Idaho prisoner faced botched execution, fights new attempts

Vol. 88/No. 11 - March 18, 2024
Thomas Creech, center, at clemency hearing before the Idaho Commission of Pardons and Paroles Jan. 19 with his lawyer, left. Prison authorities tried for an hour to execute him Feb. 28.

In an hourlong botched execution Feb. 28, prison authorities at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution failed to find a vein to kill Thomas Creech by lethal injection. The 73 year old was stabbed eight times but the executioners were unable…


Thousands turn out to join Navalny funeral, protest Putin, Ukraine war

Vol. 88/No. 11 - March 18, 2024

Several thousand people turned out for the funeral of Alexei Navalny, a longstanding political opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin who died in a gulag prison Feb. 16. Participants used the event to express their condemnation of Putin’s regime and…


Athens meeting celebrates book on Cuba’s socialist revolution

Vol. 88/No. 11 - March 18, 2024
Aramis Fuente Hernández, Cuba’s ambassador to Greece, speaks at launch of Greek edition of Aldabonazo by Cuban revolutionary Armando Hart. Translator Sappho Diamanti on right.

ATHENS, Greece — Some 40 people gathered here Feb. 24 to celebrate the Jan. 1 anniversary of the Cuban Revolution and for the launch of the newly published Greek edition of Aldabonazo, Inside the Cuban Revolutionary Underground 1952-58 by Armando…


Airport cleaners, SEIU 32BJ rally in Pittsburgh

Vol. 88/No. 11 - March 18, 2024

PITTSBURGH —Aircraft cleaners and other workers at Jetstream Ground Services at the airport here are organizing to get better conditions and an end to boss harassment. On Feb. 23, members of Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ took a bus…


Widespread Iran election boycott shows weakness of regime

Vol. 88/No. 11 - March 18, 2024

The Iranian government claims that 41% of those eligible voted in the March 1 elections to the parliament and the Assembly of Experts, the body that picks the country’s “Supreme Leader.” But even that figure would be the lowest voter…


Health workers in Australia protest parking fees

Vol. 88/No. 11 - March 18, 2024

SYDNEY — Some 40 health workers, members of the Health Services Union, joined a lunchtime rally and march at Liverpool Hospital here Feb. 29 to protest significant hikes in parking fees imposed by the New South Wales state government. Michael…


Attack on Jews at university in Canada pushed back

Vol. 88/No. 11 - March 18, 2024

A proposal for the student government, known as the Alma Mater Society, to organize a referendum at the University of British Columbia to evict the Jewish students’ organization Hillel from campus by cancelling its lease, was rejected Feb. 28. After…


UK rail workers strike against two tiers, demand better pay

Vol. 88/No. 11 - March 18, 2024

MANCHESTER, England — “They say low pay. We say no way!” chanted rail workers outside the offices of Carlisle Support Services Feb. 21 during two days of strike action here. Earlier in the day more than 70 of them joined…



Carl Skoglund: lifelong communist, ‘old guard’ union fighter

Vol. 88/No. 11 - March 18, 2024
Minneapolis Teamsters Local 544’s executive board meeting in November 1937. From left, Farrell Dobbs, Grant Dunne, Carl Skoglund, V.R. Dunne, Miles Dunne, Jack Smith, Bill Brown. Skoglund, Cannon said, “played a big role” in victorious 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strikes.

One of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for March is Speeches for Socialism by James P. Cannon. Below is an excerpt from Cannon’s talk at a January 1961 Los Angeles meeting celebrating the life of Carl Skoglund. Both had been…