsistent service and high prices. The privatization of Puerto Rico’s power grid, supported by an unelected board appointed by the U.S.

The largest higher education strike in U.S. history has entered its third week in an effort to secure livable wages, more child care benefits, expanded family leave and other demands. Some 48,000 academic workers at all 10 University of California campuses are on strike, including teaching assistants, postdoctoral scholars, graduate student researchers, tutors and fellows.

President Biden is pushing Congress to block a pending nationwide rail strike and push through a contract deal that includes no sick days and is opposed by four of the 12 rail unions. Biden’s latest request is an attempt to “legislate us basically back to work, before we’ve even had a chance to strike,” says locomotive engineer and Railroad Workers United organizer Ron Kaminkow.

As climate Sahrawi activists in occupied Western Sahara accuse Morocco of greenwashing, the Spanish Film Academy, the Spanish equivalent to the Oscars, has just given its social justice award to the Western Sahara International Film Festival and its film school. We feature our interview at the U.N.