Resisting the Empire: Four Days in Chicago: A film by Haskell Wexler, ­­­­Andy Davis and Mike Gray (2013). Available for $15 from http://www.fourdaysinchicago.com. Mayor 1% (Rahm Emanuel) invited the G-8 (the Group of 8 most economically powerful countries in the world) and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) to meet in Chicago in May 2012. Needless to say, this did not go over well with Chicago activists—and a whole lot more other people.

A coalition of labor, community and environmental groups from throughout the Midwest will gather to protest the group’s three-day conference throughout the week, with organizers expecting the largest actions against ALEC since the group first drew attention in 2011 for its role in providing model legislation written by corporations pushing a broad right-wing, pro-corporate agenda.

Kaiser Permanente in California has sent health insurance cancellation notices to 160,000 people – about half of its individual business in the state. Consumer advocates say such cancellations raise concerns that companies may be targeting their most costly enrollees. They may be “doing this as an opportunity to push their populations into the exchange and purge their systems” of policyholders they no longer want, said Jerry Flanagan, an attorney with the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog in California.

St. Louis, MO--BJC Healthcare, the largest St. Louis employer, is preparing to cut health insurance benefits for some of its part-time employees. According to two part-time nurses with the BJC system, managers and Human Resources representatives recently began informing certain employees that those who do not work at least 24 hours per week will be ineligible for health benefits.

HAYWARD -- KAISER PERMANENTE ANNOUNCED WEDNESDAY IT WILL CLOSE ITS PEDIATRIC HOSPITAL UNIT ON NOV. 17 AND SHIFT YOUNG PATIENTS TO OAKLAND. Although Kaiser Permanente says those patients will get better care in Oakland, the move is opposed by nurses, who say it will create a hardship for parents.

Missouri--A proposed class action lawsuit has been filed against BJC HealthCare on behalf of a nurse who accuses the nonprofit health system of improperly calculating employees’ overtime hours and meal breaks.