Following the first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, one question is on the minds of millions of ordinary Americans and the US ruling class: “How the hell are these our only options?”

In the early hours of this morning, it was announced that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will finally become a free man. This news will of course be celebrated by all those who campaigned for his release. Yet in a final injustice, Assange is currently on a plane bound for Saipan, in the American-controlled Mariana Islands, to plead guilty to an espionage charge. Thus US imperialism, which has never forgiven Assange for exposing its crimes, exacts a final measure of vengeance.

On June 10, RCA comrade Milos Minos will appear in court for an unusual crime: discussing wages and working conditions with their own coworkers at the Minneapolis International Airport.

On the opening day of the founding congress of the Revolutionary Communist International, we were proud to receive fraternal greetings from comrade Ivan Pinheiro, the historical leader of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), and member of the Central Committee of the newly founded Brazilian Revolutionary Communist Party (PCBR).

On Thursday, May 30, Donald Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records to influence the 2016 election. Outside the Manhattan courthouse, the Republican denounced the trial, saying, “This was a rigged trial, a disgrace.” Contrary to the jury’s verdict, Trump declared himself not only innocent, but “very innocent.” Despite these protestations, he has made history once again—this time by becoming the first American president to be a convicted felon.

On 17-19 May, 110 communists from all over Mexico (and abroad) met to found the Revolutionary Communist Organisation (RCO), which will be the Mexican section of the Revolutionary Communist International.

What began with teachers’ protests over pay rises has expanded into a week-long police riot and a grassroots rebellion of teachers, health, energy and other state workers in the province of Misiones, in the far northeast of the country, 1,000 km from the capital Buenos Aires.

In an electric atmosphere, nearly 400 communists gathered in Montreal from across Canada and Québec and officially founded the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP)! Our goal: to be the generation to overthrow capitalism in our lifetime, and lay the foundations for building a society free of exploitation, violence and oppression. 

Comrades, we write to you in solidarity as we are confident we share the goal of overthrowing US capitalism and imperialism.

Here, we publish two eyewitness reports from our comrades who were involved in the encampments in Alberta when the police violently broke them up. Videos of police brutality from these campuses went viral on social media over the weekend, fueling outrage at the violation of the right to protest. These occupations are the first demonstrations in Alberta to be broken up physically by the police in a very long time.

On Tuesday night, police stood by as a mob of Zionist extremists were allowed to violently assault the Palestine solidarity encampment at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The peaceful pro-Palestine protests breaking out across the USA have been smeared as violent, racist and antisemitic by the media a politicians of all stripes. But there has been a conspiracy of silence around the real overt racism and extreme violence of the Zionists attacking campuses these past few days.

The Palestine solidarity encampment movement has come to Canada. This escalation of the struggle is a breath of fresh air.

The government of Javier Milei is once more accelerating the deterioration of workers’ living and working conditions. Adding to the list of government subsidies which have been eliminated over the past few months, today he is attacking subsidies for long-distance train fares as well as those that serve the suburbs of Buenos Aires, which many poor workers depend on for their daily commute. Ticket prices will rise an average of 54 percent, although they will rise by 2,000 percent for long-distance trains.

Last week, workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee voted to join the United Auto Workers (UAW). The overwhelming result—2,628 to 985—is the UAW’s first success at a foreign-owned automaker in the South. UAW President Shawn Fain called it “the first domino to fall” in the union’s campaign to organize 13 companies including Tesla, BMW, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, and Hyundai. The next target is a Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Alabama where 5,200 workers will vote May 13–17.

Student activists have escalated the Palestine solidarity movement significantly over the past week, establishing encampments at campuses across the country. The goal of the students is to divest—that is, cut all financial ties—from companies that are aiding Israel’s war.