The wire for 05/12/08

McCain to 14-Year-Old Girl: ‘No Fair Pay for You’
by Seth Michaels, May 8, 2008 AFL-CIO
Sen. John McCain is used to getting softball questions from his fans in the media. At his town hall meeting yesterday in Michigan, however, he finally took a tough, smart question from an unexpected source.
When a 14-year-old girl attending the meeting got to ask a question of a presidential candidate, she took the opportunity to ask why he skipped out on voting on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.Read More
http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/05/08/mccain-to-14-year-old-girl-no-fair-pay-for-you/


Global Food Crisis The New World of Soaring Food Prices
Series Washington Post
Read More http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/globalfoodcrisis/


The Progressive Generation
How Young Adults Think About the Economy
By David Madland, Amanda Logan May 6, 2008 Center for American Progress
Read More http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/05/progressive_generation.html/


Space Florida budget cut by 43 percent
BY TODD HALVORSON • FLORIDA TODAY • May 9, 2008
CAPE CANAVERAL — The state’s primary aerospace economic development agency will have its budget cut by almost 43 percent this year. But officials with Space Florida don’t expect layoffs or pay cuts.Florida Gov. Charlie Crist requested $8.5 million for Space Florida in his 2008-09 spending plan, which would have been a $1.5 million increase over the agency’s $7 million budget in 2007-08
Read More http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080509/BREAKINGNEWS/80509065/1086/rss07


Outdoor Workers Not Screened for Skin Cancer, Research Says
By Katherine Torres May 6, 2008 Occupational Hazards
New research has determined that employees working outdoors in the construction, forestry, fishing or farming industries are least likely to receive skin exams, despite their increased risk of incurring skin cancer from regular exposure to the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays.
Read More
http://www.occupationalhazards.com/News/Article/80187/Outdoor_Workers_Not_Screened_for_Skin_Cancer_Research_Says.aspx

Child Labor Rings Reach China’s Distant Villages
By DAVID BARBOZA Published: May 10, 2008 NY Times
LIANGSHAN, China — The mud and brick schoolhouses in the lush mountain villages of this remote part of southwestern China are dark and barebones in the best of times. These days, they also lack students Residents say children as young as 12 have been recruited by child labor rings, equipped with fake identification cards, and transported hundreds of miles across the country to booming coastal cities, where they work 12-hour shifts to produce much of the world’s toys, clothes and electronics
Read More http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/world/asia/10CHINA.html?th&emc=th

Massachusetts AFL-CIO Program Awards $1 Million in Scholarships
by James Parks, May 10, 2008 AFL-CIO
Higher education is no longer a far off dream parents once had for their children but a necessity in today’s economy—and an expensive necessity at that. Recent studies show workers with a college degree earn 45 percent more than those with a high school diploma. Yet college tuition costs are at an all-time high, making it harder for working families to afford it.
Read More http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/05/10/massachusetts-afl-cio-program-awards-1-million-in-scholarships/

EXTRA CREDIT

'Nixonland'
By RICK PERLSTEINReviewed by GEORGE F. WILL Sunday New York Times Book Review
Rick Perlstein’s sprawling, rollicking book argues that Richard Nixon is the explanation for everything — or at least for the rise of the right and the decline of almost everything else
Read More http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/books/review/Will-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&8bu=&oref=slogin&emc=bu&adxnnlx=1210551105-ZTedU+DWwPxWQqrOPh1TKw