News & Features

When Shuanghui, China’s largest pork producer, made an offer to buy Smithfield, it should have been a straightforward business transaction. Smithfield is America’s largest pork producer. By acquiring Smithfield, Shuanghui would be positioned to fill China’s rising demand for more pork. What should have been a simple win-win deal is becoming a lot more complicated thanks to Congressional review. As presented at the hearing, the humble bacon has suddenly risen to become an ominous threat capable of imperiling the security of the United States. 

Dysprosium, a “rare-earth” element, is essential in the production of technologies as varied as iPhones, wind turbines, smart bombs and predator drones. China currently dominates the global dysprosium market, but the discovery near Hydaburg could change all of that by supplying U.S. production demands for decades to come. Not everyone in Hydaburg, however, is enthusiastic about the idea of a mine. Despite the promise of jobs, some residents say a mine will lead to pollution of their salmon fisheries.

A jury in Florida failed us. We have not seen a moral failure this grave since a similarly all-white jury in Simi Valley, Calif., in 1992 acquitted the four LAPD officers who beat Rodney King. Writing in the same year as that ill-fated verdict, the distinguished civil rights lawyer Derrick Bell declared that "racism is an integral, permanent and indestructible component of this society." In most circumstances, I treat this declaration as a foil: a claim to be slowly picked apart as, at best, too easy and, at worst, deeply unfair and wrong. Not today.

The issue then boils down to whether the Zimmerman jurors can separate his defense attorney’s deliberate muddle of the facts and trashing of Martin and see that there’s absolutely no credible proof that marijuana use in and of itself induces violent behavior in anyone. There is not a scintilla of evidence that Martin was inherently aggressive and violence prone. The prosecution’s job is to make sure that they see this. 

Fed up, cities from Cocoa Beach, Florida and Lynwood, Illinois to Boston, New York, Shreveport, and other communities around Louisiana are telling saggers to pull their pants up or face fines, community service and even prison time. The terms of the laws vary – some ban showing any underwear at all, some ban pants below the waist, some measure the number of inches that may show before violating the law. And the legal basis for the prohibitions aren’t clear, usually couched in terms of “obscenity” or “indecency."

California ranked just ahead of Texas, which finished in 42nd place. New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts earned the highest rankings, while Nevada, Mississippi, and New Mexico ranked lowest. The report, released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation in partnership with Children Now, determined rankings by taking into account the state’s performance in 16 areas, including graduation rates, parental unemployment rates, and the percentage of children who are uninsured. California placed 41st in 2012 as well. 

Although clearly not barred from providing testimony in the Trayvon Martin case, it seems that many in the public sought to hold Rachel Jeantel to the same “racialized” standard. While the ridicule and mockery cut across racial lines, it is hard to believe that critics would shower such harsh treatment on a white witness of similar speech and disposition. While her language and demeanor may not have been palatable to some, neither should impugn either her credibility or integrity as a witness. 

The Supreme Court dealt a blow to the Voting Rights Act last week, only two weeks after ruling that an Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote is unconstitutional. The Court’s decision last Tuesday and the idea underpinning it – that voter suppression of ethnic minority and poor voters is no longer an issue that warrants the same federal protections as it once did – sits at odds with their ruling on the Arizona voter ID law.