The landmark federal trial, Floyd vs. City of New York, which challenges the constitutionality of stop-and-frisk practices used by the NYPD. Lawyers with the Center for Constitutional Rights who are bringing the class-action suit believe it will be the “trial of the century,” probing whether the police have been unlawfully stopping black and Latino young men.

As the New York Times noted, the class-action “claims to represent ‘hundreds of thousands if not millions of people’ who …

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In olden days, it used to be that the bad guys robbed the banks. Now it seems the bad guys are running the banks, at least the big ones, and robbing the rest of us. Nearly every day, newspapers have another disturbing report about how the largest and most influential banks managed to escape prosecution for their blatant fraud or else finagled outrageous subsidies and profits from their monopolistic dominance of the financial system. The …

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In recent years, Microsoft has become one of the most gay-friendly corporations in America. Yet, as the company unveils a new advertisement featuring a same-sex wedding and signs onto a brief supporting marriage equality, Microsoft provides support for CPAC, the agenda-setting Republican conference that has moved to eject gay Americans from the conservative movement.

As Americablog reported, for the second year in a row, CPAC refused to allow GOProud, a right-wing gay advocacy group, from participating …

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The University of Tennessee wants to allow hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas on a state-owned tract of rolling woodland and use the revenue to fund research into the environmental impact of such drilling — a proposal that environmentalists condemn as a conflict of interest.

The unique proposal is being considered as national debate continues over “fracking.” Energy companies use the procedure to remove gas or oil from rock formations by forcing …

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If, as Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote, “the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons” then we are a nation of barbarians. Our vast network of federal and state prisons, with some 2.3 million inmates, rivals the gulags of totalitarian states. Once you disappear behind prison walls you become prey. Rape. Torture. Beatings. Prolonged isolation. Sensory deprivation. Racial profiling. Chain gangs. Forced labor. Rancid food. Children imprisoned as adults. Prisoners forced …

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Obama’s visit to Israel will cover security in the Middle East, but he doesn’t have a ‘peace plan in his pocket’ say officials. Photograph: Atef Safadi/EPA

Israel will use President Obama’s visit on Wednesday to try to persuade the US to carry out air strikes on Syria if there is evidence that Syrian missiles are to be handed over to Hezbollah in Lebanon, or at least to give full support to Israeli military action to prevent …

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CAIRO, Egypt — It seems police here have finally had enough.

Earlier this month — following more than a month of clashes between security forces and protesters, in which at least two policemen died — riot police and regular officers started a near-nationwide strike to protest intolerable working conditions and what they say is their role as political pawns in the government’s fight with the opposition.

Egyptians say they’ve noticed little difference with the police, whose notorious …

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On Saturday, demonstrators gathered at a candlelight vigil on a street corner in the borough and then marched to a police station in an ongoing protest over the death of Kimani Gray, the 16-year-old boy who was fatally shot by police officers over a week earlier.

Hundreds of police officers filled the streets surrounding Saturday’s evening demonstration.

“As I biked over here from East 16th Street, I counted at least one police car per block — 40 …

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Cyprus delayed by 24 hours a vote in parliament on a controversial plan to rescue the tiny island nation, and eurozone finance ministers were reported to be preparing emergency talks Monday to prevent the plan from backfiring.

An unprecedented tax on bank deposits as part of the €10 billion rescue announced Saturday led to a run on cash machines in Cyprus. It also spooked investors, who feared that other weak eurozone states may be forced …

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WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to nominate the government’s top-ranking civil rights lawyer as the new secretary of Labor on Monday, a key position as the administration prepares to take on immigration reform.

Thomas E. Perez’s nomination had been expected, but the administration said last week that the announcement was not imminent. If confirmed by the Senate, Perez would be the only Latino in Obama’s second-term Cabinet. He is the assistant attorney general for the Justice …

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