It was a sad day in the Senate. Earlier today, it failed to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, by a vote of 61-38, falling five votes short. This treaty seeks to end discrimination against disabled persons around the world, and states that disabled people should have the same rights that the non-disabled enjoy.

President Obama and leaders in Congress all agree: it's time to work on comprehensive immigration reform.

The national conversation about Afghanistan needs some course-correction.

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, two weeks when the world held its breath as the United States and the Soviet Union scrambled to avoid nuclear war (see a detailed history of the crisis as it unfolded). In the end, the crisis was averted with the U.S. promising not to invade Cuba and the Soviet Union agreeing to pull its missiles off the island.

Last week I shared some of my reflections about our Field Committee meeting in September. There’s one more important story from that weekend I want to tell you about, because it relates to a theme I’ve been noticing in my life for the past couple of years: Spirit moves in many ways.

Fourteen year old Pakistani Malala Yousafzai challenged the exclusion of girls in the classroom. For that “offense” the Taliban shot her twice at close range.

Her sacrifice is a powerful symbol of all that remains at stake in the region.

Poverty rates in this country are unacceptably high for a prosperous nation. A few weeks ago we were relieved to discover that there were not more people living in poverty in 2011 than there were the previous year. However, there were still 46.2 million people struggling to make ends meet. This includes 16.1 million children, so that one in every five children under the age of 18 lived in poverty. The United States is the country with the highest GDP and yet has the second highest percentage of children living in poverty in the developed world. So why wasn’t there a single question about poverty during last week’s presidential debate?

A District judge recently ordered a reluctant Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA, the organization that runs the DC Metro) to put up hateful ads. I’m not an expert on constitutional law, but as a Quaker, I believe that there is that of God in everyone. Nobody should have to endure such hateful words like those in the ads.

Jose Antonio Vargas, an undocumented immigrant, was arrested by Minnesota police on Friday for a traffic violation. Would ICE have declined to detain him if he weren't a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist?