NewsTrust - Most Recent Stories

Activists Target Big Banks for Financing Climate Change

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:59:21 -0700

NewStandard - By Megan Tady - Apr. 11 (News Report) - Dubbing them the Wall Street Seven, some environmentalists are putting pressure on major financial institutions for financing power plants that emit the most greenhouse gases.

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'Racism' Seen in Liberals' Opposition to Mexican Truckers

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 09:10:02 -0700

NewStandard - By Michelle Chen - Mar. 28 (News Report) - Labor and public-interest groups are arguing that permitting Mexican truckers to drive US roads under NAFTA raises safety concerns. But the facts suggest otherwise, and some activists see a deeper problem.

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Activists Seek Alternative Model to 'Neo-Liberal' Trade Pacts

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 11:37:54 -0700

NewStandard - By Michelle Chen - Mar. 19 (News Report) - With two controversial trade deals awaiting ratification, Congress is taking stock of the White House's free-trade agenda, and activists are seizing the moment to call for policies that respond to the social needs of all countries involved.

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Group Demands Information on 'Disappeared' Detainees

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 13:11:20 -0800

NewStandard - By Shreema Mehta - Mar. 01 (News Report) - A human rights group is calling for the Bush administration to reveal the whereabouts of all suspects once detained by the CIA in secret prisons scattered across the globe.

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Monsanto Merger Sows Fears over Skewed Seed Market

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 22:58:56 -0800

NewStandard - By Michelle Chen - Feb. 26 (News Report) - A pending merger in the cotton-seed industry is prompting sharp legal and environmental criticisms of biotechnology in US agriculture.

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Big Enviro Groups 'Holding Back' Anti-Warming Movement

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 10:47:32 -0800

NewStandard - By Megan Tady - Feb. 09 (News Report) - 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.

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Public Pushes Back Against Planned Test on Old Nuke Site

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 09:15:30 -0800

NewStandard - By Megan Tady - Jan. 31 (News Report) - The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), an arm of the Pentagon, wants to detonate a "single large-scale, open-air" explosion of 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel-oil in an area of the Nevada Test Site the government says never saw nuclear testing.

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Medicare Drug 'Reform' Bill a 'Hollow Victory' for Democrats

Tue, 23 Jan 2007 09:04:13 -0800

NewStandard - By Michelle Chen - Jan. 23 (News Report) - 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.

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Malpractice 'Crisis' Distorted for Profit, New Analysis Suggests

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 05:19:15 -0800

NewStandard - By Catherine Komp - Jan. 12 (News Report) - A new report suggests the Bush administration, the medical industry and business lobbyists have distorted and exploited the medical-malpractice "crisis" in the name of profit.

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Critics Say Democratic Lawmakers Cater to White Agenda

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 13:38:53 -0800

NewStandard - By Michelle Chen - Jan. 09 (News Report) - Progressives say the new Democratic legislature is already disproving the common perception that their party is particularly friendly to people of color.

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Groups Clash over Ariz. Minimum-Wage Disability Exemption

Thu, 04 Jan 2007 13:13:59 -0800

NewStandard - By Catherine Komp - Jan. 04 (News Report) - Some Arizonians want their state's hard-won minimum-wage hike to apply only to "able-bodied" employees, leaving a loophole for paying disabled workers less.

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Critics, Officials Tell Tenn. Valley Authority to Clean Up

Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:18:17 -0800

NewStandard - Jan. 02 (News Report) - Activists and North Carolina's attorney general say the massive New Deal energy project is a major source of pollution and health problems in the region its creators intended to help.

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USDA Stocks Organics Board with Business Reps

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 16:09:01 -0800

NewStandard - By Megan Tady - Dec. 20 (News Report) - Food-safety activists are protesting the government's attempt to stack an organic-food advisory board with representatives of corporate agribusiness and food commerce. Earlier this month, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) tapped individuals who represent Campbell Soup Company, General Mills, Phillips Mushroom Farms, and Stahlbush Island Farms to join the fifteen-member panel.

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DuPont Still Hiding Teflon Hazard Study

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 18:59:57 -0800

NewStandard - By Catherine Komp - Dec. 13 (News Report) - Nearly two months after DuPont claimed to have evidence that a chemical it uses in the Teflon-manufacturing process is safe for workers, the chemical giant still refuses to release its full findings to the public. Now unions have joined in pressuring DuPont to release the study and other information on the health effects of PFOA, a chemical used to make Teflon.

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Eating Meat Contributes to Climate Change, UN Study Confirms

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 10:30:40 -0800

NewStandard - By Megan Tady - Dec. 08 (News Report) - The typical American diet adds significantly to pollution, water scarcity, land degradation and climate change, according to a United Nations report released last week. Written by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),the report is the latest research linking meat-eating with environmental destruction. According to the FAO, the arm of the UN that works on worldwide hunger-defeating initiatives, animal farming presents a "major threat to the environment" with such "deep and wide-ranging" impacts that it should rank as a leading focus for environmental policy.

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Offshore Drilling Back on Washington Agenda

Tue, 05 Dec 2006 23:43:49 -0800

NewStandard - By Michelle Chen - Dec. 05 (News Report) - Lawmakers and the Bush administration are renewing controversial efforts to blast open new channels for offshore oil and gas drilling in Florida and Alaska. The US House of Representatives is set to vote on a bill that would open up 8.3 million acres off Florida's Gulf coast for drilling. The House Republican leadership approved the initiative for a vote as it prepares to yield to an incoming Democratic majority.

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Companies Leave Coal Miners Gasping for Health Payments

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 13:57:19 -0800

NewStandard - By Kari Lydersen - Dec. 04 (News Report) - In the ultimate game of buck-passing, coal firms and the government have spent decades withholding benefits from black-lung-inflicted miners and their survivors.

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Halliburton Employees, Subcontractors Allege More Abuses

Fri, 22 Sep 2006 02:40:08 -0700

NewStandard - By Catherine Komp - Sep. 22 (News Report) - One of the most notorious government contractors in Iraq, Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root, was under scrutiny again this week for allegedly overcharging US taxpayers and risking the lives of civilians. Before a Democratic Senate committee hearing on Monday examining contracts in Iraq, former Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) employees said the company failed to protect truck drivers, sent them into dangerous conflict zones to deliver supplies and put profit over human safety. "I was reassured by KBR/Halliburton that I was not going to be a soldier but that I was a civilian - a 'non-combatant,'" New Mexico resident Edward Sanchez wrote in testimony to the Democratic Policy Committee. "I was told that we would not be sent into battles or areas of known attack. Unfortunately, KBR/Halliburton broke that promise." Sanchez alleged that the company "never" provided the drivers with maps and asked people with no experience driving in a fuel truck convoy to do just that. In April 2004, Sanchez was with three of those inexperienced drivers when his convoy was attacked on the way to Baghdad International Airport. "I heard one of the drivers crying on the radio, 'I'm hit, I'm hit!'" Sanchez recounted. "I heard another driver screaming, 'I'm burning!' Then the radio went silent." "I was told that we would not be sent into battles or areas of known attack. Unfortunately, KBR/Halliburton broke that promise."Sanchez himself was also shot. Six other employees were reportedly killed that day; another went missing and is presumed dead.

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Court Restores Roadless Rules Trampled by Bush

Thu, 21 Sep 2006 04:17:10 -0700

NewStandard - By Michelle Chen - Sep. 21 (News Report) - Environmentalists have declared victory after flattening the Bush administration's effort to revoke protections for nearly 50 million acres of wild "roadless areas."

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With Feds' Help, Florida Govt, Firms Look to Pave Wetlands

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 04:18:30 -0700

NewStandard - By Michelle Chen - Sep. 20 (News Report) - Vast stretches of wetlands in the Florida Panhandle may soon yield to airstrips and office buildings, as the state moves to build up an area that environmentalists want to shield from commercial encroachment.

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Biotech Firm, Govt. Hid Rice Contamination from Public

Thu, 24 Aug 2006 04:22:00 -0700

NewStandard - By Megan Tady - Aug. 24 (News Report) - Last week, the US Department of Agriculture announced that US commercial long-grain rice supplies are contaminated with "trace amounts" of genetically engineered rice unapproved for human consumption. The contamination was only disclosed [long after the discovery, and 18 days] after Bayer notified the USDA itself.

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Grassroots Gears Up as FCC Revisits Ownership Rules

Fri, 21 Jul 2006 18:09:40 -0700

NewStandard - By Catherine Komp - Jul. 21 (News Report) - The fight to protect locally owned and diverse media outlets is gearing up again after the Federal Communications Commission announced it would be opening up a public comment period on newly proposed media-ownership rules. But opponents of media consolidation, including two FCC commissioners, are concerned that the proceedings will be inadequate and public input will be ignored, as was the case during the last review of ownership rules in 2003.

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School Officials Promote Fast Track to Incarceration

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 02:54:17 -0700

NewStandard - By Catherine Komp - Jul. 14 (News Report) - From Florida to California to Connecticut, students and parents across the country are contending with an education system that is increasingly implementing harsher methods of disciplining students, and placing thousands of armed officers on school campuses. Youth and civil-rights advocates call the growing presence of law enforcement in schools, along with increasingly punitive punishment for misbehavior, the "school-to-prison pipeline."

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Youth Rights Activists Defend MySpace Access

Thu, 29 Jun 2006 05:34:29 -0700

NewStandard - By Kari Lydersen - Jun. 29 (News Report) - While politicians and news media hype the alleged dangers to teens using social-networking websites, others say the threats are exaggerated and kids should be able to communicate freely online. When it comes to making rules about their Internet usage, young people say lawmakers – like parents – just don’t understand. While politicians and news media hype the alleged dangers to teens using social-networking websites, others say the threats are exaggerated and kids should be able to communicate freely online.

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