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The 2011 Nonpartisan Voter Guide to the SF Mayoral Candidates is a succinct, printable listing of candidate positions and quotes on more than two-dozen key policy issues and ballot initiatives. Continue Reading →
News about Boyle Heights in Los Angeles tends to be about crime or gentrification. There's little coverage of air pollution, lack of safe and green spaces, lack of access to affordable and healthy food options — or the residents and organizations that are determined to change this. Continue Reading →
A year after the dissolution of the Restoration Advisory Board for Hunters Point Shipyard, the Navy says it will introduce a new community involvement plan that it says emphasizes diversity. Continue Reading →
The June launch of a Pakistani birth-control hotline has garnered a mixed bag of praise, skepticism, and condemnation from medical and religious leaders in the country. Continue Reading →
Environmental and indigenous groups stepped up their attacks against Canadian oil sands development as two U.S. representatives met with Canadian officials in Ottawa to discuss energy policy. Continue Reading →
Women who fear social or religious consequences of having sex outside of marriage are turning to "re-virgination" doctors and products to offer the illusion of virginity. Continue Reading →
When Pfc. Armando Soriano was killed in Iraq, his mother benefited from a loophole on immigration law that allows soldiers’ family members to apply for legal residency. But the rules work on a case-by-case basis, and his father, who has been in the U.S. illegally since 1999, faces deportation because he once snuck back into the country. One of Soriano’s sisters is also not a citizen. Such cases are increasingly common as more foreign-born fighters join the military en route to citizenship. Continue Reading →
Lebanon’s conflict-driven internal politics and Hezbollah’s relationship with its neighbor, Israel, are having an effect on the entire region. Hezbollah leader General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah called for a government of “cooperation and unity” even as he critiqued the U.S.-backed government of Fouad Siniora, Agence France-Presse reports. Siniora has refused to give the opposition party veto power in the cabinet and has lost six ministers this year, prompting much controversy and upheaval. Nasrallah is angry with the United States, which recently announced it would freeze the assets of anyone it perceived as undermining Siniora’s government. Speaking to the Lebanese people, he said Hezbollah supported a “peaceful, civilian and civilized” campaign, and promised not to turn its considerable arsenal of weapons on any other Lebanese faction. Continue Reading →
With inflation at over 4,500 percent and hospitals, water, power and food access close to collapse, Zimbabwe faces its worst crisis since independence from Britain, reports the Associated Press. In June, the government of President Robert Mugabe accused store owners of fueling the inflation and ordered 50 percent price cuts on commodities such as bread, eggs and milk. Some stores are now refusing to re-order because prices are so low. Many Zimbabweans are coping with the food shortage by traveling to South Africa for goods, but Mugabe’s government will soon put a stop to that with a new law to limiting the import of food. Thousands of other Zimbabweans are simply leaving the country, looking for work and housing in South Africa. Continue Reading →
Government watchdogs are concerned that a shadowy nonprofit that finances Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s lavish international trips may also allow special interests to donate big bucks to the governor in return for political favors — and all without any public accountability. The Los Angeles Times reports that a 501c(3) charity, the California State Protocol Foundation, spent $1.3 million in 2006 alone to pay for the governor’s private jets and luxurious hotel suites when Schwarzenegger travels abroad, even though he is personally wealthy. The group is closely connected with the California Chamber of Commerce, and pays all the bills the governor submits without itemization. The foundation won’t reveal who its donors are, but a spokesman suggested the charity was actually sparing taxpayers from having to foot the governor’s travel bill. Watchdogs say the public ought to pay for such official trips, since it would keep Schwarzenegger from spending so much money. Continue Reading →