United States

"And, no, it's not going to end today. I can't tell you it's going to end tomorrow. I don't know when it's going to end. But it's for y'all to start." This is what Sedan Smith, the brother of Sylville Smith, the 23-year-old African American man shot dead by police, told Democracy Now! on August 15. "This is what you get! We're not the ones killing us! You're killing us! We can't make a change if you all don't change."

An American Muslim fencer, who is the country’s first Olympian to wear a hijab, says she does not feel safe in the US due to the country’s increased anti-Muslim rhetoric, The Independent said on August 5.

Since the mid 1930s, self-styled progressives and many socialists have often justified supporting one of the United States' two major capitalist parties by claiming that it is the “lesser evil” compared to the other one. The “lesser evil” is frequently the Democratic Party. In this year's election, the “lesser evil” is the war hawk and neoliberal Hillary Clinton as opposed to right-wing populist Donald Trump.

“While police tactics and accountability measures are being examined, many black people are also questioning their safety and place in society,” the San Francisco Chronicle wrote on July 31. “They worry about the next time they interact with police, and about the difficult conversations they must have with their children.” Black people make up 6% of San Francisco's population — and suffer 40% of the city's shootings by cops. The city's statistics on police stops of Blacks and violence mirror other cities, especially in the Midwest and South.

In a newly released interview conducted last year with Chelsea Manning, the jailed US whistleblower said she was “always afraid” of her government, which sentenced her to decades behind bars in a military prison. “I am always afraid, I am still afraid of the power of government,” said Manning, who leaked thousands of classified documents to Wikileaks in 2010, in an interview with Amnesty International published by The Guardian on August 3.

In a tableau becoming horrifyingly common, a transgender woman of color was found dead in Ohio on July 30, the victim of an apparent homicide. Skye Mockabee was found unresponsive in a parking lot around 8 a.m. on July 30 in Cleveland, Ohio, reports Cleveland.com. Mockabee had an apparent head-wound, and the individuals who found her called EMS. She was declared dead at the scene. She was 26 years old. Police are providing few details about Mockabee's death; no suspects have been arrested, and no possible motive for her murder has been given.

WikiLeaks release of nearly 20,000 e-mails and more than 8,000 attachments from seven officials on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) just before the party's convention meant a quick end for Debbie Wasserman Schultz's position as DNC chair, after the e-mails revealed favoritism toward the Clinton campaign and organized hostility to rival Bernie Sanders. But if the emails--and the convention itself--show anything, it's the undemocratic nature of the whole Democratic Party, and firing one official won't come close to fixing that.

Greens presidential candidate Jill Stein.

High-profile African-American academic, activist and socialist Cornel West, who strongly backed Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary race, talks to Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman on why he is backing the Green Party's Jill Stein for president.

As US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton led a team committed to delegitimising the politics of the late socialist president Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution, secret emails published by WikiLeaks reveal. Clinton publicly welcomed improved relations with Venezuela as Secretary of State, but she privately ridiculed the country and continued to support destabilisation efforts, leaked emails show.

The six richest countries in the world, who make up almost 60% of the world’s economy, are hosting less than 9% of the total number of refugees in the world, a July 18 report by British charity Oxfam found.

"After years of inhumane treatment, and having been held in conditions that the UN considers to be torture, Chelsea Manning, the Guardian columnist and whistleblower who has been in prison for years serving a 35 year sentence for exposing some of the U.S. government's worst abuses, attempted to take her own life July 5th, 2016," FreeChelsea.com has reported. "Now, Army officials have informed her that she is facing serious new charges directly related to her suicide attempt." In a special statement and call to action, the site reported the new charges include: