Feb. 23, 2008

The online activism group MoveOn.org has launched an “Iraq/Recession” campaign, aiming to “make sure that politicians and pundits understand what voters already know: As long as we keep pouring that money down the drain in Iraq, we won’t have the money we need to solve our economic woes.”

MILWAUKEE — Undeterred by subzero temperatures and icy conditions, Wisconsin voters streamed to the polls in huge numbers Feb. 19, to give Barack Obama a resounding victory in the Democratic presidential primary. He defeated Hillary Clinton 58 percent to 41 percent.

South Korea: Opposition delays trade pact

Global warming: Fuel crops questioned

Mexico: Strike closes Wal-Mart stores

Norway: Minister rejects U.S. anti-missile plan

Iraq: Departures continue

Southern Africa: Food shortages predicted

The House of Representatives went into recess for 10 days Feb. 15 without acting on President George W. Bush’s demand that they extend his sweeping authority to engage in warrantless spying under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Bush’s legislation also granted retroactive immunity to AT&T, Verizon and other telecommunications companies that collaborated in spying on innocent Americans.

OAKLAND, Calif. — Janitors represented by Service Employees International Union held coordinated actions around California late last week as they kicked off their campaign to win new union master contracts covering workers in southern and northern California. The current contracts expire April 30.

Top labor leaders ended a trip to Colombia Feb. 13 by telling that country’s president, Alvaro Uribe, American unions will not support the U.S.–Colombia Free Trade Agreement until the killing of union members by right-wing death squads there is put to a stop.

CHICAGO — There are a million things people remember about Chicago’s first African American mayor, Harold Washington, who was elected in 1983. But the thing I remember the most about him was his great big hands. I remember as a child shaking or holding his hands, and now, thinking back, his hands seemed to symbolize the greatness of ordinary working-class people. And Washington, who unexpectedly died in office, will be someone Chicagoans will never forget.

Parents around the country are trying to find out if any of the meat involved in the biggest beef recall in U.S. history found its way into their children’s school lunches, or still might show up there.

Our deepest condolences go to the families and communities who recently lost loved ones to the epidemic of gun violence across this country. We share the dismay and outrage of Americans everywhere over the lives shockingly cut short. How many times must we see on TV or read about another tragic gun killing at a school, a shopping center or even a city hall?

Numerology?

Gay rights

Medicaid alert

Palestine

Gas schemes

Response on climate change

Labor in Virginia