Northwoods Socialist Collective

Duluth is now going after folks living in their cars. With the Damiano Center's overnight parking program closed for the season, and the Warming Center not being allowed to offer their lot, folks have been overnighting in the parking lots of city parks. Duluth's response to this has been to order the police to drive them out. This past summer the City choose protecting grass over helping the unhoused. Now the City is literally choosing to make sure these lots are unused overnight so that the asphalt can get a good night's sleep.

Many progressives remained silent about ending the genocide in Gaza because they were afraid speaking out would both harm Kamala Harris’ chances and propel Donald Trump back into The White House.  If those organizations and leaders don’t want to be on the wrong side of history, it’s time to get off the sidelines and join the fight to stop the genocide. The election is over. Trump won. While many in the United States are justifiably filled with fear and dread about another Trump presidency, our Palestinian and Lebanese neighbors are also filled with fear and dread about the U.S.-made bombs falling on their families.

The outbreak of civil war in Sudan in April 2023 plunged the country into one of the world’s most devastating humanitarian crises. The current war, pitting against each other two reactionary forces — the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — erupted out of the ashes of the mass-led Glorious Revolution of 2019 which toppled Islamist dictator and neoliberal plunderer Omar Al Bashir. In the service of a land and resource grab, the SAF and the RSF, backed by regional and imperialist powers, have visited the world’s deadliest famine in 40 years on the country’s 51 million people. The two armed forces have inflicted mass killings, gender-based violence and torture, extrajudicial killings, and other heinous violations on the people. Deploying crude Arab supremacism, the RSF is carrying out an ethnic-cleansing campaign against Darfur’s Masalit people.

A record number of Americans in 2024 used an inheritance to help finance a down payment on their first home. That’s according to a new survey from the National Association of Realtors, which found Americans who bought homes for the first time between July 2023 and June 2024 were older and wealthier than in previous years. The report underscores the intensifying struggle many Americans face when buying a home, as prices have rapidly climbed to near-record levels and mortgage rates have remained stubbornly high. The survey found that first-time homebuyers had a median household income of $97,000, up from $95,900 last year, and the median age of first-time buyers rose to 38 years old, a new record high. A generation ago, a typical first-time homebuyer was in their late 20s, according to the report.

When a fire started in a Rice County landfill last year, it burned for close to a week and kept neighbors shut inside their homes to avoid breathing toxic air.  The fire was probably started by a battery. It also was not an isolated incident. These types of fires were occurring all around Minnesota. A waste fire in Koochiching County in 2017 cost a half million dollars, and Blaine lost a transfer station worth $20 million to a battery fire in 2018. Landfill battery fires occur every couple of days. You can watch a video of a battery fire showing how quickly they spread. 

On Thursday evening, Greek dockworkers protested for hours at the Port of Pireaus and stopped an arms shipment headed to Israel. Having found out that a container on a lorry had tonnes of bullets to be loaded onto a ship headed to Haifa, dozens of workers gathered at the gate of Piraeus and stopped the vehicle on a public road leading to the port. The container had been trucked from North Macedonia and held 21 tons of ammunition. It was to be loaded aboard a Marshall Islands-flagged ship bound for Israel.