The Payday Playbook: How High Cost Lenders Fight to Stay Legal

Paul Kiel ProPublica
Payday, installment and auto-title lenders have more than 1,400 locations in the state — about one store for every 4,100 Missourians. The average two-week payday loan, which is secured by the borrower’s next paycheck, carries an annual percentage rate of 455% in Missouri, more than 100 points higher than the national average. A coalition of faith groups, community organizations and labor unions decided to put forward the ballot initiative to cap rates at 36%.

Suicide or Not, First Known Death in CA Hunger Strike Reflects Inhumane Prison Conditions

George Lavender In These Times
The department will not negotiate with the prisoners and insist that “in the end, it's up to the inmates to decide to end the hunger strike." But many prisoners say they are committed to continuing the hunger strike. After 13 years in isolation, Duguma says that he and the other hunger strikers are “doing what we have to in order to get the people of this nation to say we have suffered enough and no one should be tortured and stripped of their humanity.”

The Heart Makers

How do you make a working human heart? Scientists can turn stem cells into beating heart cells, but getting them to organize into a 3D heart requires a scaffold. 

August 24: 50th Anniversary March on Washington

On August 24th peace and anti-war activist are gathering in DC to remember the historic March on Washington 50 years ago and to give voice to calls to end the plague of war, the injustice of economic, racial and social inequality and the destruction of our planet. The March on Washington Film Festival (trailer shown here) toured major cities in 2013 and will tour again in 2014.

Bradley Manning Verdict

If Bradley Manning was acquitted of aiding the enemy but convicted of espionage, who was he spying for, us?

 

Members-Only Collective Bargaining, Get Ready For an Old Concept with a New Use

Charles Morris charlesjmorris.blogspot.com
It is especially important that the AFL-CIO and other participants in American labor relations become better acquainted with the concept of members-only collective bargaining because the National Labor Relations Board will likely be considering that process in the near future.