History was made Tuesday night as democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani carried out a stunning upset and defeated Andrew Cuomo in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary. As the results became clear Tuesday night, Cuomo conceded and called Mamdani to congratulate him. The New York state assemblymember will now be the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City in November’s general election. “Tonight we made history,” Mamdani told supporters. “In the words of Nelson Mandela, it always seems impossible until it is done. My friends, we have done it.”

Moe Mitchell, national director for the Working Families Party, says Mamdani’s campaign helped “create a multiracial working class alignment against authoritarianism [and] for a type of politics that is hopeful, that is visionary, that says we want something, we don’t simply want to fight against something.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

We go to Madison, Wisconsin, to speak with The Nation's John Nichols about Tuesday's pivotal state Supreme Court election, in which liberal Judge Susan Crawford convincingly defeated conservative candidate Brad Schimel. Crawford’s election is a major victory for Democrats after billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk poured about $25 million into the Wisconsin race, helping to make it the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history. “This is a huge signal from a battleground state that Americans are genuinely upset, genuinely angry, I think, with Trump and with Musk,” says Nichols. Tuesday also saw a pair of special House elections in Florida where Republicans held both seats, helping to maintain the party’s narrow majority in Congress. While Democrats were unlikely to flip the deep-red districts, Nichols notes “there was a huge shift in both of the Florida districts toward the Democratic candidates.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Monday’s 1-0 victory over Japan in the final in Bogota, Colombia, was splashed on the front page of the Rodong Sinmun. That’s highly unusual for the main state-run newspaper, which normally runs articles and editorials about supreme leader Kim Jong Un.

“The front page of the Rodong Sinmun is decided by Kim Jong Un himself or by the Kim's Secretariat,” said Lee Hyun-seung, a researcher at the Seoul-based Global Peace Foundation who escaped from North Korea.

“North Korean citizens may think, 'We beat Japan and U.S. imperialism and won the Women’s World Cup.' In that sense, Kim Jong-un probably gave the order” to publish the article on the front page, he said.

The win puts North Korea in the same company as women’s soccer powerhouses Germany and the United States, which have also won the U-20 competition three times each.

Inspiring patriotism

In late July and early August, northwestern North Korea suffered flooding from heavy rains, destroying many homes and farms. 

Officials told RFA Korean at the time that North Korea refused offers of help from China to rescue people living on islands in the Yalu River between the countries out of fear that those rescued would try to escape to China permanently.

“Flood recovery work is underway right now but North Korea has nothing notable to achieve,” Lee said. “There were no economic or cultural achievements, and the only achievements are related to missile and nuclear development. 

“But now that there are achievements in the sports field, Kim Jong-un may think that he has saved face,” he said.

Video from state-run Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, showed people in the capital of Pyongyang looking at photos and articles about the team displayed on screens in subway stations and on their cell phones.

“It is effective because watching sports inspires patriotism and sends support and passion to their athletes,” Lee said. “Of course, the citizens like it. If a small country like North Korea achieves something, it is even more encouraging.”

Hug a police officer

Monday’s game winner came in the 15th minute when 17-year-old Choe Il Son dribbled in from the right side, sending a left foot shot past Japanese goalkeeper Akane Okuma’s outstretched hands. That made Choe the competition’s leading scorer with six goals.

Choe had grabbed attention earlier when a photo showed her publicly hugging a police officer after her team defeated the United States in the semifinal in Cali on Sept. 18. 

It was a rare display of emotion for North Korean athletes, who generally keep contact with outsiders to a minimum.

But Choe said that she was actually approached by the female officer.

“There is really nothing special behind it, it’s just that the citizens of Cali and the police have all gotten to know us,” she told Femina Football, a Colombian media outlet which exclusively covers women’s soccer. 

“The police and I have become very familiar with each other since the preliminaries and came all the way up to this point together, so she was happy and hugged me.”

Young individualism

The hug might point towards a more individualistic upbringing that North Korea’s younger generation experienced. 

These women were born during or after the 1994-1998 North Korean famine, an effect of the country’s centrally planned economy failing to absorb the shock that resulted from the collapse of the Soviet Union and a cessation of aid from Moscow.

In the years following that catastrophe, government salaries were nowhere near enough to live on, and people had to rely on themselves to make a living, usually by selling goods and services in the local jangmadang, or marketplace. 

The people therefore have grown less accustomed to collectivism over time, and are more difficult to control, according to Kim Sookyung, who escaped North Korea in 1998 and settled in Virginia.

“First of all, there is nothing the country can do in (its current economic) situation,” she said. “A sense of rebellion is bound to arise sooner or later. Those people have no choice but to be individualistic. They are exposed to a lot of foreign cultures unlike the older generation.”

This trend can be observed in other young North Korean athletes, who freely exchanged badges or took selfies with other athletes on the medal podium at the Olympics in Paris this summer.

This could suggest that authorities have recently begun allowing North Korean athletes to have light contact with outsiders, said Ahn Sung-hyuk, a North Korean escapee who is currently a student at Syracuse University.

“The State Security Department monitors all North Koreans overseas,” said Ahn. “Every single action is being monitored, so I think they may have been given permission to act like that.”

At the Olympics, after Ri Jong Sik and Kim Kum Yong of the North Korean mixed doubles table tennis team took pictures with Lim Jong-hoon and Shin Yu-bin of the South Korean team during a medal ceremony, observers were concerned that they could be punished, but they were featured prominently on state TV.

Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Park Jaewoo and Cho Jinwoo for RFA Korean.

Former President Donald Trump won New Hampshire’s primary on Tuesday with 54% of the vote to 43% for former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, the last major challenger to Trump’s Republican bid. “If there was a state she could win in, in the entire United States, it was this state, and she still lost by 11 points,” says Arnie Arnesen, longtime New Hampshire radio and TV host and former politician. “She doesn’t have a future.” On the Democratic side, President Biden won his party’s primary as a write-in candidate after the state refused to cooperate with Democratic National Committee rules, and therefore did not win any delegates from New Hampshire. Refusing to recognize the state’s primary and not campaigning in the state was “a stupid political mistake” by Democrats that allowed Trump’s claims to go uncontested, says Arnesen. “This is an invitation to fascism.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

On Saturday, August 19, a masked man armed with brass knuckles hit Dervišević, the owner of the independent news website Times.ba, on the back of his head and on his face while he was outside his family’s home in the eastern city of Brčko, according to media reports and the journalist, who spoke to CPJ.

Dervišević told CPJ that he and several witnesses made statements to the police, and he filed a criminal complaint. The journalist said he also requested 24-hour police protection for himself and his family until the alleged assailant was found, which the police granted on Wednesday.

Dervišević told CPJ that he thought the attack was retaliation for his reporting on efforts to oust the local mayor and alleged links between local politicians and criminal gangs.

“Authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina must take the vicious assault of journalist Mirza Dervišević very seriously and conduct a swift and credible investigation to determine whether it was linked to his recent reporting,” said Attila Mong, CPJ’s Europe representative. “Local journalists who report on matters of public interest and expose alleged wrongdoing in their communities are often vulnerable to such attacks. Authorities must send a clear signal that violence against the media will not go unpunished and that they are committed to ensuring journalists’ safety.”

The journalist posted graphic photos on social media of the injuries he sustained, including a split eyebrow and cuts to his face, knees, and the back of his head. He said he received treatment in a local hospital. 

Zekerija Mujkanović, chief prosecutor in Brčko, told CPJ via email that a criminal investigation was underway, and the police in Brčko had taken “concrete and effective measures to ensure the safety” of the journalist. 

CPJ emailed the police in Brčko for comment but did not receive any replies.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

They identified the victims as 14-year-old Ngan Min Haung, 20-year-old Shwe Min Tan and 25-year-old La Min Tan, all ethnic Chin from two villages in Tamu township.

They were arrested on Monday evening at a military checkpoint as they headed to Tamu town.

“The three were on two motorcycles. They were stopped at Kun Taung checkpoint and arrested for no reason,” said a local who didn’t want to be identified for safety reasons.

“The bodies were dumped after being heavily tortured. I heard they died on January 24, but when family members went to claim the bodies the soldiers lied, saying they hadn’t been arrested. But there are witnesses who saw troops arrest them at the checkpoint.”

They were beaten until Tuesday morning, according to sources close to the checkpoint who spoke with locals. They said they could hear the men screaming and saw the dead bodies lined up on Tuesday afternoon.

RFA was unable to contact the dead men’s families to confirm the information and calls to Sagaing region’s junta spokesman, Aye Hlaing, went unanswered.

Kun Taung checkpoint is 13 kilometers (8 miles) from Tamu town. It is staffed by troops from Infantry Battalion 266, based in Chin state, to the west of Sagaing region.

Locals said the troops have been strictly checking the flow of goods and people to Tamu city in recent months as fighting with ethnic armies and People’s Defense Forces intensifies in the region.

Nearly 3,000 civilians and pro-democracy campaigners have been killed by Myanmar’s military since it overthrew the country’s democratically elected National Unity Government two years ago, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma).

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

On October 19, four Congolese military intelligence agents arrested and detained Katembo, a reporter with local broadcaster Radio du Peuple Oicha, on a roadway between the capital of Ituri province, Bunia, and the eastern city of Oicha while he photographed a traffic jam and interviewed drivers, according to Katembo and Issa Musango, director of Radio du Peuple Oicha, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app. 

Local media reported that traders moving goods along that roadway expressed displeasure with the economic toll of traffic jams in that area, which have allegedly been caused by roadblocks erected by a local revenue authority.

Katembo said he was detained in a holding cell at the Beni military prosecutor’s office, where soldiers punched the journalist in the face for several hours. “I told them that I am a journalist,” Katembo told CPJ, adding that he has severe pain in his face and hearing problems from the beating and that he received treatment for at a local hospital in Beni.

“DRC authorities must launch an investigation into the arrest and mistreatment of Radio du Peuple Oicha journalist Christophe Katembo Muthahinga,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, from Johannesburg. “There is no excuse for denying journalists their ability to cover issues of public interest.”

Authorities released Katembo around 2 p.m. on October 20, following the intervention of Charles Ehuta Omeonga, a colonel and administrator for the territory of Beni. CPJ’s calls to Ehuta were not answered.

Vicky Lopombo, a military magistrate responsible for military prosecutions in the area, told CPJ by phone that he was not informed of Muthahinga’s arrest and would look into it.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

The post Love Supremacy Beats White Supremacy appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Kim C. Domenico.

On April 6,  hundreds of protesters convened outside the Walt Disney Company’s headquarters in Burbank, California. Their message: Boycott Disney.

Disney’s having a moment at the center of the latest culture war dust-up, with the allied forces of Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” base and the old “religious right” arrayed against an equally motley crew of something they call the “radical woke left.”

Under pressure from the latter, Disney spoke out against Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law, a bit of fentanyl-laced red marketing meat tested on the former’s support base there, and now spreading to other states.

Disney’s General Entertainment Content president, Karey Burke, followed that up with a stated intention to boost the presence and centrality of  queer characters in Disney productions: “We have many, many, many LGBTQIA characters in our stories and yet we don’t have enough leads and narratives in which gay characters just get to be characters and not have to be about gay stories.”

Right-wing response: Avengers! Assemble!

It seems that the American right has already forgotten, and is about to re-learn, a lesson it’s only recently given to what passes for an American “left”: It’s easier to implement and sustain a “buycott” than a “boycott.”

When Chick-fil-A came under attack for donating money to anti-LGBTQIA causes, its revenues didn’t fall. In fact, they soared to new records as Chick-fil-A became religious conservatives’ fast food chain of preference.

The Chick-fil-A boycott/buycott scenario had clearly drawn lines. You avoided it because you supported e.g. same-sex marriage, or you patronized it to “own the libs.”

With Disney, the lines aren’t nearly as clear. Disney is easy to buycott, hard to boycott.  Why? Because Disney owns and makes a LOT of stuff, not all of which is obviously Disney-branded. Let us count the ways: Walt Disney Pictures and Walt Disney Animation Studios. Pixar. Marvel Studios. Lucasfilm. 20th Century Studios and 20th Century Animation. Searchlight Pictures. The ABC television network. The Disney Channel. Freeform. FX. National Geographic.  A&E. ESPN. Hulu. Then there are its theme parks, hotels, and cruise line.

If you consume entertainment content, you almost certainly consume Disney content whether you notice you’re doing so or not.

Buycotting  Disney is as easy as continuing to do what you’re probably already doing.

Boycotting Disney? Well, that’s significant and probably unpleasant work. How many sportsball fans even notice that Disney owns ESPN? How many of them are going to give up watching their favorite teams’ games over it? Probably not many.

The proposed Disney boycott is essentially Old Yeller, except that few will likely notice or mourn when it’s put down. And frankly, I’d be happy to see all of these “culture war” battles end that way.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Thomas Knapp.

Amazon warehouse workers in Staten Island, New York won their election Friday to form the retail giant's first-ever union in the United States, a landmark victory for the labor movement in the face of aggressive union-busting efforts from one of the world's most powerful companies.

According to an initial tally released by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), there were 2,654 votes in favor of recognizing a union and 2,131 against. The number of disputed ballots, 67, is not nearly enough to change the outcome.

The historic unionization drive at the JFK8 fulfillment center was spearheaded by the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), a worker-led group not affiliated with any established union. Christian Smalls, the president of ALU, was fired by Amazon in 2020 after he led a protest against the company's poor workplace safety standards in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.

"When Covid-19 came into play, Amazon failed us," Smalls said during a press conference after the union victory was announced. "We want to thank Jeff Bezos for going to space, because when he was up there, we were signing people up."

Long-time labor journalist Steven Greenhouse wrote Friday that "the unionization victory at the Amazon warehouse in Staten Island is by far the biggest, beating-the-odds, David-versus-Goliath unionization win I've seen."

"America's wealthiest, most powerful, most seemingly indispensable company has lost to a pop-up coalition of workers," Greenhouse added. "A generation, the younger generation, is stirring."

Amazon, which spent $4.3 million on anti-union consultants in 2021 alone, worked hard to crush the unionization effort, forcing employees to attend hundreds of captive-audience meetings and threatening workers with pay cuts and other potential consequences.

But the company's union-busting campaign wasn't enough to overcome the upstart revolt led by ALU, which was founded just months ago.

Derrick Palmer, a co-founder of ALU and an employee at the Staten Island warehouse, said he expects Friday's victory to be one of many. The election still must be certified by the NLRB.

"This will be the first union," said Palmer, "but moving forward, that will motivate other workers to get on board with us."

In a statement, Amazon said it is "disappointed" by the results and signaled it may file formal objections claiming "inappropriate and undue influence by the NLRB." Just last month, the NLRB sued Amazon in federal court, alleging the corporation unlawfully fired a Staten Island warehouse employee in retaliation for workplace organizing.

The board asked the court to force Amazon to fix its "flagrant unfair labor practices" ahead of the Staten Island union election. On Friday, Amazon pointed to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce blog post characterizing the NLRB's legal action as "curiously timed."

Widespread celebration followed the official announcement of the union's election win on Friday, with progressive lawmakers and activists hailing the victory as a potential watershed moment for the U.S. labor movement, which has struggled for decades amid corporate America's relentless assault. Union membership in the U.S. declined by 241,000 workers in 2021, according to Labor Department figures.

"The organizing victory at Amazon on Staten Island is a signal that American workers will no longer accept exploitation," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) tweeted Friday. "They're tired of working longer hours for lower wages. They want an economy that works for all, not just Jeff Bezos."

The union has much difficult work ahead. As HuffPost labor reporter Dave Jamieson noted, it must negotiate "a first collective bargaining agreement with one of the most powerful companies in the world."

"It can take years for a union to secure a first contract, and some never manage to," Jamieson wrote. "Amazon would have a strong incentive not to offer the union a decent deal, for fear it would only encourage more unionization elsewhere."

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated a quote from Christian Smalls.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jake Johnson.

That's according to a new Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey, which finds that if the incumbent and his predecessor were to face off again, 47% of voters would support Trump while 41% would back Biden. Harris fares even worse in a hypothetical match-up, with just 38% of voters saying they would choose her, compared with 49% who would pick Trump. Twelve percent of voters remain undecided.

While the next presidential contest is more than two and a half years away, the poll "portends trouble for Democrats in their 2024 effort to maintain control of the White House after taking it back less than two years ago," The Hill, which obtained exclusive access to the survey, reported Tuesday.

"If the president does pursue and start to govern decisively using executive action and other tools at his disposal, I think we're in the game."

Although Trump could still face legal consequences for his role in fomenting a coup attempt against the U.S. government and for decades of tax evasion and other financial crimes, the far-right former president "has repeatedly hinted that he's considering another bid for the presidency and remains deeply popular among the GOP's conservative base," the news outlet added.

The results of the Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey—based on a representative online sample of 1,990 registered voters, conducted from March 23 to 24—corroborate the findings of the latest poll from NBC News, which reported Sunday that Biden's job approval had fallen to 40%, the lowest level of his presidency.

Majorities of respondents—1,000 of whom were contacted by phone from March 18 to 22—criticized the president's handling of the economy, which is undergoing inflationary pressure that many experts and much of the electorate blame on corporate profiteering, and said they think the country is moving in the wrong direction.

According to NBC, "The erosion in Biden's approval rating has been across the board among key demographic groups, including Black respondents (from 64% approve in January to 62% now), women (from 51% approve to 44%), Latinos (from 48% to 39%) and independents (36% to 32%)."

In addition, the survey found that when U.S. adults were asked which party should control Congress, Republicans enjoyed a two-point advantage over Democrats (46% to 44%) ahead of November's midterm elections, the first time the GOP has led on that question since 2014.

"What this poll says is that President Biden and Democrats are headed for a catastrophic election," GOP pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinions Strategy, who conducted the survey with Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, told the news outlet. "You cannot get down to the low 40s in presidential approval unless you have strained your own base."

That interpretation is shared by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

"We need to acknowledge that this isn't just about middle of the road, an increasingly narrow band of independent voters," Ocasio-Cortez said in an New York magazine interview published Tuesday. "This is really about the collapse of support among young people, among the Democratic base, who are feeling that they worked overtime to get this president elected and aren't necessarily being seen."

Related Content

For months, progressive lawmakers and advocacy groups—frustrated that Biden's legislative agenda has ground to a halt thanks to opposition from the GOP and a handful of right-wing Democrats—have urged the White House to use its executive authority to the fullest possible extent to challenge corporate greed, improve the lives of working people, and secure a livable planet. Previous polling, meanwhile, shows that voters from both parties overwhelmingly want Biden to crack down on corporate abuses of power.

Ocasio-Cortez, for her part, is part of the 98-member Congressional Progressive Caucus that recently gave Biden a list of 55 executive actions that his administration can take immediately, ranging from lowering sky-high drug prices to canceling student loan debt, expanding protections for immigrants, closing tax loopholes used by the wealthy, and declaring a climate emergency in order to mobilize an adequate response.

"If the president does pursue and start to govern decisively using executive action and other tools at his disposal, I think we're in the game," said Ocasio-Cortez. "But if we decide to just kind of sit back for the rest of the year and not change people's lives—yeah, I do think we're in trouble."

"I don't think that it's set in stone," she added. "I think that we can determine our destiny here."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Kenny Stancil.