As energy corporations closed in on Navajo territory, a cluster of elderly women and other locals rushed to greet them – planting themselves in defiance on the ground they hold as sacred.
Published: Friday, December 22, 2006
Reported By: Michelle Chen
Section: U.S. News
Topics: Indigenous Issues, Civil / Human Rights, Social Movements / Activism, Energy
Food-safety activists are protesting the government's attempt to stack an organic-food advisory board with representatives of corporate agribusiness and food commerce.
Published: Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Reported By: Megan Tady
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Food / Nutrition, Environment / Ecology, Secrecy / Corruption
The government rewrote the rules for managing forests last week, largely erasing obligations to consider potential environmental harm when planning the future of public wild lands.
Published: Monday, December 18, 2006
Reported By: Michelle Chen
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Environment / Ecology, Law / Courts, Business, Social Movements / Activism
As Los Angeles airport hotels fight a law ordering them to pay enough to barely raise a family on, some workers are staging a hunger strike to gain public sympathy and realize the promise of a better wage.
Published: Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Reported By: Jessica Hoffmann
Section: Work and Money
Topics: Labor Issues, Poverty / Class Issues, Social Movements / Activism
Healthcare advocates say a state commission's plan to consolidate hospitals is wrong-headed, glossing over the real problem and real reforms.
Published: Friday, December 8, 2006
Reported By: Michelle Chen
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Health / Safety, Poverty / Class Issues, Politics / Legislation, Economy
The typical American diet adds significantly to pollution, water scarcity, land degradation and climate change, according to a United Nations report released last week.
Published: Thursday, December 7, 2006
Reported By: Megan Tady
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Environment / Ecology, Agriculture, Food / Nutrition
In the ultimate game of buck-passing, coal firms and the government have spent decades withholding benefits from black-lung-inflicted miners and their spouses.
Published: Monday, December 4, 2006
Reported By: Kari Lydersen
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Health / Safety, Energy
In the ongoing battle to eradicate lead poisoning, state and local governments have begun targeting the companies that sold toxic paint before it was banned for residential use in 1978. This week, grassroots activists are taking that fight to the streets.
Published: Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Reported By: Shreema Mehta
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Health / Safety, Business, Social Movements / Activism
An employee walk-out at a giant hog slaughterhouse in North Carolina forced company officials to alter its policy on firing workers whose Social Security numbers are not verified.
Published: Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Reported By: Catherine Komp
Section: Work and Money
Topics: Labor Issues, Immigration / Refugees, Race / Racism, Social Movements / Activism
The FBI is looking to make people's criminal records more extensive and more accessible to private employers. Critics say that increased exposure of people's criminal histories will unfairly foreclose job opportunities.
Published: Friday, November 17, 2006
Reported By: Michelle Chen
Section: Civil Liberties and Security
Topics: Law Enforcement / Prison System, Privacy / Surveillance, Labor Issues, Civil / Human Rights
Public-interest advocates say cell phone surveillance is becoming cheaper and more pervasive, but companies and governments are lagging behind in establishing policies to protect the right to privacy.
Published: Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Reported By: Catherine Komp
Section: Civil Liberties and Security
Topics: Privacy / Surveillance, Science / Technology
Legislation that zipped easily through the Senate would re-criminalize certain acts, including non-violent civil disobedience, as "terrorism" if carried out in defense of animals.
Published: Monday, November 13, 2006
Reported By: Megan Tady
Section: Civil Liberties and Security
Topics: Terrorism / Terror War, Animal Rights, Social Movements / Activism, Civil / Human Rights
Immigrant workers throughout the US are facing layoffs as employers haphazardly, and perhaps illegally, implement a proposed rule from the Homeland Security Department.
Published: Wednesday, November 8, 2006
Reported By: Mischa Gaus
Section: Work and Money
Topics: Labor Issues, Immigration / Refugees
As native women experience increasingly severe abuse by non-Indian and Indian men, many are addressing the systemic foundations of misogyny in their communities, which they trace to colonization.
Published: Tuesday, November 7, 2006
Reported By: Michelle Chen
Section: Civil Liberties and Security
Topics: Gender / Sexism, Indigenous Issues, Civil / Human Rights, Law Enforcement / Prison System
Critics of the Environmental Protection Agency’s latest downsizing of scientific library materials say it threatens to strip access to information from the very people who help develop environmental policies.
Published: Wednesday, November 1, 2006
Reported By: Megan Tady
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Environment / Ecology, Health / Safety
Tomato pickers have targeted McDonald’s and the green-tongued Chipotle restaurant chain for buying tomatoes from growers that underpay workers.
Published: Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Reported By: Kari Lydersen
Section: Work and Money
Topics: Labor Issues, Social Movements / Activism, Food / Nutrition
Voters with disabilities warn that despite anti-discrimination laws, many still face barriers when they try to go to the polls.
Published: Friday, October 27, 2006
Reported By: Catherine Komp
Section: Civil Liberties and Security
Topics: Elections / Democracy, Disability Issues / Ableism
The US Department of Education’s change to a law forbidding sex discrimination in federally funded schools has infuriated rights groups, who say the change is a step toward separate but unequal education.
Published: Thursday, October 26, 2006
Reported By: Megan Tady
Section: U.S. News
Topics: Education / Schools, Gender / Sexism
In what critics consider one of the more blatant examples of environmental racism, a fund supposedly intended to give a leg up to impoverished pupils of color was used to put them at risk while favoring private developers.
Published: Monday, October 23, 2006
Reported By: Megan Tady
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Education / Schools, Environment / Ecology, Poverty / Class Issues
While withholding its full report, Dupont is touting findings it says exonerate the controversial substance PFOA.
Published: Friday, October 20, 2006
Reported By: Catherine Komp
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Health / Safety, Business, Environment / Ecology
On Election Day, voters in four states will consider allowing property owners to claim financial damages when public-interest regulations cost them money.
Published: Friday, October 20, 2006
Reported By: Michelle Chen
Section: U.S. News
Topics: Elections / Democracy, Civil / Human Rights, Environment / Ecology, Law / Courts
In a move that coincides with rising property values and shirks a federal ruling that slammed Los Angeles's treatment of homeless residents, the LAPD is cracking down on the city's poorest residents.
Published: Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Reported By: Jessica Hoffmann
Section: Civil Liberties and Security
Topics: Poverty / Class Issues, Law Enforcement / Prison System
Newly uncovered documents show discrepencies between what managers told two different federal agencies before and after firing an employee who raised safety concerns at Fitzpatrick nuclear plant.
Published: Monday, October 16, 2006
Reported By: Catherine Komp
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Energy, Labor Issues, Secrecy / Corruption, Business
A crab fishing program started in 2005 -- ostensibly to stop overfishing and ensure fishermen's safety -- has given fishing rights to corporations, put individual fishermen out of work, and risked the marine ecosystem.
Published: Friday, October 13, 2006
Reported By: Megan Tady
Section: Work and Money
Topics: Labor Issues, Environment / Ecology, Corporate Globalization, Business
A case pending before the US Supreme Court may determine whether the oil industry can cast off millions in debts incurred while exploiting natural resources on Indian lands in the Southwest’s San Juan Basin.
Published: Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Reported By: Michelle Chen
Section: U.S. News
Topics: Energy, Indigenous Issues, Law / Courts, Business
Environmentalists, civil rights advocates and even federal auditors say the US government is ignoring its duty to protect low-income people and people of color from harmful pollution in their communities.
Published: Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Reported By: Catherine Komp
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Race / Racism, Poverty / Class Issues, Environment / Ecology
Outraged by a controversial local ordinance, civil-rights activists say that although Hurricane Katrina wiped out just about everything in Louisiana’s St. Bernard Parish, a legacy of segregation clings stubbornly to the community’s racial landscape.
Published: Friday, October 6, 2006
Reported By: Michelle Chen
Section: Civil Liberties and Security
Topics: Civil / Human Rights, Race / Racism, Law / Courts, Catastrophe / Crisis
While most attention focused on supposedly moderate voices among Senate Republicans, the GOP debate over terror-war detainee policy nixed rights and empowered the administration.
Published: Tuesday, October 3, 2006
Reported By: Michelle Chen
Section: Civil Liberties and Security
Topics: Military / War, Civil / Human Rights, Law / Courts, Politics / Legislation
The Navajo Nation has negotiated an unprecedented trade pact with Cuba, signaling an effort by the tribe to strengthen its sovereign status through economic outreach.
Published: Tuesday, September 5, 2006
Reported By: Michelle Chen
Section: U.S. News
Topics: Indigenous Issues, Foreign Policy / International Relations, Business, Agriculture
Environmental groups are accusing the Defense Department of “paralyzing†the development of wind energy projects, and costing citizens the environmental benefits of clean energy in the process.
Published: Friday, September 1, 2006
Reported By: Catherine Komp
Section: Environment and Health
Topics: Energy, Military / War, Environment / Ecology
