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POPSThe Straight Facts on Women in Poverty The best policy solutions to address women’s poverty must combine a range of decent employment opportunities with a network of social services that support healthy families, such as quality health care, child care, and housing support. Policy objectives must also recognize the multiple barriers to economic security women face based on their race, ethnicity, immigration status, sexuality, physical ability, and health status. These approaches must promote the equal social and economic status of all women by expanding their opportunities to balance work and family life.
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POPSCondemned to Die: Abortion in Latin America "In this profession, we see all kinds of things, like people using witchcraft, to whatever pills they can get their hands on," said a doctor, who charges about $45 to carry out abortions in women's homes. He spoke on condition that his name not be used, because performing an abortion in Colombia can lead to a prison term of more than four years. "They open themselves up to incredible risks, from losing their reproductive systems or, through complications, their lives," the doctor said. Such arguments have done little to sway an anti-abortion movement that is largely led by influential leaders of the Roman Catholic Church.
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POPSHurrah for the Millennials! When it comes to policy, Millennials are liberal interventionists on economic issues, active multilateralists in foreign affairs and tolerant non-meddlers on social issues-a profile that most closely matches the Democratic Party's platform as well as the new President's agenda. Their propensity to vote straight Democratic was clearly evident in 2008 when young voters supported Democratic congressional candidates by about the same margin that they did Obama (63% vs. 34%).
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POPSRIP, Playgirl The women’s dreams crashed when Blue Horizon Media, which also puts out hard-core magazines, announced it was shutting Playgirl. The last issue, dated January/February 2009, recently arrived on newsstands.
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POPSGermany’s Green Party Elects First Ethnic Turk as Leader With a conservative party’s choice of Angela Merkel to run as chancellor in 2005 — a successful gambit — and now an ethnic Turk at the helm of an influential party, it appears that German society is slowly breaking with the past, when women were inconspicuous and immigrants’ voices were seldom heard.
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POPSDeaf Jam Determined to bring the deaf and hard-of hearing community into the music world, D-PAN has further partnered with the University of Michigan's College of Engineering. The university is championing ways to apply new wireless technology that will aid the deaf and hard-of-hearing community in a live concert setting, and augment their capacity to "feel" the music. Forbes has his eyes on the hearing-centric music festivals. "I would love to see myself and other deaf artists going out performing on stage. Like at Lollapalooza. I think people would think it's cool to see deaf artists signing."
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POPSJury Awards $2.5 million to Teen Beaten by KKK An all-white jury of seven men and seven women deliberated for five hours after three days of testimony. The suit alleged that Edwards, Hensley, and the Imperial Klans of America as a whole incited its members to use violence against minorities. "The people of Meade County, Kentucky, have spoken loudly and clearly. And what they've said is that ethnic violence has no place in our society, that those who promote hate and violence will be held accountable and made to pay a steep price," said Southern Poverty Law Center founder Morris Dees.
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POPSElection of Obama spurs "hundreds" of race threats, crimes Four North Carolina State University students admitted writing "Let's shoot that (N-word) in the head," in a tunnel meant for free speech. At Standish, Maine, a sign inside the Oak Hill General Store read: "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool. Stabbing, shooting, roadside bombs, they all count. Let's hope someone wins." Second- and third-grade students on a school bus in Rexburg, Idaho, chanted "assassinate Obama," a district official said. Black figures were hanged by nooses from trees on Mount Desert Island, Maine, the Bangor Daily News reported. Crosses were burned in yards of Obama supporters in Hardwick, N.J., and Apolacan Township, Pa. Their time is coming an end, and they know it: whites will no longer be the majority population in the US by 2050.
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POPSFDR 2.0 Obama's weekly presidential address will be posted on YouTube.
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POPSProp 8 Legal Challenge Filed Last May, the California Supreme Court found that depriving same-sex couples the right to marry violated equal protection – and that LGBT people are a "suspect class." A "suspect class" is a group that has suffered discrimination and needs protection. The central purpose behind equal protection is to protect unpopular minorities from a political majority who could take away their rights. You can’t simply change the Constitution by majority vote to take away the right of gay people to marry – because that right comes from the equal protection clause. As Herrera wrote in his brief, "without a judiciary that has the final word on equal protection, there simply is no such thing as equal protection."
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POPSAnti-Latino Hate Crimes Rise for Fourth Year in a Row At the same time as anti-Latino violence has risen, the Southern Poverty Law Center has reported a major increase in hate groups — from 602 in 2000 to 888 in 2007, a 48% percent jump — and said that the growth has been almost entirely driven by the immigration debate.
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POPSAnti-Gay, Anti-Family Even before the law passed, the state estimated that it had only about a quarter of the foster parents it needed. Beginning on Jan. 1, a grandmother in Arkansas cohabitating with her opposite-sex partner because marrying might reduce their pension benefits is barred from taking in her own grandchild; a gay man living with his male partner cannot adopt his deceased sister’s children. Social conservatives are threatening to roll out Arkansas-style adoption bans in other states. And the timing couldn’t be worse: in tough economic times, the numbers of abused and neglected children in need of foster care rises. But good times or bad, no movement that would turn away qualified parents and condemn children to a broken foster care system should be considered “pro-family.”