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A massive storm system loomed over the biggest cities of the Midwest on Wednesday, pushing extraordinary winds and heavy rain — and perhaps even a derecho, a rare, explosive wind pattern that's like a hurricane on land.Almost 75 million people were in the path of the storm at the beginning of what Mike Seidel, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel, said was going to be a "long and ugly night" fo...
The Senate’s staunchest advocate for transferring military rape cases to independent prosecutors to contain a rape epidemic in the ranks said Wednesday she was distressed by the rejection of her proposal, saying, "The victims’ voices aren’t being heard."“To reverse this crisis, I do not believe it will be enough if we do not seize the opportunity and embrace the kind of systemic reform that will t...
The dilemma confronting lawyers trying to pick a jury in the George Zimmerman trial was summed up neatly by a member of the pool on the second day of the selection process.“Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last year, it’s been pretty hard for people not to have gotten a lot of information,” the woman said after being quizzed on what she knew about Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin and their ...
On the first full day of the immigration reform debate in the U.S. Senate, more than 50 advocates and allies of working families flew to Washington, D.C., to ask members of Congress to support a plan that includes a road map to citizenship for aspiring Americans. Community leaders from nearly half the states in the union were in Washington to act as citizen lobbyists. Meanwhile, labor activists in numerous other states visited the offices of members of Congress in their home district to rally support for the bill.
New Jersey lawmakers are considering a bill that would require drivers to hand over their cell phones along with their licenses and registrations when talking to police after a car accident. The bill, proposed by state Sen. James Holzapfel, would give police the right to thumb through the phone’s history of calls and text messages without a warrant, under the pretense of assessing whether or not t...
With the rapid rise of worker centers and alternate ways to gain a voice on the job, a traditional union is no longer the only way to organize and bargain for paid sick leave, a raise and other workplace rights. Just look at the Walmart strikers and restaurant workers speaking out about the need for paid sick leave. Worker centers representing domestic and food service workers and groups like the Dancers’ Alliance and Working America, the AFL-CIO's community affiliate, are expanding the definition of what it means to be a part of the labor movement.At the Netroots Nation 2013 conference, a group of people representing traditional labor and worker centers will be discussing "Alt-Labor" in a panel on Friday at 4:30 p.m. PDT.
