Folks from outside Wisconsin are asking how to help with the battle to save collective bargaining for public employees in Wisconsin. Here are some suggestions, including contact information for the governor and select Republican legislators.

As more people take to the streets in the Middle East ands North Africa to demand democratic reforms and change, the authorities in these countries are responding with violence and are cracking down on the journalists who try to cover these protests, press freedom campaign group Reporters Without Borders has warned. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists also says it is alarmed by the ongoing deterioration of conditions for the media in the Middle East.

As demonstrations in Wisconsin over Governor Scott Walker's efforts to limit collective bargaining for many state employees entered a second week and national media swarmed Madison, similar protests swelled in state capitals across the nation. Though the various pieces of legislation and their respective impacts on labor unions private and public differ, the conflicts all pit Republican governors or their statehouse allies against a labor movement clamoring to be heard.