BOSTON/Government Center - 40 people attended a demonstration at Sen. John Kerry's (D-MA) Boston office on Tuesday to demand that the deficit-busting "Super Committee" - jointly selected by House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Harry A. Reid (D-NV) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) - focus on restoring the economy by creating jobs and ending the wars, not making more cuts to vital programs.

BOSTON/Government Center - About 40 environmental activists on bicycles converged at Government Center on July 7th to let Massachusetts residents know about Sen. Scott Brown's vote “to gut the Clean Air Act.” To show their unity they wore red t-shirts, chanted the slogan “Scott Brown let us down,” and carried puppets of Scott Brown with "fat cat lobbyists."

BOSTON/Government Center - Eighty people protested at City Hall Plaza early Wednesday evening in solidarity with Boston activists subpoenaed to testify in the ongoing grand jury investigation of WikiLeaks taking place in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia.

The Boston protest was organized by Civic Counsel, a new organization of Boston University and MIT students founded last week in response to the grand jury investigation. News of the subpoenas broke on June 9th when one of the Boston activists, David House, publicly disclosed his identity.

BOSTON/Government Center – Proposed federal cuts to the budget of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) continues to spark criticism from city officials and housing advocates. Convening a hearing in the chambers of the Boston City Council earlier this month, Housing Committee Chair and district 5 Councilor Rob Consalvo said cuts to Community Development Block Grants and the Section 8 Voucher Program would have a “severe impact.” At-large City Councilor Ayanna Pressley said cuts to HUD's 2012 budget affecting Boston was “a sobering shot in the arm...this is more than just balancing a ledger...behind every number there is a person and a life.”

BOSTON/Government Center - Temperatures dropped below freezing at the Government Center, but members of the American Civil Liberties Union and allied groups were out in force on Friday, marking the 47th anniversary of Human Rights Day with a vehement protest against what many view as the tacit continuation of U.S. torture policies under the Obama administration.

"We're here because we care about what our country is doing," said Nancy Murray, Director of Education at the ACLU in Massachusetts. "We need to really end torture, not just talk about ending torture. We need to hold people accountable."

BOSTON/Government Center – Members of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Alliance Coalition (MIRA) and the Student Immigrant Movement (SIM) today urged MA Senator Scott Brown to vote yes in support of the DREAM Act (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) legislation when it comes up for a vote this week in the Senate. Brown has indicated he would oppose the legislation which provides a way to citizenship for young immigrants who agree to attend college or join the U.S. military.

BOSTON/Government Center - In a nearly unanimous vote today, Chuck Turner was ousted from his seat on the Boston City Council, effective Friday December 3rd.

Thirty two days after being convicted in federal court of taking a bribe, City Council members voted 11 to 1 to support an order to remove the District Seven Councilor from the legislative body. Turner has served his district for eleven years.

Only Councilor Charles Yancey opposed the order calling on Turner to vacate his office.

BOSTON/Government Center - Last Friday, 40 people gathered in front of Senator Scott Brown's office in downtown Boston. The UMass Boston LGBT Equality Coalition, a group committed to advocating full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer identified people, organized the rally as part of a larger national week of action in honor of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician elected to public office who was later assassinated.

BOSTON/Government Center - Two Honduran activists presented the findings of a recent report by the Honduran human rights organization Committee of Relatives of Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH) to an audience of over 30 concerned area residents at City Hall last Wednesday. The report accuses the recently-elected Honduran President Porfirio Lobo Sosa of presiding over a dictatorship that is prosecuting grave human rights abuses on its own population. Lobo's election came after President Manuel Zelaya was forcibly ousted from the country by his own military last June in what has been widely recognized as a coup d'etat by the international community.

BOSTON/Government Center - Over 25 people congregated on a rainswept City Hall Plaza Monday at a rally called by the Massachusetts Mobilization for Climate Justice. The action aimed at pressuring politicians to push for more far-reaching policies to deal with the negative effects of climate change. Organizers also commemorated the 10th anniversary of the mass protests by labor and environmental groups against the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle - which were widely-credited with effectively shutting down the proceedings and forcing a public reevaluation of corporate-driven global political and economic agendas.