Outraged parents from the Coalition for Educational Justice shut down Monday evening's school board meeting after officials refused to let them comment on recent revelations that student test scores had dropped dramatically in 2010. read more »

Brooklyn’s Daniel Goldstein led the fight against the Atlantic Yards mega-project for years. Days before moving out of his home, he spoke with The Indypendent about why he fought so long and what he learned. read more »

A student speaks out during a March 4 rally in defense of public education. The rally, held outside Gov. David Paterson’s office at 41st Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan, drew more than 600 college and public school students and supporters. read more »

Under the MTA’s plan, students would be charged half-fares starting in September of this year and full fares beginning in September 2011. read more »

Four months after U.N. climate talks dominated by the world’s leading polluters broke down, the indigenous-led government of Bolivia will host a people’s conference on climate change. read more »

As soon as New York City Department of Education Chancellor Joel Klein leaned into his microphone and started to speak, the jeering began. When he proclaimed the DOE had to shut down 19 schools because “my first obligation is to our children,” the crowd of two thousand public school supporters roared in disbelief. read more »

Led by a band of billionaires, the school-reform movement has gained increasing momentum during the past decade, spreading its reach into urban communities across the country. But instead of truly transforming public schools, private funders want to restructure them. They insist running schools like a business is the solution. At stake is not only control over hundreds of billions of dollars in local, state and federal funding, but also the future of the next generation of schoolchildren. read more »

There is a method to his madness. Bloomberg and his Chancellor Joel Klein have initiated shut down or initiated the closing of more than 100 public schools, many of which have deep roots in their communities. read more »

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Parents, educators and community activists are mobilizing to save 21 public schools, including 16 high schools, that the New York City Department of Education (DOE ) has announced it will begin to phase out in 2010. read more »

Parents, educators and community members rallied in the freezing cold outside Tweed Courthouse late Monday afternoon to protest the Department of Education’s (DOE) recently announced plan to close 21 more public schools in 2010 including 15 high schools. “They dropped a bomb on the schools without any notice,” said William McDonald a Queens parent and a [...] read more »

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The Stella D’oro Biscuit Co. in the Bronx closed Oct. 8, putting 136 unionized employees out of work. After a strike that lasted nearly a year and an extensive legal battle, the factory has been sold and much of the plant’s equipment has been dismantled and shipped to a non-union shop in Ohio. read more »

It was still pitch dark outside and a thin, cold mist was in the air when the affinity groups charged with blockading Sixth Avenue and Union Street met for the last time. Scouts reported that the coast was clear. Sitting in the wooden pews of an old downtown Seattle church we reviewed our target once more. After days of nervewracking preparation, we were ready to do our part to shut down the World Trade Organization (WTO). read more »

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Supporters of slain New York City Indymedia journalist Brad Will are calling for the immediate release of Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno after a Mexican judge ruled that Moreno could be held in prison indefinitely in a murder investigation that activists say has gone horribly wrong.“As a friend I have been sickened, as his family has [...] read more »

Not interested in the usual patriotic hoopla that accompanies the 4th of July? Looking to celebrate the day with your fellow rabble rousers? Opportunities abound this year. Say It Out Loud! Starting at noon, former NYCLU Director and Public Advocate candidate Norman Siegel will lead his annual reading of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of [...] read more »

A National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge ruled today in favor of striking Stella D’oro workers ordering their employer to reinstate the workers to their former jobs under the terms of their old contract, pay back wages with interest and be willing to return to the collective bargaining table. The 136 workers at the Stella [...] read more »

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By John Tarleton A small, defiant group of protesters stands on a street corner in Burma’s capitol city of Rangoon chanting anti-government slogans. They are quickly swarmed by independent journalists and undercover police, both of whom are filming the action with small portable cameras before the demonstrators are hauled off to jail. The narrator of Burma VJ:Reporting [...] read more »

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Leftist candidate Mauricio Funes claimed victory late Sunday night in El Salvador’s presidential election. With 90 percent of the vote counted, Funes  leads conservative opponent Rodrigo Avila 51.3 to 48.7 percent, according to upsidedownworld.org. “This is the happiest night of my life, and I want it to be the night of El Salvador’s greatest hope,” Funes [...] read more »

Expectations for Barack Obama’s presidency have continued to soar since his historic election. Millions believe change is possible. But what kind of change? And to whose benefit? read more »

The Democratic Party’s progressive base has been repeatedly disappointed in recent decades by the triangulating, pro-corporate tilt of the party’s Washington-based establishment. Will things be different this time under President Barack Obama? read more »

I generally watch CNN only when I can’t avoid it—in airports or bus terminals or bank lobbies where the network’s endless loops of “breaking news” and “expert analysis” can’t be ignored.However, when I saw CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta’s mug in the news yesterday with him being touted as the frontrunner to be [...] read more »

Editor’s Note:  Former Georgia congresswoman and 2008 Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney has been in the headlines this week after Israeli patrol boats intercepted and rammed the SS Dignity, a ship she and 15 other activists were traveling in from Cyprus to Gaza to deliver humanitarian supplies. Below is an email message she sent [...] read more »

Barack Obama has inspired millions to believe that change is possible. But, what kind of change? And to whose benefit? Our country and our world are in crisis, and the tepid, incremental reforms Obama has been peddling aren’t going to cut it. It’s time to think outside the box. read more »

Long before Bush-bashing became commonplace, radicals were speaking out from Day One  and protesting against the policies of the most reactionary administration in modern U.S. history. Now, after eight long years, America stands on the verge of electing a charismatic, highly intelligent, moderate-to-liberal African-American president. So, who doesn’t want to party even if there are [...] read more »

Do presidential elections matter? You betcha! Each person’s vote is infinitesimally small so we should not fool ourselves into thinking that voting is the most important thing we can do to change the world. And yes, the two-year long media circus that builds up around the campaign is an energy suck that is best avoided. However, wishing away the ambiguous world of electoral politics does not change the fact that election outcomes often do make a difference. read more »

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The mind boggles at the economic news of the past month from the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and American Insurance Group (AIG) to the $700 billion bailout to the stock market crash that wiped out more than $2 trillion in paper wealth. But who would have imagined even a few weeks ago that [...] read more »

"Hand over the money. Or else.” That was the message, in so many words, that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson delivered to Americans after the financial markets went into a free-fall in mid-September. Paulson’s demand for a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street had all the subtlety of a convenience store stick-up, and the two major presidential candidates quickly acquiesced. read more »

Latin America’s move to the left continued Sunday as voters in Ecuador overwhelmingly approved a new constitution.  The 444-article constitution gives the government greater control over the economy including oil revenues, recognizes the inalienable rights of the natural world, legalizes gay marriage and guarantees social security benefits for stay-at-home mothers and workers in the informal [...] read more »

Refresh this page to see continuous updates during the protest. 6:47pm Final update: After winding through the financial district, the marchers came to the tip of Battery Park by the water and the crowd of roughly has 200 dissolved. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink says there is another protest planned tomorrow at 8am at the [...] read more »

I have no idea how I got on the email list of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights but their press releases have been filling my spam box at a furious clip since last week’s financial implosion. Disciples of the mid-20th Century philosopher/novelist who extolled the virtue of selfishness and who argued that the [...] read more »

There is a polite debate going on Inside-the-Beltway as well as on the presidential campaign about how exactly to give away the $700 billion that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is demanding as a bailout for the bankers and financiers who presided over last week’s economic meltdown. What hasn’t been visible is the shock and outrage [...] read more »

Last October, President Bush vetoed a bill to add four million kids to the rolls of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (or, SCHIP), a government program that subsidizes the health care coverage of children whose families who make too much money to qualify for Medicaid but too little to afford private health care insurance. The [...] read more »

By John Tarleton R. Paul Martin paced anxiously back-and-forth with a finger on one ear and a cellphone in the other. An hour after WBAI’s Listener Station Board (LSB) passed a  budget that would force the station to lay off about 25 percent of its workforce, he was waiting to find out if WBAI’s overseers at [...] read more »

Come on down! There’s been a tremendous outpouring of interest in tonight’s 2008 election panel with Naomi Klein, Jeremy Scahill, Roberto Lovato, Malia Lazu and Laura Flanders. However, there are still seats available for tonight’s event at the Great Hall at the Cooper Union. The deadline for purchasing tickets online ended at Noon today [...] read more »

As Hurricane Ike moved toward Galveston, authorities went to great lengths to evacuate the city’s 57,000 residents, reiterating National Weather Service warnings that to stay in the face of a 20-25 foot storm surge expected to sweep over the island would be to court “certain death”. On Friday, stragglers were rescued by everything from helicopter [...] read more »

As the eye of Hurricane Ike moves ashore this hour, my thoughts go back to the last big storm to score a direct hit the Houston-Galveston area. It was 1983 and I was a teen-ager living in Houston when Hurricane Alicia came barreling into our lives with 100 mph + winds. It’s one thing to [...] read more »

DENVER-- "It was completely mystifying to me. I couldn't tell what they were protesting about,” said the young downtown office worker who was sitting across from me on a light rail train. She was heading to her home in the suburbs of south Denver as she related her experience of watching a clash between police and protesters that sent scores of people to jail on the first night of the Democratic Convention. “It seems like they just wanted attention,” she concluded. read more »

Organized labor’s strength has been waning for the past three decades under both Republican and Democratic administrations. But after eight especially difficult years under George W. Bush, the labor movement is preparing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to help elect Barack Obama. During the Democratic National Convention, I caught up with John Sweeney, [...] read more »

DENVER– “It was completely mystifying to me. I couldn’t tell what they were protesting about,” said the young downtown office worker who was sitting across from me on a light rail train. She was heading to her home in the suburbs of south Denver as she related her experience of watching a clash between police [...] read more »

DENVER–Charles E. Bibb, Sr. was a 29-year-old civil rights activist when he joined the 1963 March on Washington. On Thursday night, Bibb, 74, was among the 80,000 people who flocked to to Invesco Field to watch Barack Obama accept the Democratic Party nomination. “This is the most glorious night of my political life,” said Bibb, a [...] read more »

Thanks to the $50 million that has been poured into securing Denver during the Democratic National Convention, the center of the city has been swarming all week with riot police on foot, bike, motorcycle and horseback even as protests have been consistently small. I spoke briefly with Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper about the security buildup [...] read more »

“Are you ready to put a Democrat in the White House?” Asked New York State Assembly leader Sheldon Silver. “Are you ready to crush the party of privilege?”A huge roar went up from the New York delegation that had assembled in the grand ballroom of the Denver Sheraton on Sunday evening. The welcoming reception, which Silver [...] read more »

As Obama prepares to accept the nomination, it’s time to get real about the Democrats. read more »

The cover story for the April 25 Indypendent featured Simeon Ferguson, an 86-year-old Crown Heights man suffering from dementia who had been saddled in 2006 with a $450,000 option adjustable rate mortgage (ARM ) that was fairly guaranteed to put his house in foreclosure. It was the kind of deal his bank—IndyMac—specialized in: highly profitable [...] read more »

In June 2004, New York City-based community activist and journalist Rosa Clemente helped found and coordinate the first-ever National Hip Hop Political Convention in Newark, NJ, which brought together over 3,000 people from across the country. Speaking afterward with The Indypendent’s Ana Nogueira, Clemente summed up her efforts: “If we don’t make some power moves [...] read more »

The Garifuna struggle to maintain their communal lands and culture highlights one of the ironies of the era we live in. Cultural diversity is increasingly celebrated even as it is swiftly disappearing. One of the clearest measures of this is the disappearance of languages. read more »

Five years ago this month, the Bush administration launched a “shock-and-awe” bombing campaign on Baghdad. read more »

With its focus on both Tomas’ quest for love and his emergence as an antiwar activist, Body of War brings to mind post-Vietnam films like Coming Home and Born on the Fourth of July. read more »

The social movements in Mexico are enduring a repression that we have not seen in many years. Felipe Calderón practically militarized the nation. There are roadblocks everywhere. read more »

Is your New Year's resolution to make media? Come learn more about our current New York City Indymedia projects including The Indypendent, the children's newspaper IndyKids and the newly formed IndyVideo. Watch "The Indypendent," a short documentary, meet volunteers and find out more about how to get involved! read more »

by John Tarleton Imagine this scenario: It’s your second presidential campaign. You have been running for the job almost non-stop for five years. You’ve reinvented yourself as a left-of-center populist and have staked all your hopes on winning the Iowa caucuses where you have had success in the past. You’ve raised $30 million but that’s only [...] read more »

1917—Great Britain gains control of all of historic Palestine at the end of World War 1 and issues the Balfour Declaration committing the British government to supporting a “Jewish national home” in Palestine. At the time, Jews make up less than 10 percent of Palenstine’s population and own about 2 percent of its own land. read more »

$11,282 Average annual funding per pupil at high schools citywide $9,601 Average annual funding per pupil at high schools with permanent metal detectors read more »

When the governor of the Mexican state of Oaxaca ordered riot police to shut down an encampment of striking teachers on the morning of June 14, 2006, years of frustration with poverty and government corruption exploded into the streets.Thousands of locals joined the teachers, and by the end of the morning, the police had been run off. Ignoring Oaxacan Governor Ulisses Ruiz and his rubber-stamp legislature, the people of Oaxaca took control of the capital city and governed themselves over the next four months. read more »

Brad Will was a New York-based independent journalist who was killed on Oct. 27, 2006, while covering a teacher-led social uprising in the impoverished southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. read more »

For the counter-recruiting movement to make a serious dent in the military’s recruiting efforts, it would need far more resources and committed organizers on the ground building youth-led, grassroots networks that would reach deep into the schools and other community institutions. This would need to happen not just in big cities or liberal college towns (which provide most of the success stories in the book), but in the small, forgotten towns in the interior of the country that are steeped in pro-military culture and provide a disproportionate number of the troops. While this may seem implausible, these are exactly the parts of the country that have been the most betrayed by the Bush administration and the war and to which countless disillusioned soldiers are returning. read more »

Seventeen-year-old Mychal Bell, the first of the six youths to go on trial, faced as much as 22 years in prison after being convicted June 28 of aggravated battery and conspiracy by an all-white jury. As the story of the Jena Six began to spread (especially on Black blogs and talk radio), national pressure on the town began to grow. By early September, attempted murder charges against three of the youths were reduced to aggravated battery and Bell’s conviction was overturned by a state appeals court. Following the Sept. 20 protest, charges against Bell were re-filed in juvenile court and he was released on $45,000 bond. read more »

When tens of thousands of people converged on Jena, Louisiana, on Sept. 20, they were joined by 36 New York-area residents who had boarded a bus in Harlem the previous morning. Sponsored by the Harlem Revolution Club, the bus carried a mix of seasoned activists and first-time protesters, all of whom had been galvanized by the case of the Jena Six. After returning, several of these modern-day freedom riders spoke with The Indypendent about why they went and what they learne read more »

Let all these children of privilege fight the “terrorists” in places like Sadr City, Ramadi, Baquba, Tel Afar and Salman Pak while their relatives hang on to the words of every email or phone call knowing they might be the last. And when this special Baghdad Brigade is on the verge of leaving Iraq (as Juan Alcántara was), let their tour of duty be extended another three months. read more »

Conventional wisdom has been turned on its head in recent years as climate secrets, past and present, have been unlocked. Evidence from past global warmings and coolings shows that small changes can gain momentum and drive much larger changes. Think of a car speeding downhill as the brakes fail. With the world’s average temperature having increased one degree Fahrenheit in the past century and expected to increase by a minimum of another two degrees Fahrenheit in the coming decades, the danger of a non-linear, “runaway” global warming grows. Here are some of the feedback loops that could drive this process if nothing is done: read more »

“We have freedom of speech, freedom to travel. Yet, we have these sanctions that stop us,” said Mark, another student who went on the trip. “If we’re fined all this money, it’s going to make the United States look bad for something that is so unnecessary.” read more »

Restrictions on U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba were first enacted in 1963 at the height of the Cold War. They were briefly relaxed during Jimmy Carter’s administration only to be reinstituted in 1982 by Ronald Reagan. read more »

Mar. 22, 2005 The city files a lawsuit against Time’s Up!, a NYC environmental organization, for allegedly participating in, and promoting, an illegal parade by advertising Critical Mass rides in fliers. read more »

They came. They marched. They went home on their air-controlled busses. read more »

Brad Will was someone who seemed to be everywhere. Most knew him as an Indymedia activist, but he was also a passionate environmentalist, freedom fighter, musician, and anarchist who was also close to the Earth First! movement where he was a beloved character by many. read more »

“This is a catastrophic region,” He writes. “Darkly violent places survive tenuously on remittances sent back from migrant family members working illegally in the U.S. and other countries. Nicaragua, the flagship of the failed revolutionary project, is like an orphaned child fallen in with a bad gang of glue-sniffing street kids.” read more »

On June 7, 1st Lt. Ehren K. Watada of the Ft. Lewis, Washington based 3rd Stryker Brigade became the first commissioned officer to announce that he would refuse orders to deploy to Iraq. “I wanted to find out everything I could about the war’s effect,” he told a packed press conference at a church building [...] read more »

Thirty-seven antiwar activists were arrested and dozens more were pepper sprayed, tazered and shot at with rubber bullets outside the Port of Olympia, Washington during 10 days of demonstrations at the end of May that sought to disrupt the shipment of Stryker urban combat vehicles (see sidebar) to Iraq. The protests marked the first time that Americans have tried to block the shipment of war materials since April 2003. read more »

Looking to write, but aren’t sure how to get started? The Indypendent will hold a two-part community reporting workshop on Saturdays June 3 and 10 from 1-5 p.m. at our office on 4 W. 43rd St. Apply Now! read more »

What Every Person Should Know About War Chris Hedges Free Press 2003 War in the end is always about betrayal. Betrayal of the young by the old, of soldiers by politicians and idealists by cynics,” Chris Hedges told graduates and their parents in a May 2003 commencement address he gave at Rockford (IL.) College one month after the [...] read more »

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Leading anti-abortion webmaster Neal Horsley runs a website that offers detailed information on doctors who provide abortions. In a May 5 interview on Fox News radio, Horsley boasted of having sex with animals as a young man. read more »

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When Nicaragua’s capitol city of Managua was destroyed by an earthquake in 1972, the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza responded by helping itself to international relief supplies and reselling them on the black market for a fat profit. The rage against Somoza multiplied in the coming years, and his government was overthrown by a popular insurrection in July 1979. read more »

The anti-immigration militia group known as the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps is trying to expand its “border patrols” to the Northeast. read more »

An alliance of homeless activists and religious leaders has wrested an agreement from the city to allow monthly interfaith memorial services for the dead at Potter’s Field on Hart Island. About 2,000 to 3,000 unknown or unclaimed New Yorkers are buried each year in the pauper’s cemetery, which is administered by the city’s Department of Corrections. “This is about dignity in death,” said Amy Gopp, a pastor with Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). “Anyone with a conscience would agree to that.” read more »

Located in the basement of the Free Methodist Church on the southern edge of Park Slope, the Free School is a rambunctious, easygoing refuge for kids fleeing the more structured system of learning that is the norm at most schools. read more »

“I came because nobody deserves a life like I had,” he said. “We had to carry the pain for our entire lives.” read more »

“I feel my husband and many, many other soldiers were used for the financial gain of those in power,” says the 41-year-old mother of five “I find a lot of scriptural support that leads me to believe that peace is the better way.” read more »

After two years of community meetings, a year of intensive fundraising and another eight months of searching, a group of pragmatic dreamers on Long Island finally have finally obtained their goal: 3,000 square feet of space in the middle of suburban hell. read more »

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“My fight might be over,” says Herold Noel. “But it’s not over for all the veterans who are still in my situation.” read more »

According to the Pentagon, 955,000 U.S. troops have already served in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The experiences of Noel and others like him have many observers worried that the country will be inundated by a wave of returning veterans with no place to go and reeling from psychological trauma, as happened toward the end of the Vietnam War. read more »

1620-2004 historical time line of "Thanksgiving." read more »

About 300 protesters gathered on Thanksgiving to commemorate the holiday’s forgotten history. Memories of massacres past and present lingered in the damp, late autumn breeze. read more »

Battle of Seattle Architect Still Looks to Uprood the System read more »

I’m still waiting to be blown away. read more »

The Student Liberation Action Movement (SLAM) had won eight consecutive student government elections at Hunter College since its inception in 1996. This spring they were swept out of office by a more than 2 to 1 margin. read more »

An impoverished third world nation rife with Islamic extremists spends decades trying to procure nuclear weapons. read more »

Critics of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to impose high stakes testing on third graders are increasingly concerned that New York’s Smallest are being sacrificed to satisfy the mayor’s political agenda. “It’s a gimmick,” says Paula Rogovin, who teaches first grade in Manhattan. “This doesn’t give the child a love of learning. And it certainly doesn’t give [...] read more »

Katherine Gun, a translator for Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, was arrested last March after she revealed a classified document urging British intelligence to help the United States bug the phones of all the members of the U.N. Security Council. The scandal led to the collapse of a second resolution authorizing war with Iraq, which would [...] read more »

Howard Dean likes to remind audiences that he was a family doctor before becoming governor of Vermont. John Edwards fondly recalls how he was a mill worker’s son before becoming a millionaire trial lawyer and a senator. Al Sharpton was ordained as a minister at the age of 10 and later worked as James Brown’s road manager. John Kerry campaigns alongside the buddies he fought with in Vietnam while retired four-star Gen. Wesley Clark busts Kerry’s chops for only being a lieutenant. read more »