Daily Online

The Barack Obama campaign’s nine day “Listening to America” project concluded July 27 after thousands of people gathered in at least 1,300 meetings to make recommendations for the 2008 Democratic platform.

SAN FRANCISCO — It was clear from the starting gavel: the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees convention here, July 28-Aug. 1, would be about reclaiming America for working people after eight years of the Bush administration.

NEW YORK—A group of Dominican American and other Latino elected officials with dozens of community members protested petroleum speculation here in Times Square July 30. Called by the League of Dominican American Elected Officials and hosted by New York State Assembly Member Adriano Espaillat, the protest was held outside the headquarters of NASDAQ, which trades oil futures.

Leaders of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) announced July 28 that they have reached a preliminary agreement for a new six-year contract, to replace the agreement that expired July 1.

By most media accounts Barack Obama’s tour of Iraq, Israel, the West Bank, Jordan and Western Europe was a big success. The visits showed his worldwide popularity is very broad and ranges from people in the street, to US military personnel, to heads of state.

In a triumph for African diplomacy, the ruling and opposition parties of Zimbabwe are in the midst of negotiations toward a power-sharing agreement. Despite Zimbabwean opposition calls for his replacement as mediator, South African President Thabo Mbeki succeeded in bringing together President Robert Mugabe and his opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), for their first face-to-face talks in a decade.

Three white youths have been arrested and charged by the Schuylkill County State’s Attorney with homicide and ethnic intimidation in the murder of undocumented Mexican immigrant Luis Ramirez in the small Northeastern Pennsylvania town of Shenandoah. Ramirez, 25, was attacked by a group of youths as he walked home on July 12, and witnesses said that his attackers yelled anti-Mexican epithets as they beat and kicked him. A kick in the head put him into a coma and he died on July 14 in a nearby hospital.

The World Court has issued a ruling demanding that the United States live up to one of the most important treaties to which it is signatory, the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The demand by the World Court is likely to fail because of a bizarrely arrogant stance taken by the state of Texas, but U.S. voters could make sure that the circumstances which led to this case never happen again.

The movement against right-wing extremism rose to a new level yesterday as Barack Obama held an economic summit in Washington DC, attended by two former Republican officials including former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neal and Securities and Exchange Commissioner William Donaldson. The meeting was entitled “Economic Security for American Families” and was held against a backdrop of the IMF's accesment that the US economic crisis is ongoing with inflation at its highest level in 17 years, a record deficit along with a loss of 62,000 jobs in June according to the BBC.

"This is all a phony issue," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said of the McCain-Bush offshore oil drilling proposal in an appearance last week on "Meet the Bloggers," a new online program by Brave New Foundation.