FRESNO, Calif. — When Jose Dolores began picking grapes at Gerawan Farming in California’s San Joaquin Valley in 1990, the company was paying a little over the state minimum wage of $4.25 an hour. “We just weren’t making enough, and everything cost a lot. That’s why people wanted the union,” he recalls.
Author: WHES
Majority of U.S. public school students are in poverty
For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of U.S. public school students come from low-income families, according to a new analysis of 2013 federal data, a statistic that has profound implications for the nation.The Southern Education Foundation reports that 51 percent of students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade in the 2012-2013 school year were eligible for the federal program that provides free and reduced-price lunches. The lunch program is a rough proxy for poverty, but the explosion in the number of needy children in the nation’s public classrooms is a recent phenomenon that has been gaining attention among educators, public officials and researchers.
In South Africa, Thousands Mourn Nelson Mandela’s Son: He Died of AIDS and Mandela Breaks Code of Silence About AIDS by Saying So
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This powerful Reddit thread reveals how the poor get by in America
The poor pay more for everything, from rolls of toilet paper to furniture. It’s not because they’re spendthrifts, either. If you’re denied a checking account, there’s no way for you to avoid paying a fee to cash a paycheck. If you need to buy a car to get to work, you’ll have to accept whatever higher interest rate you’re offered. If you don’t have a car, the bus fare might eat up the change you’d save shopping at a larger grocery store as opposed to the local corner store.
As aid reaches Syrians, U.N. chief says withholding food is a war crime
UNITED NATIONS — The head of the United Nations said on Thursday that the warring parties in Syria were committing war crimes by withholding food from civilians. He called for all sides to lift their sieges immediately and unconditionally “as a confidence-building gesture” ahead of peace talks scheduled for Jan. 25.
Ethiopia confronts its worst ethnic violence in years as government tries to take away community lands
WENCHI, Ethiopia – The cows Ethiopia confronts its worst ethnic violence in years as government tries to take away community lands
Congo’s forgotten war: The militia of Mambasa
MAMBASA, 8 January 2016 (IRIN) – In spite of the death more than a year ago of key commander Paul Sadala Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the of type and scrambled
Most of America’s rich think the poor have it easy
Most of America’s richest think poor people have it easy in this country, according to a new report released by the Pew Research Center. The center surveyed a nationally representative group of people this past fall, and found that the majority of the country’s most financially secure citizens (54 percent at the very top, and 57 percent just below) believe the “poor have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything in return.” America’s least financially secure, meanwhile, vehemently disagree — nearly 70 percent say the poor have hard lives because the benefits “don’t go far enough.” Nationally, the population is almost evenly split.
India’s ‘manual scavengers’ rise up against caste discrimination
Watching Bittal Devi deftly weave threads of different colours into a vibrant patchwork quilt, it’s hard to imagine that this 46-year-old’s hands have spent the better part of their life cleaning toilets.Born in Sava, a village in the state of Rajasthan in northwestern India, Devi is from a community that, down the centuries, has worked as ‘manual scavengers’.A caste-based profession, it condemns mostly women, but also men, to clean human excreta out of dry latrines with their hands, and carry it on their heads to disposal dumps. Many also clean sewers, septic tanks and open drains with no protective gear.
Children starving to death in Pakistan’s drought-struck Tharparkar District
Children are bearing the brunt of the drought in Tharparkar, often the first to fall victim to diarrhoea and pneumonia brought on by malnutrition, Pakistan, Jan 3 2015 (IPS) – The main entrance to the Civil Hospital in Mithi, headquarters of the Tharparkar district in Pakistan’s southern Sindh Province, is blocked by a couple of men clad in traditional dress and turbans. They are trying to console a woman who is sobbing so heavily she has to gasp for breath.She lost her two-year-old son just moments ago and these men, both relations of hers, were the ones to carry the child into the hospital where doctors tried – and failed – to save him.
