Apr
18
2013
DETROIT – The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan sent a letter to the Detroit Police Department and filed a complaint with the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) today demanding an end to the Detroit police’s illegal and abusive tactics toward homeless individuals in the city. A yearlong ACLU investigation uncovered the disturbing practice of officers approaching individuals who appear to be homeless in the Greektown area, forcing them into police vans, and deserting …
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Apr
18
2013
CHICAGO — A Chicago-area transportation agency on Wednesday alleged that some of the nation’s largest and best known companies including AT&T, Sears Holdings Corp., Verizon and Target are running “sham” offices as part of a scheme with two small northern Illinois communities to avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes in Chicago and Cook County.
The Regional Transportation Authority released the names of companies or their subsidiaries that it contends have dozens of small offices in …
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Apr
18
2013
An analyst says hunger strikers at Guantanamo perceive they have been forgotten by the world and this is a final message to say we’re still here and we should be released.
In the background of this seven more detainees in Guantanamo Prison have decided to go on hunger strike, joining the mass of 45 other inmates. The initial group of 13 has now surpassed their 70th day on hungers strike as the US ignores pleas from …
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Apr
18
2013
WASHINGTON — A panel of former senior American officials and outside experts, including several who recently left the Obama administration, issued a surprisingly critical assessment of American diplomacy toward Iran on Wednesday, urging President Obama to become far more engaged and to reconsider the likelihood that harsh sanctions will drive Tehran to concessions.
In a report issued by the Iran Project, the former diplomats and experts suggested that the sanctions policy, rather than bolstering diplomacy, …
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Apr
18
2013
A recent report by the United Nation’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) details the growing levels of poverty facing children in the major capitalist countries.
Compiled with information taken in the final two years of last decade (2009-2010), the report reveals a staggering level of child poverty in the “developed” world, with the standards of living in the United States, which has the highest gross domestic product, ranking near the bottom on all metrics.
Entitled “Child Well-Being in Rich …
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Apr
18
2013
About 30 migrant workers have been injured in a shooting on a strawberry farm in Greece after requesting salaries that had not been paid.
The migrants – mainly from Bangladesh – were shot at by at least one farm supervisor, in a Peloponnesian village in southern Greece.
Several of the workers have been taken to hospital but none are in a critical condition.
The owner of the farm in Nea Manolada and one foreman have been arrested.
Nea Manolada, …
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Apr
18
2013
SACRAMENTO — As Gov. Jerry Brown toured China over the last week, he repeatedly contrasted that nation’s speedy construction of modern transportation systems and other key public works with what he characterized as a lack of vision back home.
A pillar of his plan to let the “bulldozers roll” on big projects in California has been an overhaul of the state’s landmark environmental law, which can tangle development in litigation for years.
Yet before he even boarded …
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Apr
18
2013
Chevron Corp. (CVX) helped write the first-in-the-nation rule ordering reduced carbon emissions from cars and trucks. Its biofuels chief spoke at the ceremony where California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the executive order in 2007, the same year the oil company pledged to develop a gasoline replacement from wood.
Now Chevron is leading a lobbying and public relations campaign to undercut the California mandate aimed at curbing global warming, two years after the state started phasing it …
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Apr
18
2013
One of the big questions that’s come up in the Gosnell case is what role poverty played in leading women to choose his cut-rate clinic, which abortion-rights advocates report offered prices considerably lower than at other facilities in Philadelphia.
It’s never been easy for women to get outside funding for abortion. But during the period when it was illegal in most states, some groups of women pooled funds to help each other obtain them and travel …
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Apr
18
2013
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is sending about 200 soldiers from an Army headquarters unit to Jordan to assist efforts to contain violence along the Syrian border and plan for any operations needed to ensure the safety of chemical weapons in Syria, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told Congress Wednesday.
The decision to dispatch the 1st Armored Division troops of planners and specialists in intelligence, logistics and operations comes as several lawmakers pressed the Obama administration for even …
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