PINE BLUFF, Ark. — One Friday last month, Shanna Tippen left the house where she sometimes gets by with candles and flashlights, got into her beat-up 2003 Chrysler Sebring, and drove to work to pick up her first new-and-improved paycheck. The paycheck was stamped at the top with her employer’s name — Days Inn and Suites — and showed the fruits of Arkansas’ long battle over the minimum wage.
Year: 2015
Ex movie star and convicted politician still running her Indian state
CHENNAI, India — Her chair in the state assembly room has been kept open, her office left undisturbed like a shrine.It’s been more than four months since Jayalalitha Jayaram, a former film star and three-term chief minister in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, was convicted on corruption charges, briefly imprisoned and forced to step down, an event that caused statewide protests and shuttered shops and schools. A few of her most fervent supporters even lighted themselves on fire.
China’s urban sprawl raises key question: can it feed its people? Plans for air hub twice the size of Heathrow will destroy hundreds of farms near Beijing as observers warn unchecked urbanisation will affect food production
An hour’s drive south of central Beijing, the city’s squat mid-rise buildings fan out into fields. Ramshackle brick houses stretch on for miles, coal and cabbage piled high by their doorsteps, while sheep graze by the roads. This tiny village called Nanzhuang — about 30 miles south of the Forbidden City — is in for a change. Before long, the government will destroyit and about 10 surrounding villages to build one of the world’s largest airports.
War punishes Gaza. Half a year after devastating hostilities, life in the region seems worse than ever. Thousands remain displaced, internal violence is increasing – and Hamas is preparing for battle
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Creating a fertile future for farmers in Africa. What are the most effective ways of encouraging the development of smallholder farming? Diversification, training and working with the private sector are key
More than half a billion Africans are smallholder farmers. In some countries they make up as much as 85% of the population. Even in Africa’s most urbanised countries that figure only drops to 55%.
A ‘megadrought’ will grip U.S. in the coming decades, NASA researchers say
The long and severe drought in the U.S. Southwest pales in comparison with what’s coming: a “megadrought” that will grip that region and the central Plains later this century and probably stay there for decades, a new study says.
Amid complaints in India, a real estate deal in Manhattan
Last Sept. 28, a group of retired military officers demonstrated at Jantar Mantar, a historic site in New Delhi. “Though we are old veterans, we still have the strength to challenge your atrocity,” read the placard of one protester, who was leaning on a cane.Towers of secrecy: Streams of wealth flow to elite New York real estate
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) costs declining, expected to fall much further. trend reflects recent benefit reduction and lower caseloads
SNAP spending, which rose substantially as a share of the economy (gross domestic product or GDP) in the wake of the Great Recession, fell for the second consecutive year in 2015,[1] following the pattern that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and other experts expect.
Walmart raising wages to at least $9
Walmart, the largest private employer in the country, said on Thursday that it would increase wages for a half-million employees, a move that comes amid persistent scrutiny of its labor practices and high employee turnover.
Pope addresses right to food in address to 500 experts
MILAN (AP) — Pope Francis emphasized the right to food as fundamental in a video address Saturday to 500 experts starting work on a wide-ranging document aimed at raising awareness and proposing solutions to issues including hunger, obesity and food waste
