News & Features

With the revolution in new technologies that was part of the larger revolution in industry more than just strong character and virtue was needed to be famous. In the age of television commercials, public relations and televised debates (as the Kennedy-Nixon debate amply demonstrated) it is questionable whether a man like George Washington could be elected president if he were to run for office today, when image has in so many ways supplanted substance. 

There was a fairly recent time when the word most associated with the chairmanship of a major committee in the House of Representatives was powerful.  Retiring Representatives Dingell and Waxman enjoyed the aura that came with the gavel.That was then.  Confirmation of how things have changed came this week when the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee unveil a tax reform plan that everyone agrees is both credible and going nowhere.

Norma knows what it’s like to live through hell. She says she’s experienced it ever since she was a child, growing up in an abusive family in extreme poverty in South Texas, as a teenager when she was forced by her stepfather to enter the world of drug trafficking, later as an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), and throughout 39 years of living as an undocumented immigrant. Norma, who asked that her real name not be used, agreed to start working for the DEA in 1989. 

Guzmán, once declared by Forbes as one of the richest men on Earth, was the effective ruler of a parallel narco-terrorist state covering large swaths of Mexican states. So far it is unclear what specific charges he will be tried for, or in which prison he will carry out his sentence – he’s currently in the Altiplano prison. The prison that will ultimately host him is doubly important since he already escaped from one once. 

It is no secret that there is a lot of pressure on Arab American women to get married at a young age. Many find it difficult to concentrate on pursuing higher education because of cultural limitations. The expectations many families have for their daughters to get married in their 20s or earlier is not limited to the Arab community. It exists in other minority groups. Not all Arab American families expect their daughters to get married young or put pressure on them to do so, but it is a common problem. 

Unfortunately, the Kyoto emission cuts didn’t go into force until 2008; Canada, one of the world’s biggest oil producers, wouldn’t sign it; the U.S. didn’t ratify it, nor did Australia, one of the world’s top coal producers; China, India and the rest of the developing world weren’t covered by it; and its limits lasted only until 2012.  The result of the treaty was that 20 percent of the growth of atmospheric carbon dioxide since people lived in caves occurred between 2000 and 2011.

On Feb. 5 one of the biggest national drugstore chains announced something that would once have been unthinkable: It will cease selling one of its most in-demand items, simply because the company believes that’s the right thing to do. Sounds hard to believe, right? Sure does. But could CVS Pharmacy's decision to quit selling cigarettes as of Oct. 1 be a major turning point in our country’s quest to become a healthier America? Absolutely.

The youngest of six children, four sisters and two brothers, Santos was raised by a suddenly single woman who struggled to maintain a family in the tough Los Angeles County city of Compton. The older brother “headed for the streets and I followed,” is how Santos describes his youthful years. “(Gang life) is what we saw. That’s what we did. There comes a point when you have to change your life, and that is what I did,” says a survivor who is now approaching the early stages of middle age.