Dec 6, 2003

Mass layoffs hit Baltimore schools

BALTIMORE – In what could be called a “Thanksgiving massacre,” public school officials here handed out pink slips to 710 Baltimore City Public School (BCPS) employees. At least 1,000 are expected to have lost their jobs by January.

U.S. military families, along with veterans, undertook an unprecedented mission this week. They traveled to Iraq as part of a seven-day tour of duty for peace. click here for Spanish text

We are entering the final weeks of our Fund Drive, even as we deepen our links with the mounting struggles of working people from coast to coast.

President Bush’s stage-managed Thanksgiving Day trip to a U.S. military hangar in Baghdad dramatized the extent to which the administration is now handling Iraq as an element in Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign.

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration is waging war on democracy. That was the message from speakers at a Nov. 22-23 conference on voting rights here. To protect ballot rights and other democratic freedoms, many participants said, it is vital to remove Bush from office in the 2004 elections.

PITTSBURGH – Steelworkers, active, unemployed and retired, from throughout the decimated industrial valleys marched onto the blustery street in front of the Westin William Penn Hotel to join the Sierra Club, civil rights leaders, students, clergy, Kucinich and Dean supporters and peace activists to demand jobs and a Bush-free future. The president had swooped into town to pick up $1 million for his re-election campaign.

CINCINNATI: Police beat Black man to death / EUTAW, Ala.: Ban the death penalty / ST. LOUIS: State-run health insurance touted / DENVER: Gerrymandering ruled illegal

News Analysis

Although the Medicare bill that squeezed through Congress purports to provide relief to some seniors, it also gives big pharmaceutical companies nearly free reign to fleece taxpayers with exorbitantly priced drugs.

CHICAGO – Stephen Parker, 19, was shot and killed by an unknown assailant while walking through his Uptown neighborhood Nov. 20. A student at Prologue Alternative School and aspiring rapper, Parker had organized students to protest in Washington, D.C., against the Iraq war and was slated to give the valedictory address at graduation.

“Because we want peace and social justice;
because we can’t let Colombia be dominated by violence;
because we love life, and believe that another Colombia is possible,
that another world is possible.”
– Juan Carlos Galvis