WASHINGTON, D.C.–A partisan political standoff in the U.S. Senate threatens to close down the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in August, further eroding workers’ rights and weakening the ability of unions to organize new members, according to several Democratic Party leaders who spoke at a Senate hearing this week.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and 27 other government agencies held a press conference on Thursday about their investigation into what sparked the West, Texas explosion.

While rain pattered gently on the concrete steps of Manhattan’s Union Square last Saturday, a group of workers were giving the assembled crowd a tour of the sun-scorched fields of Florida’s tomato farms.

A time-honored tactic of conservative lawmakers is to “starve the beast”by defunding government programs. In the case of food stamps—the quintessential whipping boy for budget hawks—they’re going a step further by trying to starve actual people.

“I work at Quick Pita in the food court of the Ronald Reagan Building. I work nearly 12 hours every day serving lunch to the thousands of people who work in the building. But I am not here to tell you how hard I work. I am here to tell you that my employer does not follow the law,” testified Antonio Vanegas before a hearing of the Congressional Progressive Caucus yesterday.

At times, the meeting of the Board of Education of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) on Wednesday took on the air of a mass mock trial; at others, it seemed like a public execution. On the dock were 53 elementary schools and one high school charged with underutilization of space and underperformance.