Apr
16
2013
The deterioration of the nation’s public transportation, like the deterioration of health care, education, social services, public utilities, bridges and roads, is part of the relentless seizing and harvesting of public resources and programs by corporations. These corporations are steadily stripping the American infrastructure. Public-sector unions are being broken. Wages and benefits are being slashed. Workers are forced to put in longer hours in unsafe workplaces, often jeopardizing public safety. The communities that need public …
Read more
Apr
16
2013
With 12 votes needed, only 11 members of the Philadelphia City Council were willing to override Mayor Michael Nutter’s veto of the sick leave bill. For the second time in three years, corporate interests defeated a measure that would allow more than 180,000 Philadelphians to finally earn sick days.
“I’m very disappointed,” said city councilman Bill Greenlee, who tried but failed to get the 12 votes needed to override Mayor Nutter’s veto. “I’m particularly disappointed …
Read more
Apr
16
2013
The Vatican announced that Pope Francis supports a controversial plan approved one year ago by Pope Benedict which calls for leaders of the organization representing the majority of American nuns to function under a Vatican-appointed overseer. The pope’s decision lets stand an investigation critics say is of dubious research, and which has been likened to a modern ‘inquisition.’
Upholding the “supervision” of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) signals that despite his conciliatory …
Read more
Apr
16
2013
FALLS CHURCH, Va. –The woman who helped free an entire community from a toxic dump, literally rewriting environmental laws in the process, was so shy at the start of the struggle she tried to hide behind a tree when neighbors called on her.
Lois Gibbs took to the stage that day 35 years ago, in the seemingly idyllic community of Love Canal, N.Y., and began to find her voice. Transforming herself from homemaker to hell-raiser, she …
Read more
Apr
16
2013
More than 10 years ago, Robert Gold sought to do what many Americans have dreamed of their whole lives: patent an idea.
Gold developed a breakthrough in wireless communications that would help people speak to one another with less interference and greater security.
Then it disappeared like a dropped call.
The Department of Defense concluded that his invention could be a national security threat in the wrong hands and slapped Gold’s patent application with a so-called “secrecy order” …
Read more
Apr
16
2013
Millions of undocumented migrants to the US will be given full legal status under sweeping immigration reforms due to be published on Tuesday by the Senate that will even include family members who have already been deported.
A summary of the bill, seen by the Guardian, is “surprisingly generous”, according to immigration experts who say it has the potential for transforming the lives of the estimated 11m people currently living in the legal shadows.
A further 400,000 …
Read more
Apr
16
2013
Sal Castro, a social studies teacher who played a leading role in 1960s Chicano student walkouts, has died at age 79.
Castro had thyroid cancer and died Monday at his home, his wife, Charlotte Lerchenmuller, told the Los Angeles Times.
The son of Mexican immigrants, Castro was born in Los Angeles but spent some of his early childhood in Mexico. He couldn’t speak English when he returned to Los Angeles in the second grade and was …
Read more
Apr
16
2013
KUWAIT CITY – A Kuwaiti court on Monday sentenced main opposition leader and former MP Mussallam al-Barrak to five years in prison after he was convicted of insulting the emir, an AFP correspondent said.
“The court has sentenced the defendant Mussallam al-Barrak to five years in prison with immediate effect,” said judge Wael al-Atiqi.
Barrak was convicted of making statements deemed offensive to the ruler of the oil-rich Gulf state, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, at a public …
Read more
Apr
16
2013
The spate of strong bank earnings continues.
On Tuesday, Goldman Sachs reported first-quarter profit of $2.2 billion, or $4.29 a share, driven by strength in its investment banking business as well as its investing and lending unit.
Across Wall Street, banks are showing signs of strength. Last week, JPMorgan posted a 33 percent jump in quarterly profit, to $6.53 billion. Profit at Wells Fargo rose 22 percent, to $5.17 billion. Citigroup profit surged by 30 percent while …
Read more
Apr
16
2013
There’s not much to say about Monday’s Boston Marathon attack because there is virtually no known evidence regarding who did it or why. There are, however, several points to be made about some of the widespread reactions to this incident. Much of that reaction is all-too-familiar and quite revealing in important ways:
(1) The widespread compassion for yesterday’s victims and the intense anger over the attacks was obviously authentic and thus good to witness. But it …
Read more
