poverty

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Healthiest US City Gets Moving
 Healthiest US City Gets Moving 
Nov 17, 2008 2:27 PM CST

Healthiest US City Gets Moving

Burlington, Vt., tops list due to active citizens; Huntington, W.Va., is unhealthiest

(Newser) - Burlington, Vt., is America's healthiest city, with 92% of residents reporting that they're in good or great health. A number of factors account for the gap between Burlington and Huntington, W.Va., which brought up the rear in the CDC's healthy-city rankings, the AP reports. Burlington's residents are younger on...

Downturns Spark 'Witch Hunts' Against Elderly

People lash out during tough times, researchers explain

(Newser) - "Witch-hunting” is a hot term these days as angry Wall Street investors pine for revenge—but in some countries they take it literally, Tim Harford writes in Slate. In Tanzania, Bolivia, and India, elderly women are often targeted as witches when resources are scarce. Tanzanian women are killed by...

Moms' Stress Can Lead to Fat Children: Study

Kids seek comfort in food as mothers worry about money, job

(Newser) - Moms stressed out by poverty could be driving millions of US kids younger than 10 to take refuge in food and become overweight, a study finds. The stress may be linked to heavy work schedules and health-insurance troubles, among other issues, Reuters reports. The study argues for better aid to...

Vogue's India Poverty Shoot Pits Couture vs. Culture

Mag touts barrier-breaking 'power of fashion;' 'downright distasteful,' others say

(Newser) - Vogue India is taking heat for a haute couture fashion spread that uses poverty-ridden locals for models, the New York Times reports. A toothless, barefoot man holding a $200 Burberry umbrella and a rumpled baby in a $100 Fendi bib are just two examples that have irked some critics in...

Ranks of Uninsured Drop by 1M
 Ranks of
 Uninsured
 Drop by 1M
Aug 26, 2008 1:11 PM CDT

Ranks of Uninsured Drop by 1M

Poverty rate unchanged, median incomes rise

(Newser) - There were a million fewer uninsured Americans last year, the first annual decrease under the Bush administration, according to Census Bureau data released today. Median household incomes also rose slightly for the third consecutive year, while the nation’s poverty rate held steady at just over 12%, AP reports. The...

Gates Urges Companies to Get Creative to Improve Lives

He ruminates on how to tweak market forces to help more people

(Newser) - Bill Gates tweaks his corporate colleagues with an essay in Time urging businesses to look harder for ways to extend the benefits of capitalism to a greater portion of the global population. As a philanthropist, he says, he recognizes the need for nonprofit work, but as a businessman, he knows...

Study: Homeless Numbers Drop
 Study: Homeless Numbers Drop
Jul 30, 2008 7:43 AM CDT

Study: Homeless Numbers Drop

First study to count homeless over a full year finds numbers down 15% in '07

(Newser) - The number of chronically homeless Americans fell by 15% last year, a study has found. The survey is the first to track homelessness over a full year, the Los Angeles Times reports. Homeless advocates argue that the promising numbers may in part be due to different counting methods—and that...

Piglets-for-Girls Bargain Saves Thousands

Nepalese spared from slavery, sent to school by non-profit program

(Newser) - An American’s plan to keep poor Nepalese families from selling daughters into slavery by offering them pigs has saved thousands of girls in the Himalayan country, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The non-profit founded by Olga Murray gives pigs (which, grown, fetch the same $35-75 buyers would pay for...

African Women Take Brunt of Food Crisis

As prices soar, mothers feed the men and eat what remains

(Newser) - As food and fuel prices continue to climb, impoverished families across Africa are hurting worse than ever—and women are suffering the most. The Washington Post follows one Burkina Faso mother in her daily struggle to feed her family and survive in a culture that puts her last at mealtime....

Why Is Memphis the New South Bronx?
 Why Is Memphis the New
 South Bronx? 
analysis
Jun 29, 2008 4:00 PM CDT

Why Is Memphis the New South Bronx?

Demolition of low-income housing has only redistributed the problem

(Newser) - Despite a flattened national crime rate in large cities, Memphis was recently dubbed the nation's leader in violent crime, prompting Atlantic Monthly to ask: “Why has Elvis’s hometown turned into America’s new South Bronx?" Local experts offer an unsettling answer: demolition of low-income housing projects isn’t...

Obama 'Wants to Talk White': Nader

Third-party maverick says Dem avoids poverty, favors 'appeal to white guilt'

(Newser) - Ralph Nader says Barack Obama "wants to talk white" and "appeal to white guilt" while ignoring poverty, the third-party presidential candidate told the Rocky Mountain News yesterday. The consumer advocate said the only thing that separated Obama from past Democrats is that he’s “half African-American,"...

Axis of Wealth Shifting East
 Axis of Wealth Shifting East 
Jun 25, 2008 2:43 AM CDT

Axis of Wealth Shifting East

India, China claim biggest surge in new millionaires

(Newser) - Nations once known for extremes of poverty—China, India and Brazil—are now producing more of the world's millionaires and super rich than ever before, according to a new study of the globe's wealthiest entrepreneurs. The US is losing ground to emerging markets when it comes to producing personal wealth,...

How Government Can Buy You Happiness
 How Government 
 Can Buy You Happiness 
OPINION
Jun 19, 2008 3:30 PM CDT

How Government Can Buy You Happiness

Economists need to start thinking about quality of life

(Newser) - While the jury's still out on whether money can buy happiness, a higher gross domestic product certainly doesn't. In rich countries, well-being really does depend on non-material things like family stability, a friendly community, and job security—and economists should start incorporating quality-of-life issues into policy, John Cassidy writes in...

Gated Enclaves Soar Above Indian Slums

Wealthy Indians move into posh residences to escape impoverished cities

(Newser) - Gated communities are emerging across India  to offer the country's growing group of wealthy professionals Western luxuries that the government cannot. One exclusive high-rise complex in Gurgaon, a suburb of Delhi, has its own security guards, landscaped lawns, and private school. Air conditioning, elevators, running water are all uninterrupted, while...

Diet Duchess Leaves Sour Taste
 Diet Duchess 
 Leaves Sour Taste 
TV review
May 23, 2008 4:01 PM CDT

Diet Duchess Leaves Sour Taste

Lecturing poor on diet a sicking symptom of TV's feast on self-respect

(Newser) - Watching Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson lecture some of Britain’s poorest—and hungriest—on the virtues of healthy eating on the UK show "The Duchess of Hull" may turn stomachs, but it's just the latest offering from a lengthy menu of a la carte snobbery perpetuated by today’...

Rice Is the New Oil
 Rice Is the New Oil 
Apr 27, 2008 3:31 PM CDT

Rice Is the New Oil

Rising food prices threaten a more serious global crisis

(Newser) - Even as the burgeoning price of oil slaps consumers at the pump, a darker global market crisis looms as rising commodities prices compound the pressures of poverty worldwide. The UN has said that spiking food prices have started "a silent tsunami threatening to plunge more than 100 million people...

Life Grows Shorter for America's Poor

Smoking, obesity blamed for spread of 'death gap'

(Newser) - Life is getting shorter for many of America's poorest people, USA Today reports. Life expectancy has risen in most of the nation since 1960 but in some areas—including the Deep South and Appalachia—life expectancy has dropped significantly, according to a study published in The Public Library of Science....

Not an Icon, a Man
 Not an Icon, a Man 
Apr 4, 2008 6:41 PM CDT

Not an Icon, a Man

Would civil rights legend be controversial in today's political climate?

(Newser) - On the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination, the Washington Post looks past the legend at the multidimensional figure scholars and King's associates consider his true legacy. ”His challenge was much bigger than being nice," says historian Taylor Branch. "It was even bigger than race....

McCain Deems 1983 Vote Against MLK Day a 'Mistake'

Events marking 40th anniversary of civil-rights leader's death also draw Dems

(Newser) - John McCain apologized today for his 1983 Senate vote against a federal Martin Luther King holiday. Standing at the Memphis site where King was assassinated in 1968, McCain called his nay vote “a mistake,” the Memphis Commercial Appeal reports; McCain later voted for a state holiday in Arizona....

MLK Son: We Need Cabinet Post for Poverty
MLK Son:
We Need Cabinet Post
for Poverty
opinion
Apr 4, 2008 7:28 AM CDT

MLK Son: We Need Cabinet Post for Poverty

40 years later, much work remains, he says

(Newser) - The son of Martin Luther King says the nation can best commemorate the 40th anniversary of his father's assassination by taking concrete action to fight poverty. In an essay in the  Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Martin Luther King III called on the presidential candidates to commit to creating a Cabinet position, one...

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