Hundreds of Pittsburgh-area nurses rally for raises, better working conditions

Hundreds of nurses rallied in the Pittsburgh area Tuesday, calling on their employer, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) of McKeesport, to recognize their union rights and negotiate a contract that would include more staff and better quality jobs.

Nearly 170 nurses have been working at the hospital without a contract since April, local CBS affiliate KDKA reported.

“We want some reasonable raises, we want some of the things that the rest of the nurses in the s...

ADAPT activists put their bodies on the line to draw attention to Disability Integration Act

It was rush hour, but no one could leave the parking garage. Activists from ADAPT, a national disability rights group, hurled their wheelchairs and their bodies in front of AARP employees’ cars so they couldn’t leave. Someone spotted an opening. “You! There,” said one protester to another in a wheelchair, who then launched himself in front of a car, stopping the employee from driving away.

Roughly 200 ADAPT activists last Tuesday surrounded the Washington, D.C. headquarters of AARP,...

BREAKING: Stacey Abrams scores historic win in Georgia Democratic primary

Stacey Abrams, former minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives. has won the Democratic nomination in the Georgia gubernatorial primary Tuesday. The race has been closely watched in recent months, as Abrams faced off with another Stacey, Georgia state representative Stacey Evans.

Should Abrams win in November, she will be the first black woman governor in the United States. Either woman winning in November would have been historic, though: Georgia has never had a woman...

Michigan scrapped its racist Medicaid work exemption. But it’s still happening elsewhere.

Michigan Republicans are dropping a plan to exempt 17 overwhelmingly white counties from the state’s proposed Medicaid work requirements.

State Sen. Mike Shirkey (R), the bill’s sponsor, told the Associated Press that lawmakers are removing a provision to exempt Medicaid beneficiaries who live in counties with high unemployment, saying it’d be too difficult to administer. Instead, Shirkey said he is drafting a new bill that lowers the hours of work requirements and...

Religious leaders arrested in Capitol while demanding restoration of Voting Rights Act

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Revs. Jesse Jackson, William Barber, and other prominent religious leaders were arrested for demonstrating in the U.S. Capitol on Monday, demanding the restoration of the Voting Rights Act and the end of racial gerrymandering.

Dozens of others were also arrested across the country as part of the second week of protests organized by the revival of the Poor People’s Campaign, a movement that originated in 1968 with Martin Luther King Jr. at the helm. The...

Dana Loesch has no clue how Planned Parenthood is funded

National Rifle Association national spokesperson Dana Loesch thinks that, instead of addressing gun violence by talking about guns, America should stop reimbursing Planned Parenthood for providing medical care. Doing so, she claimed, would magically free up $500 million for the federal government to pay for the NRA’s dream of prison-like schools with metal detectors and armed guards everywhere. It would not.

Days after Santa Fe, Texas, became the latest community to see a mass...

Arkansas Democratic primary raises questions about the party’s future

Paul Spencer has known his fellow Democrat Clarke Tucker, for a long time. To hear him tell it, the Tucker he knows is a “man of integrity and values.” But something changed when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) showed up in town.

“Clarke… spent $350,000 over the last couple weeks. He bought a poll, he got some pretty vanilla advertising,” Spencer, who’s running against Tucker in the Democratic primary in Arkansas’ second district said in an interview with Thin...