A new report from the Environmental Protection Agency last week touted the success of a cap and trade program (known as NOx Budget Trading Program, or NBP) on emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), which has reduced smog and acid rain in key areas of the country.

We are approaching a time when critical decisions will be made on Afghanistan; whether the U.S. government will expand the war for years, sucking us into a quagmire of unimaginable proportions, or disengage, increasing the possibility of investing in health care reform, modest responses to the danger of climate change, and jobs and justice for workers.

So far the White House has offered no timetable and no "exit strategy" for Afghanistan. Instead General McChrystal and other military leaders are pressing for the addition of tens of thousands of new American troops and a commitment to remain in Afghanistan for years to come. 


Peace groups internationally are putting the pressure on President Obama this fall, as he ponders the request from Gen. McChrystal for a “surge” troop escalation in Afghanistan. Thankfully, leading Democrats and even former President Clinton are urging caution, though few are taking the wiser step of recommending a pullout.

Since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China sixty years ago, on October 1st, 1949, the economy of this nation, under the direction Chinese Communist Party, has become a model of prosperity.

Over a thousand San Francisco hotel workers and their community supporters demonstrated in Union Square, in the heart of the city's tourist district. The luxury hotel chains demand that workers pay for the health care benefits they currently have under their union contract.

All different kinds of data suggest that the economic circumstance of American workers has been declining since the current recession began in 2007. More troublesome is data that suggests that most workers have experienced declining economic security for at least thirty years.

The topic of disappearing honey bees first cropped up in 2004 and by the spring of 2007 was all over the news. Thousands of commercial beekeepers across the U.S. and beyond were reporting in some cases that as many as two-thirds of their honey bees were flying away from their hives, never to return.

Attacks by Honduran military and police on the Brazilian embassy in the capital of Tegucigalpa, including the use of toxic gases and high decibel noise, are causing worldwide condemnation, including a denunciation by the United Nations Security Council.

A Fulton County Superior Court judge rescinded a temporary restraining order against the Grady Health System on Friday, September 25, 2009, that had kept the dialysis clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital open.

Compensation over the long run reflects the market value of labor as a commodity. Market value oscillates around the cost of production – of the worker. There are many factors that influence the oscillation.

As a source of foreign currency, international tourism is thirty times bigger than it was 60 years ago, with more than 700 million tourists hopping from one country to another every year.

Flu season is here. And it has brought its nasty cousin swine flu (H1N1) with it. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, swine flu began to spread in the US last spring, picked up some steam over the summer and now as the usual flu season begins is expected to spread quickly.

If someone told you that a bunch of low-income people, most of them African American or Latino, most of them women, most of them elderly, had been victimized by a predatory mortgage lender that stripped them of much of their equity or of their entire homes, you might not be surprised.

I was born in Santa Tecla, near San Salvador. My father was a big rig driver and my mother was a stay at home mom. We had a big family – four brothers and two sisters. When I was old enough, I worked in the Armando Araujo coffee and soap factory. We Salvadoreños are hard working people.

At last, the Senate Finance Committee (SFC) has put forth its health proposal and began marking up and debating the proposal on September 22. It is the last of the five committees in the House and Senate with jurisdiction over health care reform to consider legislative language.

Thomas Friedman has a problem. As he describes in his bestseller Hot, Flat, and Crowded, while many activists advocate a low-carbon lifestyle in his Maryland neighborhood, he had to give up his attempt to install a couple of solar panels on his house because doing so is illegal under a local ordinance.

"We may be witnessing the beginning of the end of the era of impunity," Nadia Hijab, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Palestine Studies, was quoted by IPS in response to the findings of a 574-page report by a four-member United Nations Fact finding mission.

It has been a year since the legendary financial giant Lehman Brothers collapsed on September 15, 2008. This global giant had weathered the railroad bankruptcies that rocked the USA in the 19th century and also the Great Depression of the 1930s. On this occasion, it became the first victim as well as the trigger that shot down financial markets globally, causing probably the worst recession in capitalism's history.

While wage growth, impacted by inflation, has eroded steadily over the past decade, the cost of a typical health insurance plan has grown as much as 150 percent, a new report put out by the Obama administration revealed this week.