National

It’s hard to be a child, but harder if you grow up in the United States, according to a recent United Nations report. Despite claims by “free market” braggarts that unfettered capitalism is the pinnacle of human achievement, children’s quality of life in the U.S. and Britain ranked at the bottom of the 21 wealthiest countries, according to the UNICEF survey.

The human impact in the U.S. of the trillion-dollar Iraq war and Bush tax cuts for the super-rich boiled to the surface at the annual National Governor’s Association (NGA) winter meeting.

WASHINGTON — Army Lt. Brady Van Engelen barely survived a sniper bullet that shattered his skull while he was patrolling outside a Sunni mosque in Baghdad in April 2004. But, he told the World, the medical care system for the thousands of returning combat veterans like him is “completely broken.”

In late January, a Mississippi man was arrested for a 1965 killing of two Black teenagers, who were tied to trees, whipped and drowned. Seale’s arrest, and others like it, shows that the nation is still struggling to come to grips with its violent history around the treatment of Blacks and the Civil Rights Movement.

It’s an oft-repeated truism: our children are our future. By that measure, however, our country could be heading for a pretty dismal time, according to a UNICEF report released earlier this month.

For casting a vote in the 1872 presidential election, women’s rights pioneer Susan B. Anthony was arrested, tried, convicted and fined $100 (which she never paid). In a famous 1873 speech to the court titled “On Women’s Right to Vote,” Anthony drew a profound connection between the struggles for African American rights and for women’s rights.

FENTON, Mo. — An autoworker who is a member of the Missouri Legislature says Chrysler’s announcement that it is gutting 1,300 jobs from its South Assembly Plant here has “more to do with the bargaining climate than with the car sales.”

WASHINGTON — In local town hall meetings, rallies and visits to lawmakers’ district offices, antiwar activists are taking their “bring the troops home” message to the grass roots as the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war looms.

WASHINGTON — El presidente Bush envió el 5 de febrero un presupuesto para la consideración del Congreso de $2,9 billones lleno de beneficios para los ricos y las corporaciones, pero con poco para la gente trabajadora, los ancianos, los niños y los pobres

George W. Bush has selected Southern Methodist University in Dallas to maintain and extend his political legacy. The outcry began with a modest and extremely civilized commentary in the campus newspaper last November. It has risen to a nationwide roar that includes leading Methodists, SMU faculty members, and the public at large.