On January 16, 2013, just after 5 AM, 12 sheriff’s deputies and 10 Portland police officers forcefully evicted the original Portland foreclosure fighters – Debbie and Ron Austin – from their NE Portland home. The eviction was at the demand of the government sponsored and funded mortgage finance vehicle, Fannie Mae.

The family was evicted, but their home is not empty. A force of armed private security guards from McRoberts Security was immediately installed in Debbie …

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Lost in the shuffle of last year’s big fiscal cliff deal was the deal that didn’t happen on a new farm bill.

One of the major points of contention was funding for food stamps through the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, run by the US Department of Agriculture. Republicans in the House proposed steep cuts: $16.5 billion over the next decade, which would eliminate food assistance to as many as 3 million low-income Americans. The Senate countered …

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WINONA, Minn. (WCCO) – Police arrested 35 protesters who shut down silica sand mining operations Monday at two facilities in Winona, Minn., authorities said.

The Winona Police Department said it first arrested 19 people at CD Corporation, located at 968 Riverview Drive. The company reportedly called authorities after protesters walked onto its property and refused to leave.

CD Corporation co-owner Dan Nisbit says the protest cost his truck drivers money.

“When something like this happens, they’re not being …

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TOKYO — Two years after a triple meltdown that grew into the world’s second worst nuclear disaster, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is faced with a new crisis: a flood of highly radioactive wastewater that workers are struggling to contain.

Groundwater is pouring into the plant’s ravaged reactor buildings at a rate of almost 75 gallons a minute. It becomes highly contaminated there, before being pumped out to keep from swamping a critical cooling …

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New evidence has emerged that the systematic violence against ethnic Rohingya in Burma – “described as genocidal by some experts” – is being actively supported by state agencies. But the violence’s links to the country’s ambitions to rapidly expand fossil fuel production, at massive cost to local populations and to the environment, have been largely overlooked.

Over 125,000 ethnic Rohingya have been forcibly displaced since waves of violence swept across Burma’s Arakan state last year, continuing …

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Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today.

Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films.

Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com/user/jsjkim, …

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A Senate committee today backed sweeping privacy protections requiring the government, for the first time, to get a probable-cause warrant to obtain e-mail and other content stored in the cloud.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the package on a voice vote after about 30 minutes of debate, and sent the measure to the Senate floor, where it faces an uncertain future.

The legislation, (.pdf) sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), the committee’s chair, and Michael S. Lee …

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When it comes to dampening the effects of the sequester Washington could not find common ground on cancer patients, disabled veterans, and seniors facing travel hardship. But rich frequent flyers? No problem. Somehow the cool saucer of the Senate that can not seem to ever get anything done from guns to immigration sprang in to action – TARP style – to make sure their jet setting constituents/donors would not have to wait.

…

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Watching professional broadcast journalists attempt to compete with social media hobbyists for any nugget of information during last week’s manhunt for suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing, many us felt a familiar dread. We know, either intuitively, through direct experience or via professional training, that media have a collective power to help diffuse or fuel the fear and tension that so often triggers racial violence in this country. Despite all of the post-9/11 reflection and …

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As Mary Kate Shannon waited to find out if she was pregnant after being raped for the second time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru, the health care coordinator told her her options were limited. “If I were pregnant, the Peace Corps could not pay for the abortion due to some kind of federal law,” Shannon recalled in an interview with Salon. They would, however, pay for parenting classes.

“I felt betrayed,” Shannon said, “I …

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