For the sixth consecutive year, the Bush administration is letting hundreds of thousands of children grow up without the subsidized child care that advocates say is crucial for working-poor families.
Published: Friday, February 23, 2007
Reported By: Michelle Chen
Section: Work and Money
Topics: Poverty / Class Issues, Politics / Legislation
Big retailers are injecting late donations into the coffers of some Chicago aldermen in what critics see as a move to squash a living-wage ordinance that would hit stores like Wal-Mart and Target.
Published: Thursday, February 22, 2007
Reported By: Mischa Gaus
Section: Work and Money
Topics: Labor Issues, Politics / Legislation, Business
A federal judge in San Francisco ruled Tuesday that evidence will remain sealed in the class-action lawsuit accusing AT&T of collaborating with the government to illegally spy on Americans’ communications.
Published: Thursday, February 22, 2007
Reported By: Megan Tady
Section: Civil Liberties and Security
Topics: Privacy / Surveillance, Law / Courts, Secrecy / Corruption
A renewed push by federal and state lawmakers offers promise to many of the 59 million workers who currently go unpaid when they have to call in sick or tend to a family emergency.
Published: Thursday, February 22, 2007
Reported By: Kari Lydersen
Section: Work and Money
Topics: Labor Issues, Health / Safety, Politics / Legislation
Vice President Dick Cheney recently promised that President Bush would veto pending legislation that union activists say would greatly improve workers’ ability to organize.
Published: Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Reported By: Shreema Mehta
Section: Work and Money
Topics: Labor Issues, Politics / Legislation
The nation’s primary consumer-protection agency is restricted, for now, from conducting its official business.
Published: Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Reported By: Michelle Chen
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Business, Health / Safety, Politics / Legislation
In the debate over what the trade deficit really means, progressives are challenging popular assumptions that the trade gap simply shows free markets at work, pointing to pro-corporate policies aimed at exploiting cheap labor.
Published: Friday, February 16, 2007
Reported By: Michelle Chen
Section: Work and Money
Topics: Economy, Corporate Globalization, Business, Labor Issues
Human rights groups are urging the Senate to pass a bill that would diminish what the international community has called the United States’s "fatal footprint" – the impact of US-funded cluster bombs on civilians.
Published: Friday, February 16, 2007
Reported By: Megan Tady
Section: U.S. News
Topics: Military / War, Politics / Legislation
As more and more scientific authorities conclude that feeding antibiotics to livestock is promoting drug resistance among bacteria that attack humans, Congress has begun to take notice.
Published: Thursday, February 15, 2007
Reported By: Megan Tady
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Health / Safety, Agriculture, Animal Rights, Politics / Legislation
American Indians in Virginia are using the spotlight on the 400th anniversary of Jamestown to highlight their fight for federal recognition and acknowledgement of their status as nations.
Published: Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Reported By: Catherine Komp
Section: U.S. News
Topics: Indigenous Issues
Tucked into the Bush administration’s 2008 budget proposal is a measure that could offer a modest reprieve to refugees in the US who face the loss of federal subsistence aid.
Published: Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Reported By: Megan Tady
Section: Work and Money
Topics: Immigration / Refugees, Poverty / Class Issues
With newly empowered Democrats avoiding the very notion of impeaching key administration figures, the rising movement to dispense with Bush is looking for other avenues.
Published: Monday, February 12, 2007
Reported By: Shreema Mehta
Section: U.S. News
Topics: Politics / Legislation, Social Movements / Activism
While the US government and some corporations are finally acknowledging global climate change, some critics say partnering with such forces may “tame†the movement’s goals and strategies.
Published: Friday, February 9, 2007
Reported By: Megan Tady
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Environment / Ecology, Catastrophe / Crisis, Business, Social Movements / Activism
The federal government has admitted that pharmaceutical companies it is supposed to regulate have not yet made good on hundreds of promises to test the safety of drugs already approved for the market.
Published: Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Reported By: Michelle Chen
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Health / Safety, Business
With the federal government poised to remove some gray wolves from the Endangered Species List, environmentalists fear officials are prematurely celebrating "recovery" while ushering in mass slaughter.
Published: Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Reported By: Michelle Chen
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Environment / Ecology, Agriculture, Animal Rights
With public awareness about climate change approaching a tipping point, environmentalists are elevating their push for immediate steps to curb global warming.
Published: Monday, February 5, 2007
Reported By: Shreema Mehta
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Environment / Ecology, Social Movements / Activism
At a hearing for the only “enemy combatant†held in the US, federal prosecutors claimed broad powers to capture and imprison Americans suspected of aiding terrorism.
Published: Friday, February 2, 2007
Reported By: Catherine Komp
Section: Civil Liberties and Security
Topics: Civil / Human Rights, Terrorism / Terror War, Military / War
As non-citizens are routinely expelled from the US for even minor infractions, some immigration advocates want a more-personalized, less-mandatory response.
Published: Thursday, February 1, 2007
Reported By: Michelle Chen
Section: Civil Liberties and Security
Topics: Immigration / Refugees, Law Enforcement / Prison System, Race / Racism, Politics / Legislation
Suspicious of government assurances that a planned desert explosion will not rekindle radioactive fallout from past events, Westerners and Native Americans want the plan halted.
Published: Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Reported By: Megan Tady
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Military / War, Health / Safety, Environment / Ecology
Unaccompanied children and whole families are living “on the streets†in what service providers say is an obscured but growing problem.
Published: Monday, January 29, 2007
Reported By: Catherine Komp
Section: U.S. News
Topics: Poverty / Class Issues, Age / Ageism
As violence continued in Iraq Saturday, people from across the United States amassed for an energetic and defiant anti-war rally in the nation’s capital.
Published: Sunday, January 28, 2007
Reported By: Brendan Coyne
Section: U.S. News
Topics: Social Movements / Activism, Military / War, Politics / Legislation
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is accused once again of attempting to undermine a popular state measure that provides treatment instead of jail time to thousands of drug-law violators.
Published: Friday, January 26, 2007
Reported By: Shreema Mehta
Section: Civil Liberties and Security
Topics: Law Enforcement / Prison System, Health / Safety
Less than a year after Massachusetts’s controversial healthcare initiative was first revealed, evidence is accumulating to bolster critics who said the system is faulty by design.
Published: Friday, January 26, 2007
Reported By: Megan Tady
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Health / Safety, Poverty / Class Issues
A ban on US funding for AIDS-prevention groups that don't denounce the sex trade is meeting stiff resistance from advocates who say they can’t do their job if they have to demonize their clients.
Published: Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Reported By: Kari Lydersen
Section: U.S. News
Topics: Health / Safety, Foreign Policy / International Relations, Labor Issues
The White House has quietly amended a key executive order to tighten the president’s grip on federal agencies that enforce health, safety and environmental protections.
Published: Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Reported By: Michelle Chen
Section: U.S. News
Topics: Politics / Legislation, Health / Safety, Environment / Ecology, Secrecy / Corruption
Interested parties on two sides of the Medicare prescription-drug debate say last week’s effort to give the government power to negotiate prices was a big deal, but experts say it is unlikely to have any real impact.
Published: Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Reported By: Michelle Chen
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Health / Safety, Politics / Legislation, Business, Age / Ageism
A coalition of environmental groups is attempting to thwart a plan to open and widen roads through designated wilderness areas in Death Valley National Park.
Published: Monday, January 22, 2007
Reported By: Megan Tady
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Environment / Ecology, Law / Courts
Recent revelations that military and intelligence agents have been obtaining Americans’ banking records raise questions not only of legality but also of the respect financial institutions have for personal privacy.
Published: Friday, January 19, 2007
Reported By: Shreema Mehta
Section: Civil Liberties and Security
Topics: Privacy / Surveillance, Civil / Human Rights, Terrorism / Terror War, Business
A high-end juice company criticized and protested by animal-rights activists for testing its products on animals announced Wednesday that it has stopped all such testing and "has no plans" to resume.
Published: Friday, January 19, 2007
Reported By: Catherine Komp
Section: U.S. News
Topics: Animal Rights, Social Movements / Activism, Business
A coalition opposed to nuclear weapons is fighting the federal government over rejection of its bid to turn a national laboratory that engages in nuclear-arms research into an environmental science center.
Published: Thursday, January 18, 2007
Reported By: Catherine Komp
Section: U.S. News
Topics: Military / War, Environment / Ecology, Energy
