United States

There’s no way of saying this without sounding a bit pretentious, but I was in Chicago a couple of weeks ago. And the most instructive person I met may have been a frail old Black woman in a newsagent, who picked up a newspaper with a photo of Barack Obama on it, and thrust it under my nose.
On June 30, the collective agreements covering actors in the US television industry expired.
On June 5 the Eleventh Circuit of Atlanta’s Court of Appeals upheld the federal convictions for conspiracy against the Cuban Five — five Cuban citizens held in US prisons since their arrest on September 12, 1998.
On June 5, the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five — the five Cubans who infiltrated right-wing anti-Cuban terrorist groups in Miami and have been imprisoned in the US since 1997 — issued a statement condemning the decision the previous day by an Atlanta court of appeals to uphold the sentences against the men.
“The Penobscot Nation is committed to continue our efforts until the fish, wildlife and plants are safe to eat, and the sacredness is restored to the river. Only then will our culture be whole again …”
“America, this is our moment”, stated Barack Obama on June 3 after winning enough delegates to become the presidential nominee for the Democratic Party.
New York Governor David Paterson has instructed all state agencies to revise policies and regulations to recognise same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions, the Associated Press reported May 29. Such issues include family health care plans, joint
On June 4, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in the US issued its ruling upholding the convictions of the five Cuban nationals being held in US jails, including the espionage and murder conspiracy convictions. The “Cuban Five” had infiltrated right-wing Cuban exile groups in Miami to help prevent terrorist attacks. At the same time, the US government has refused demands from the Cuban and Venezuelan governments to extradite convicted terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, responsible for blowing up a Cuban airliner in 1976 that killed all passengers, to Venezuela where he escaped from jail. Below, is an abridged statement at a May 20 press conference by Gloria La Riva on behalf of the US National Committee to Free the Cuban Five. For more information, visit http://freethefive.org.
Twenty-six years ago, Pol Brennan was an Irish Republican Army (IRA) prisoner in the infamous H-Blocks of Long Kesh prison, watching his friends die on hunger strike. Today, he is in solitary confinement in a Texas immigration holding centre.
In an unexpected ruling, the California Supreme Court overturned a state law banning same-sex marriage on May 15, opening the door to marriage equality for gays and lesbians in the biggest US state.
Silicon Valley janitors, mostly immigrants from Central America, walked out of Cisco Systems and Yahoo buildings in the first day of a Bay Area-wide strike intended to force building service contractors to sign a new agreement with their union,
Below is abridged from a May 13 US Socialist Worker editorial, <htpp://socialistworker.org>.