Inside Stories

Donald Trump’s announcement that the United States would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel predictably sent shockwaves throughout the Middle East and reverberated around the world. Anger and outrage have been seen on the streets of Palestinian cities, as well as in major cities around the world, where diaspora Palestinians and their allies have launched a wave of protests in condemnation of this outrageous provocation by Washington.

JERUSALEM — While U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement to move the Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem has dangerously fueled an international powder keg, another keg is burning in the heart of that city.

LOS ANGELES — The current efforts against the cash-money bail system in the United States can look to the Movement for Black Lives as their spark. Over the last year, that movement has brought into the public consciousness the costs — financial and human — of that system, as well as the existence of more humane alternatives to it.

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA (Analysis) — Saudi Arabia — one of the wealthiest countries in the Middle East — has spent nearly the last three years bombing its southern neighbor Yemen, the poorest nation in the region, with U.S.- and U.K.-supplied weapons, refueling, and training.

On Thursday, December 4, 1969, at about 4:30 AM, three unmarked Chicago police cars and a panel truck left the 26th Street office of the Cook County state’s attorney and headed west. The lakefront air was bitterly cold, and the vehicles moved deliberately past the empty lots, gutted warehouses, and walk-ups that dotted the city’s west side like rows of rotting teeth.

ATHENS, GREECE — Greek-born economist Yanis Varoufakis, who served as finance minister of the SYRIZA-led Greek government from its election in January 2015 until July 2015, has regularly been afforded rockstar status by the international mainstream media and by such personalities as Noam Chomsky and Julian Assange.

An Israeli weapons contractor is being investigated for an alleged “live fire” test of a suicide drone in Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory whose ownership is disputed by Azerbaijan and Armenia. If the allegations of this drone’s use on Armenian soldiers are true, it would constitute a criminal act and one that testifies to the long reach of the growing military-industrial complex in Israel.
 

Update: Baltimore’s Police Commissioner has officially requested the FBI to take over the investigation of the death of 18-year veteran Sean Suiter. Suiter was killed two weeks ago one day before he was scheduled to testify in front of a federal grand jury investigating racketeering charges against eight Baltimore police officers. Suiter was not a target of the grand jury nor was he suspected of any illegal activity.

HONDURAS (Analysis) — As Hondurans went to the polls to elect a new government Sunday, the country was looking both forward to the future and backward to a recent and tragic past. With the contest primarily between current right-wing President Juan Orlando Hernández (running for re-election despite being forbidden by the country’s constitution) and opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla, citizens faced a stark choice between a continuation of the current regime and a different, albeit less than fully progressive, center-liberal course.

Three months after Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, more than 47,000 flood victims continue to live in hotels. Tens of thousands more are living with relatives, in barely habitable homes, or scraping by with other arrangements.