The latest floods in Kenyan capital Nairobi killed at least 108 people. This death toll wasn’t just caused by a natural disaster: while wealthier residents were protected from harm, Kenyans living in informal settlements were left to fend for themselves.
Ken Burns talks to Jacobin about his new documentary, The American Revolution; the ongoing project of 1776; and why the Declaration of Independence was far more than a revolt of slaveholders and the wealthy.
A pro-Israel group is set to spend half a million dollars in a California congressional primary to boost the campaign of Jasmeet Bains, who recently walked back comments calling the Gaza war a genocide. Democratic Party leadership is also backing Bains.
Facing the prospect of paying a bit more in taxes, billionaires are responding calmly and rationally: by calling themselves a marginalized, oppressed minority group being traumatized.
As trust in media craters and revenue dries up, legacy news outlets are filling their feeds with celebrity heart-to-hearts and personality-driven coverage. The result is journalism that fawns over fame and power rather than holding it to account.
A collection of bowlers has filed a class-action lawsuit accusing private equity–backed corporation Bowlero of a multiyear scheme to consolidate bowling centers, driving up prices and degrading lane quality.
Millions found their names missing from electoral rolls ahead of a state election in West Bengal that was won by the BJP. Officials call the revisions routine verification but critics say they disproportionately affected poor, rural, and minority communities.
The Right’s con men promise liberation for those who feel themselves superior but are held back by the leveling institutions of mass mediocrity. Their rhetoric intoxicatingly combines feelings of superiority with a sense of dispossessed victimization.
Former President Barack Obama just unveiled his presidential library, an oligarch-funded shrine to himself. It’s a perfect bookend to a presidency that bailed out Wall Street donors who were throwing millions of Americans out of their homes.
A renewable energy transition doesn’t have to mean higher prices for consumers. On the contrary: if managed well, it could actually offer lower energy prices.
Faced with declining market share and poptimist contempt, rock music once seemed bound for the dustbin of history. But an industry crisis and a moribund liberal political establishment are driving a rediscovery of rock’s potential.
Opponents went all in on smearing Graham Platner as a Nazi based on a bad tattoo choice. It didn’t work. Maine voters decided they’d rather have universal health care and an end to reckless wars than a polished politician with an unblemished past.
It’s not just Graham Platner. In Maine’s gubernatorial race, logger and labor leader Troy Jackson is mounting an economic populist campaign that promises to build bridges between urban progressives and rural working-class voters.
At this point, the Devil Wears Prada franchise is a major cultural phenomenon. And The Devil Wears Prada 2 is a worthy addition, with more than a dash of topicality in its treatment of some of the bleaker aspects of contemporary existence.
California’s heat protections for workers decreased heat-related deaths by 31% in recent years. With deaths climbing around the United States, extending these protections throughout the country could save as many as 1,500 lives each year.
The Trump administration has hired a team of private debt collectors — known for widespread abuses when previously hired to collect federal student debt — to hound immigrants slapped with new multimillion-dollar civil penalties for not leaving the US.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais last week dealt a major blow to the Voting Rights Act. The ruling underscores the many antidemocratic features of our political system and the need for a new, actually democratic constitution.
Watchdogs identified a deterioration of democratic space in Italy, Germany, and France last year. Using so-called emergency security measures, the EU’s leading states are squashing the right to dissent.
The average successful Hollywood biopic is cynically dishonest and rote in its formulaic box-checking. Michael, the new film on the life of Michael Jackson, is all that and worse.
Beating Donald Trump isn’t enough, argue the Democratic Socialists of America’s cochairs. A united left-labor campaign in 2028 could mobilize millions, challenge Democratic Party failure, and put a working-class program on the national stage.