U.S. regulators knew they had to act fast. A train hauling 2 million gallons of crude oil from North Dakota had exploded in the Canadian town of Lac-Megantic, killing 47 people. Now they had to assure Americans a similar disaster wouldn’t happen south of the border, where the U.S. oil boom is sending
Last August, more than a year after the Philips lighting fixture plant in Sparta, Tennessee, closed its doors, Bo McCurry and Ricky Lack stepped out of Lack’s beat-up Ford Ranger and walked up the sloping, tree-lined drive to the plant’s padlocked gates. It was the first time either one had been back since the closure.
The fishermen in the room are standing. More prone to long hours on their feet than sitting, they stick out at these meetings, rising after a few hours, hovering behind chairs. This is the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. One of eight regional councils that
PITTSBURGH, Penn.–Elaine Carrington moved into the Lemington Home for the Aged in Pittsburgh in November 2004. She died three weeks later of a blood clot in her lungs. An investigation by the state found that the staff had failed to give Carrington any of her
PITTSBURGH, Penn.–On July 4, 1883, the Lemington Home for the Aged opened as a charity to house “aged and infirm colored women.” The first four residents included a former slave named Aunt Peggy. That began a 122 history of service that would end sadly due
Fifty years ago, an eloquent drifter from Florida changed the American justice system. Clarence Earl Gideon, accused of breaking into a pool hall, was tried without a lawyer in Bay County, Florida, in 1961. Convicted after representing himself, he petitioned the Supreme Court for a
ZHANGJIAGANG, China – An incredible forest lies on its side in this gritty industrial town in southeastern China. On the southern bank of the Yangtze River nine-foot-diameter kevazingo trees from Gabon rub against Cambodian rosewoods and Indonesian teaks. Nearby, rust-colored bark from Malaysian pacific maples
When Kelly Cook and her husband tackled the daunting task of buying their dream home in Lebanon, Ohio, they got help from an unexpected source. Struggling to come up with a down payment, the couple discovered a program intended for moderate income homebuyers caught in
TRINIDAD, Colorado – When the New Elk mine reopened amid windblown prairies last winter, it attracted little attention. But the mine – a long shaft boring through some of the world’s most valuable coal – strikes at the heart of a growing debate about the future of American coal.
TUOJIA VILLAGE, China – When you think about China’s growing greenhouse gas emissions, you probably don’t think of people like Zhang Chao or his father Zhang Dejun. Zhang Chao, a 35-year-old middle school teacher living in small city in southwestern
Thousands of Afghans have fled the death and destruction of southern Afghanistan by abandoning their ancestral homes. They are now displaced, living in a sewage-soaked camp in Kabul, having forsaken their land for survival and their family’s future. Among a maze of mud walls, shielded by leaking
Douglas Goodale, by the age of 32, had 8 years of commercial fishing experience behind him when his job literally took his right arm and very nearly his life. Goodale was working by himself on his twenty-two foot purple lobster boat, “Barney,” about one mile
According to the inscription on the Statue of Liberty, immigrants are the “tired… poor… the huddled masses yearning to be free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore… the homeless, tempest-tossed.” Unfortunately, those words did not fit when Emma Lazarus wrote them in 1883, and
At a national conference last year on the genuinely worrisome problem of the federal deficit, Michael Dukakis, the Democratic presidential candidate and governor of Massachusetts, denounced the “scandalous gap between our tax laws and compliance with those laws.” “The problem,” he said, “is that tax
A Survey in Two Parts of the Human Impact of Agricultural Development from Prehistoric to Contemporary Times as seen from the Village of Shush-Daniel on the Khuzestan Plain of Southwest Persia Contents Part One: 10,000 to 640 B.C. – Bedouin. PartTwo: Le Temoin – 640
Pakistan’s Elections Tolstoy and Urbanization Oscar Lewis Teheran, December 27, 1970 Last July the FAO’s director general, Dr. Addeke H. Boerma, warned the Second World Food Congress as quoted in a previous newsletter – that unless the agricultural revolution in the poor countries was carefully
Part Two: The City A study in two parts of the human impact of agricultural change and urbanization in the Javanese village of Pilangsari and the city of Djakarta Simprug “You are millions… But we are countless…” Aleksandr Blok In the heart of Kebajoran Baru,
Or ever the silver cord be loosed,Or the golden bowl be broken,Or the pitcher be broken at the fountain,Or the wheel broken at the cistern… The flow to the towns is already a major trouble in the poor countries of the world. In the 1970s
June 12, 1970 Introductory note: The central, developing theme of previous articles in my study has been that if the governments of the poor nations cannot solve their problems of overpopulation and the social dislocation of the agricultural revolution, many of the world’s cities risk
Part Four: The Harvest A study in four parts of the human impact of the new seeds and methods of cultivation in Ghungrali-Rajputan, a prosperous farming village on the Punjab Plain in Northwest India The tractor and the huge red cutting machine came over the
