Offering asides, recommended links, blogworthy quotations, and more, In Brief is the Northwest Progressive Institute's microblog of world, national, and local politics.
“Canadian negotiators are demanding the United States roll back so-called ‘right to work’ [fire at will] laws – accused of gutting unions in some U.S. states by starving them of money – as part of the renegotiation of the North American free-trade agreement. The request is part of a push by Ottawa to get the U.S. and Mexico to adopt higher labour standards under the deal,” The Globe and Mail reports.
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“At the store on East 57th Street in Manhattan, organic fuji apples were marked down to $1.99 a pound from $3.49 a pound; organic avocados went to $1.99 each from $2.79; organic rotisserie chicken fell to $9.99 each from $13.99, and the price of some bananas was slashed to 49 cents per pound from 79 cents. The marked-down items had orange signs reading ‘Whole Foods + Amazon.’ The signs listed the old price, the new price and ‘More to come…’.
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“Russia is facing a showdown with European leaders over claims it is ‘abusing’ the international “red notice” system for arresting criminals, in an attempt to silence critics of Vladimir Putin,” reports The Telegraph. Red Notice is, not coincidentally, the title of Browder’s book about his experiences in Russia.
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“The business advisory councils that Trump has put together are exercises in public relations,” writes Joe Nocera. “They allow Trump to be seen to be presiding over the kind of serious, successful executives he never was himself. The executives attending these meetings are simply lending their prestige to a president who needs their validation.”
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Required reading from NPR.
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“The changes are coming at Boeing’s Shared Services Group (SSG), which employs about 3,000 people in the Puget Sound region and provides a wide range of support services to Boeing’s corporate and production units.”
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For the past few weeks the Swiss investment bank has been inviting people to workshops held today and yesterday in Bellevue to “find out what’s behind the post-election optimism”.
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They are gearing up to drop Fox. So that’s what the executives at Fox News are dealing with. They are dealing with a long-term and
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New York Times readers share their disgust with United Airlines for kicking a passenger off a plane in the most violent way imaginable.
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Politicians and regulators allowed the creation of today’s airline cartel: United, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines. Four carriers that have outsized and
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Mexico’s political leaders have wisely chosen defiance instead of capitulation. In a nationally televised address, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto declared that his country does not believe in walls and will not finance the border barrier that Trump has vowed to build. If the last few days have taught us anything, it’s that by uniting together against Donald’s bigotry, we can stop neofascism in its tracks.
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Netanyahu doesn’t want anyone interfering as he destroys diplomatic relations with the countries, some friendly to Israel, that “dared” to vote for the resolution declaring
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On Monday, the Seattle City Council took up a proposal which would stop all business with Wells Fargo due to the direct financing of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
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“The bank has sought to kill lawsuits that its customers have filed over the creation of as many as two million sham accounts by moving the cases into private arbitration — a secretive legal process that often favors corporations,” The New York Times reports.
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Must-watch TV: Senator Elizabeth Warren questions (and eviscerates!) Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf at Senate Banking Committee Hearing
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Earlier today, Hillary Clinton’s campaign tweetstormed a host of questions that Donald Trump should be compelled to answer after Newsweek published a piece by Kurt
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“These companies used to sell heroin and Agent Orange. Now, they want to form the world’s largest supplier of seeds and pesticides,” reports Bloomberg’s Lydia Mulvany. Yuck! NPI fiercely opposes this merger and will ask the governments of the United States and Europe to block it.
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Opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership is mounting in Australia, where critics have a stronger hand after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s party lost seats in recent parliamentary elections.
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Are you ready to help defeat the Trans-Pacific Partnership? Join progressive activists and socially conscious musicians for a free concert and rally against the disastrous
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Horror has come to another city: A truck ploughed into a crowd in the French resort of Nice Thursday, leaving at least 60 dead and
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From the BBC: “Tony Blair overstated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, sent ill-prepared troops into battle and had ‘wholly inadequate’ plans for the aftermath, the UK’s Iraq War inquiry has said.”
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