As of July 15 a campaign started by students at various North American campuses in the fall of 2009 around the labor practices of Oregon-based Nike, Inc in Honduras seemed to be on its way to winning several new victories. In an internal June 28 letter, Cornell University president David Skorton announced that the institution would let its sports apparel licensing agreement with the giant sportswear firm lapse on Dec. 31 "unless significant progress is made" in resolving severance pay issues from the January 2009 closing of two Honduran plants, Vision Tex and Hugger de Honduras. Two weeks later, on July 14, Pennsylvania State University spokesperson Geoff Rushton said in an email that the university was urging Nike "to play a positive role in assisting" the laid-off workers and was "continuing to monitor the issue."

In a full session on July 5, Mexico's Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) ruled against a suit by the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) challenging President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa's sudden liquidation of the state-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC) last October. The union had argued that the liquidation, which resulted in the layoffs of 44,000 electrical workers, was unconstitutional and violated Convention 87 of the International Labor Organization (ILO). The SCJN did rule in favor of the union's representation claim: the SME will continue to represent the LFC's retirees and laid-off workers and can act in their name in the courts and the labor boards. (La Jornada, Mexico, July 6; Mexico Labor News and Analysis, July 2010)

After a heated 14-hour session, Argentina's Senate voted 33-27 with three abstentions in the early morning of July 15 to approve a bill extending the right to marry and to adopt to same-sex couples. The Senate vote completed the approval process for the measure, which the Chamber of Deputies had passed on May 5. Argentina is now the first country in Latin America to extend full marriage equality to same-sex couples.

On July 12, exactly six months after an earthquake devastated much of southern Haiti, a storm caused serious damage in a camp authorities had set up for quake survivors in Corail-Cesselesse, a deserted area about 24 km north of Port-au-Prince. Some 1,700 of the camp's 7,000 residents were left without shelter when the storm ripped up or otherwise damaged 344 ShelterBox tents, which are supposedly designed for resistance to storms. About six people were injured by debris, and a woman and her baby were hit by lightning; the woman was badly burned, and local radio reported that the baby died.

On June 30 Haitian president René Préval rejected changes US senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), the leading minority member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, proposed for presidential and legislative elections that are now scheduled for Nov. 28. In a report earlier in the month, Lugar called for international "partners" to help restructure the eight-member Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) and for candidates from the Lavalas Family (FL) party of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996 and 2001-2004) to be allowed to run. The legislative elections were scheduled for Feb. 28 but had to be postponed because of a massive earthquake on Jan. 12. The elections are expected to cost $29.6 million, with the Haitian government providing $7 million and international donors supplying the rest.

Dozens of demonstrators were injured at Puerto Rico's Capitol building June 30 when riot police used batons and tear gas to keep hundreds of students and their supporters from entering a session of the Legislature that was to vote on unpopular budget cuts and a measure to end student assemblies. Senate president Thomas Rivera Schatz had apparently closed the public galleries before the vote, and the next day a police agent reportedly testified that the police violence had been planned in advance.

On June 30 a five-member panel of Mexico's Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) announced that it had decided by a four-to-one vote to release campesino activist Ignacio del Valle Medina and 11 other members of the Front of the Peoples in Defense of the Land (FPDT) who had been imprisoned since a confrontation in May 2006 between México state police and residents of San Salvador Atenco municipality northeast of Mexico City. The justices ruled that the state's charges against the activists—for kidnapping state officials—were based on "false and feeble premises" and used "impermissible evidence."

Hundreds of Puerto Ricans marched on June 6 in the island's 20th Pride event, held in San Juan's beachfront El Condado neighborhood. Olga Orraca, coordinator of the Rainbow Pride Coalition, which organized the march, said that that this year's event was intended not only to reaffirm the community's visibility but also to denounce hate crimes against LGBT people. Orraca and Human and Constitucional Rights Commission president Osvaldo Burgos criticized the inaction of the police in dealing with hate crimes eight years after a hate crimes law went into effect. (SentidoG, June 6 from El Nuevo Día, Puerto Rico)