News About Inequality - April 2008

'Through Sickness, Health and Sex Change'

• The New York Times, April 27, 2008
  Massachusetts is the only state to have legalized same-sex marriage, and the Brunners are two women married to each other in New Jersey. As this state (along with Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire) confronts challenges over whether its civil unions fulfill the mandate of providing same-sex couples equal rights and benefits, the Brunners offer themselves as Exhibit A on how the nation's dizzying patchwork of marriage laws, which include the domestic partnerships of California and other states, may be out of step with people's lives.

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'In Bell Case, Black New Yorkers See Nuances That Temper Rage'

• The New York Times, April 27, 2008
  There was anger on the streets of Jamaica, Queens, where Sean Bell was killed in a hail of 50 police bullets in 2006 - both before and after a judge on Friday acquitted three detectives who had been charged in the shooting.

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'Uranium Under the Sand, Anger Above'

• The Washington Post, April 27, 2008
  Most Americans have heard of Niger only because that's where the CIA dispatched former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV to find out whether Saddam Hussein had tried to buy yellowcake uranium. But Niger's precious resource, just a footnote to the Iraq war, is the cause of monumental suffering here.

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'Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations'

• The New York Times, April 23, 2008
  The United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population. But it has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners.

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'COLLEGE AND MONEY; College, What a Deal!'

• The New York Times, April 20, 2008
  The financial-aid bidding war at the nation's top universities was under way.

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'Krugman's Conundrum'

• The Economist, April 17, 2008
  The elusive link between trade and wage inequality.

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'A Fresh Look at the Apostle of Free Markets'

• The New York Times, April 13, 2008
  Joblessness is growing. Millions of homes are sliding into foreclosure. The financial system continues to choke on the toxic leftovers of the mortgage crisis. The downward spiral of the economy is challenging a notion that has underpinned American economic policy for a quarter-century - the idea that prosperity springs from markets left free of government interference.

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'Following the Money'

• The Boston Globe, April 13, 2008
  Income in well-to-do towns is rising fast, widening the gap with the middle class

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'Report on Children Shows a Diverse County'

• The New York Times, April 13, 2008
  ...the comprehensive statistical presentation begins to paint a picture of the county's children and their lives. What emerges is a portrait that underscores a diverse and divided county. Most children in the county live comfortably and are well educated. But there are pockets of children living in poverty, lacking easy access to medical care and attending underperforming schools.

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'Many More Are Jobless Than Are Unemployed'

• The New York Times, April 12, 2008
  The unemployment rate is low. The jobless rate is high.

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'Labour Movement'

• The Economist, April 10, 2008
  The joys and drawbacks of being able to work from anywhere.