Eight thousand pages of documents related to the Pentagon's illegal propaganda campaign, known as the Pentagon military analyst program, are now online for the world to see, although in a format that makes it impossible to easily search them and therefore difficult to read and dissect. This trove includes the documents pried out of the Pentagon by David Barstow and used as the basis for his stunning investigation that appeared in the New York Times on April 20, 2008.

At least eight people were killed and 13 injured May 6 as US aircraft bombed positions of the Mahdi Army militia in Baghdad's Sadr City. (DPA, AP, May 7) Civilians are fleeing Sadr City, but the fighting is spreading beyond the enclave. A rocket slammed into Baghdad's city hall and another hit a downtown park. (AP, May 7) Iran says it will not hold a fourth round of talks with the US on security in Iraq, as long as US forces continue what it called "open bombings" of Shi'ites. (VOA, May 5)

In 1994, the first year of Rudolph Giuliani's initial term as mayor of New York, 3,400 people were arrested for marijuana possession in the city's five boroughs. By 2000, that number had swelled to 51,500. This period and the ensuing years, which have seen a continuation of this policy under Mayor Michael Bloomberg—39,400 people were arrested in New York for pot last year—has been officially dubbed the "Marijuana Arrest Crusade" by Harry G. Levine and Deborah Peterson Small in a thusly-named report, subtitled "Racial Bias and Police Policy in New York City 1997-2007."

On April 28 Mexico's Federal Conciliation and Arbitration Board (JFCA) ruled in favor of a nine-month old strike at Grupo Mexico's giant copper mine at Cananea, in the northwestern state of Sonora. The ruling, which is final, makes the job action legal. Previously the JFCA had ruled against the strike—which was started by the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMRM) over safety issues on July 30—and the government sent troops to the mine in January. Grupo Mexico must now end the partial operations it was carrying out at the mine. (La Jornada, April 29) On April 24 the company had threatened to close the facility, as it is reportedly doing in the San Martin mine in Zacatecas. (Mexican Labor News and Analysis, April 2008)

From the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), April 30:

Attorney General's office announces capture of suspects in assassination of FMLN Mayor
In the early dawn hours of April 14, El Salvador’s National Civilian Police (PNC) arrested Isabel Cortés and Marvin Antonio Rodriguez and charged them with January's double murder of Wilber Funes, mayor of the town of Alegría, and municipal employee Zulma Rivera. Cortés is a member of the Alegría city council who was elected along with Funes on the FMLN party ticket in 2006.

According to union sources, some 40,000 Hondurans participated in May Day celebrations, which included marches in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. The three main labor federations marched together, along with a number of grassroots groups and coalitions, including the Popular Bloc (BP), the National Popular Resistance Coordinating Committee and the Coordinating Council of Campesino Organizations. The demands included a better agrarian reform, a general wage increase, a halt to privatizations, an end to corruption, and justice for three unionists murdered the night of April 23-24.

Unionists and other activists marked International Workers Day with marches throughout Latin America on May 1 as rising food and fuel costs cut into workers' standard of living. Demands included increases in the minimum wage, an end to violence against unionists and rejection of trade pacts with the US.

Some 60 men riding in luxury vehicles and wearing uniforms of the Federal Investigation Agency (AFI) and armed with AK-47s shot nine people dead at the ranch of Rogaciano Alba Álvarez in Petatlán May 4. Two of Alba's sons were among the dead, and Alba's daughter was also kidnapped, police said. The remaining dead were ranch hands. The previous day, heavily armed gunmen shot seven people dead at a convention of the state Ranching Association (Asociación Ganadera) at a hotel in Iguala.