Five months after African-American 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot and killed by a white police officer while playing in a park near his home in Cleveland, his family has been unable to bury him, his mother has at one point moved into a homeless shelter, and his loved ones have seen neither redress nor justice, according to a court document filed Monday.

“In less than a second my son is gone,” said Samaria Rice at a news conference in front of the Cleveland courthouse on Monday. “And I want to know how long I’ve got to wait for justice.”

The filing and statement came in response to a request from the city of Cleveland for the family to stay its federal civil rights lawsuit against it until the city had concluded its own investigation.

The family answered with a resounding “no,” expressing concern that “there is no end in sight” to the investigation. If the suit were to be paused, evidence could be lost, the plaintiffs could “suffer prejudice,” and the family would be left to languish in limbo, causing them even further distress, the document stated.

“This incident has also shattered the life of the Rice family,” the document continues. “In particular, Samaria Rice, Tamir Rice’s mother, has since been forced to move to a homeless shelter because she could no longer live next door to the killing field of her son. Because it is unknown whether there may need to be an additional medical examination, the body of Tamir Rice has not [been] put to rest. Tamir Rice not being finally laid to rest prevents emotional healing and incurs a daily expense. The foot dragging of this investigation has now spanned three seasons.”

Mike Petty, identified as Samaria Rice’s uncle, declared at Monday’s press conference: “My niece here has been displaced out of her home as a result of this, had to get emergency shelter as a result of this injustice. What I’m here to do is support her, and we do want to know how long.”

In a win for multinational corporations and the global one percent, the U.S. Senate on Tuesday narrowly advanced Fast Track, or Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) —ensuring for all practical purposes the continued rubber-stamping of clandestine trade agreements like the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

The cloture motion to end debate needed 60 votes and it got just that, passing the chamber 60-37. The full roll call is here. A final vote will come on Wednesday. Having overcome the biggest hurdle, the legislation is expected to pass, and will then be sent to President Barack Obama’s desk to become law.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who campaigned vigorously against Fast Track, said the vote represented a win for corporate America. “The vote today—pushed by multi-national corporations, pharmaceutical companies and Wall Street—will mean a continuation of  disastrous trade policies which have cost our country millions of decent-paying jobs,” the presidential candidate said in a statement.

And Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), another of the most vocal opponents of Fast Track, railed against TPA moments before the vote, accusing Congress of turning on its “moral” obligation to assist the working class.

“How shameful,” Brown said. “We’re making this decision knowing that people will lose their jobs because of our action.”

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According to The Hill:

Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, pointed out that the vote only came about via “elaborate legislative contortions and gimmicks designed to hand multinational corporations their top priority.”

Such contortions were necessary, she added, “because the American people overwhelmingly oppose these deals, notwithstanding an endless barrage of propaganda.”

Indeed, response from the progressive grassroots was fast—and furious.

“We’re outraged that Congress today voted to fast track pollution, rather than the job-creating clean energy we need to address climate change,” said May Boeve, executive director of 350.org. “It’s clear this deal would extend the world’s dependence on fracked gas, forbid our negotiators from ever using trade agreements in the fight against global warming, and make it easier for big polluters to burn carbon while suing anyone who gets in the way. That’s why we’re so disappointed President Obama has taken up the banner for ramming this legislative pollution through the halls of Congress, in a way he never pushed for a climate bill.”

Groups threatened political fall-out for those Democrats who voted in favor of Fast Track.

“Senate Democrats who just voted to proceed on Fast Track for the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership openly betrayed the grassroots Democratic activists who helped elect them and have been exceedingly clear in their opposition to any legislation that allows more NAFTA-style trade deals to be jammed through Congress,” said Jim Dean, chair of Democracy for America. “The Senate Democrats who allowed Fast Track should know that this vote will be remembered, it will not be erased, and we will hold you accountable.”

Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, echoed that warning as she declared, “The senators who provided the margin of Fast Track victory will face angry voters in their next elections. Constituents will hold them accountable for putting the interests of transnational corporations ahead of the public.”

In addition to calling out Senate Democrats who “betrayed people and the planet” by voting for cloture on Tuesday, National People’s Action Campaign executive director George Goehl lambasted “the virtual silence of the leading Democratic candidate for president,” which he said “shows the stranglehold corporations have over both political parties.”

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And Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy program at the Institute for Policy Studies, said it was clear who will benefit most if the pending deals are given final passage. Today is a “great day for the big money interests,” she said following the Senate vote.

“No new oil sands or related infrastructure projects should proceed unless consistent with an implemented plan to rapidly reduce carbon pollution, safeguard biodiversity, protect human health, and respect treaty rights.”

So begins a letter (pdf) published Wednesday by more than 100 leading scientists from the U.S. and Canada, two days after G7 countries pledged to be free of their reliance on fossil fuels by the end of the century.

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Extraction of tar sands is incompatible with the U.S. and Canada’s vow to fight climate change, the letter states, outlining 10 reasons that a moratorium on any such projects is crucial to preventing irreversible damage to the world’s climate and significant negative impacts on the global economy, among other things.

Those reasons include:

1. Continued expansion of oil sands and similar unconventional fuels in Canada and beyond is incompatible with limiting climate warming to a level that society can handle without widespread harm;
2. Oil sands should be one of the first fuel sources we avoid using as society moves to non-polluting forms of energy, not the next carbon-intensive source we exploit;
3. Current oil sands environmental protections and baseline data are largely lacking, and protections that exist are too seldom enforced;
4. Contaminants from oil sands  development permeate the land, water and air of the Canadian boreal landscape, and many of these impacts are difficult to mitigate;
   “Working together, we can solve the energy problems before us. It is not too late, but the time to act is now.”
5. Less than 0.2% of the area affected by Canadian oil sands mining has been reclaimed, and none restored to its original state;
6. Development and transport of oil sands is inconsistent with the title and rights of many Aboriginal Peoples of North America;
7. What happens in North America will set a precedent for efforts to reduce carbon pollution and address climate warming elsewhere;
8. Controlling carbon pollution will not derail the economy;
9. Debates about individual pipeline proposals underestimate the full social costs of the oil sands, and existing policies ignore cumulative impacts;
10. A majority of North Americans want their leaders to address climate change, and they are willing to pay more for energy to help make that happen.

A former judge for the International Court of Justice and renowned expert on human rights law told a reporter this week that former vice president Dick Cheney should be prosecuted for war crimes and torture.

Eighty-one-year-old Thomas Buergenthal told Newsweek journalist Robert Chalmers that “some of us have long thought that Cheney, and a number of CIA agents who did what they did in those so-called black holes [overseas torture centers] should appear before the ICC [International Criminal Court].”

“We [in the USA] could have tried them ourselves,” added Buergenthal. “I voted for Obama but I think he made a great mistake when he decided not to instigate legal proceedings against some of these people.”

The former judge added that, despite the inaction so far, he believes eventual charges are inevitable: “I think—yes—that it will happen.”

In what is being reported as the biggest legal blow thus far against the contentious Washington D.C. football enterprise, a federal court on Wednesday ruled that the name “Redskins” is disparaging to Native Americans and thus its trademark registration must be revoked.

In the decision (pdf), Judge Gerald Bruce Lee of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Alexandria, Virginia ordered the federal Patent and Trademark Office to cancel the registration. Though it does not forbid use of the name, the ruling threatens the team’s ability to protect its brand or prevent others from selling items with the team’s logo.

The ruling upholds a previous court decision in a case brought by five Native American plaintiffs, led by Navajo activist Amanda Blackhorse, who argued that the team name is offensive and violates the federal Lanham Act, which prohibits trademarks that denigrate people or bring them into “contempt or disrepute.” Last August, Blackhorse and the others were sued by the team before the Department of Justice intervened.

In a statement (pdf), the Change the Mascot campaign celebrated the ruling as victory for Blackhorse and others “at a moment when the country is clearly demanding an end to the bigotry of yore.”