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The New Orleans Police Department had a reputation for corruption long before Hurricane Katrina made landfall in the summer of 2005. For decades, the department was infected by a culture of discrimination, abuse, and lawlessness. That culture spilled out into the open in the week after the storm. During that brief period, police officers shot and killed three unarmed civilians.
The ink had barely dried on the recommendation issued last month by New York Gov. Cuomo’s Wage Board — calling for a $15 minimum wage in the state’s fast-food industry — when corporate special interests in New York began sounding the alarm.
It’s been a decade since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast area of the United States, and nearly destroyed New Orleans. Katrina was one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history, killing nearly 2,000 people, displacing thousands, and inflicting an estimated $108 billion dollars of damage.
Beyond the stats, when I think about the events that unfolded in late August of 2005, I remember what it taught me about our democracy.
In the 2016 presidential election, we are approaching a singular and momentous crossroads in our nation’s history. Will we, or will we not, make a serious effort to achieve a low-carbon future for our children and our planet? The fossil fuel magnates and the GOP say no, because we can’t or shouldn’t, but more than 75 percent of Americans want our leaders to take significant steps to fight climate change, according to a poll released in January 2015 by the New York Times, Stanford University, and Resources for the Future.
Heather McGhee, the president of the left-leaning research and advocacy group Demos, often begins her Sundays by giving her mother something to talk about. “She’s the person who has a lot of opinions about my appearance,” said Ms. McGhee, 35, a frequent guest on morning talk shows and on MSNBC. Besides doing on-camera stints, she likes a day without meetings, conferences or fund-raising talks, instead pursuing culture with friends. She lives in Greenwich Village with two cats.
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Given how tough it can be for many people to save for retirement, it’s unfortunate that some companies make it even more difficult. But a large number of 401(k) plans do just that by imposing high costs and offering subpar investment choices.
Women make up almost half of all workers in America and working mothers are the primary breadwinners in 40 percent of the nation’s families, so economic equality would make an immense difference for families and the economy as a whole.
US stock prices opened trading much higher today after yesterday’s rout and the rout the day before that and the rout the day before that. European markets were up also. The Chinese markets, which closed at 3 a.m. New York time, were off by another 7%, but the government cut interest rates to increase liquidity in the economy and raised the requirements to buy on margin (how much of a stock’s value one can borrow from the brokerage firm).
Great news, is it not? We can all relax and enjoy the end of the summer.