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.

BOSTON/Government Center - At noon on Thursday July 23, the sounds of downtown traffic were joined by the rallying shouts of the Greater Boston Labor Council (GBLC) and its community allies outside the offices of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans. Members of the North Shore Labor Council, the Service Employees International Union State Council, the American Federation of Teachers of Massachusetts, and Jobs with Justice joined the GBLC to demonstrate in support of health care reform. The group of about three hundred union workers and supporters were there to draw the public’s attention to demands for a public option in health care financing that also does not tax benefits.

BOSTON/Government Center - A large conference room at the 100 Cambridge St. headquarters of the Mass. Department of Energy Resources was packed by over 125 people on Tuesday - most of whom were members of several of the labor and community organizations that make up the Green Justice Coalition, a new grassroots formation aiming to ensure that the rising "green economy" in the Bay State will create quality jobs in disadvantaged communities.

GJC organizers said that they had brought dozens of activists out on only 8 days notice to comment before the latest meeting of the Energy Efficiency Advisory Council - the deliberative body brought into being with the passage of the Green Communities Act by the state legislature last year, and tasked with "designing and approving the Commonwealth’s utility- and municipal aggregator-operated energy efficiency programs" according to Council documents.

BOSTON/Government Center - Over 25 immigrant, labor, and religious advocates - some of them Honduran - held a brief protest between rain storms at City Hall against the military coup in Honduras this week and demanded that deposed President Manuel Zaleya be returned to power immediately.

Zeleya was flown to Costa Rica at gunpoint on Sunday and left there. The military coup was swiftly condemned by the Organization of American States and the United Nations - and by many expatriate Hondurans.

"We condemn what happened in Honduras and we demand the restoration of institutional order in the country," said Angel "Tito" Meza, coordinator of the Honduran Project. "The Honduran people were getting ready to exercise their sacred duty to vote in a referendum that called for an assembly that would reform the constitution."

BOSTON/Government Center – Saying she and her peers have “really inherited a broken system,” recent medical school graduate Dr. Sylvia Thompson was one of about a dozen advocates expressing support for national health care financing reform at a press conference Thursday at Boston City Hall.

BOSTON/Government Center - As part of its ongoing Cure CVS project, Change to Win, the newer of the two national labor federations, together with a number of community organizations, presented findings at City Hall Thursday from a recent survey that demonstrates several Boston area CVS retail stores failed to rectify overcharges, even a month after being notified of discrepancies. In light of the findings, both Mayor Thomas Menino and Councilor Sam Yoon reiterated support for Massachusetts' item pricing law.

BOSTON/Government Center - On Tuesday, over 60 housing advocates, tenants and supporters attended a hearing of the City Council's Committee on Government Operations organized by the Massachusetts Alliance Against Predatory Lending to push for a number of reforms to municipal and state housing policy. City Council president Michael Ross and Councilors Turner, Feeney (chair) and Connolly listened to testimony from a panel of housing experts assembled by MAAPL for well over an hour. The speakers stressed the need for a tenant protection law to stop evictions of responsible tenants, a judicial review law that will mandate a court hearing before banks are allowed to foreclose on homeowners, a 6-month moratorium on foreclosures, and a mediation law that would force banks to make a good faith effort to mediate with homeowners and tenants before foreclosing properties and evicting anyone. They also encouraged the City Council to pass home rule petitions to enact such protections in the City of Boston. Advocates hope for passage of the petitions by the full City Council later this year.

BOSTON/Government Center - Over 50 people held a late afternoon picket in front of the Federal Building on Wednesday to protest the U.S. role in continuing to fund and supply the Israeli military after its recent invasion of the Gaza Strip. The event was organized by the Emergency Gaza Coalition.