National

By AlterNet Staff

The House voted this afternoon to pass a modified version of the Bush-Paulson bailout plan by a 263-171 margin. 172 Democrats and 91 Republicans supported the measure.

Before the vote, CNN reported, "At least 20 House members said Friday they had switched positions and would now support the proposed $700 billion bailout of the nation's financial system.

"Among the 20 converts is Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Illinois, his chief of staff, Kenneth Edmonds, said.

"Edmonds said Jackson is changing his vote because "he received assurances from (Sen. Barack Obama) that, if elected, his administration will aggressively use authority in the bill to prevent foreclosures and stabilize the housing market."

By Nayaba Arinde, Amsterdam News

“When Wall Street catches a cold, the Black community catches pneumonia,” assessed Councilmember Charles Barron. “We are in trouble.”

Before Lehman Brothers was thrown a financial lifeline late on Tuesday, and we, the people, bought an 80 percent share in A.I.G. to save the failing company, Monday saw distressed cardboard box–carrying shirt-sleeved guys and office-smart ladies streaming out of offices on Wall Street. “This fiscal approach to bailing out the rich is a reverse Robin Hood—robbing the poor to give the rich,” charged an angry Barron. “Under Bill Clinton, the conservative Democrat, and Reagan and Bush, the banking and finance industry was deregulated and they were allowed to run amok with the people’s money and make bad decisions and investments. And now, they are coming back to hurt the economy and poor people.”

By Tommi Avicolli-Mecca

Ask anyone why the government doesn’t build housing for every person in this country who needs it, and you’ll get the answer you always receive. Ask why the government doesn’t turn around tomorrow and set up a universal healthcare plan and there’s that answer again. Ditto for making education and public transportation free. It’s always the same stock response: Our government doesn’t have the dough.

Yet this same government can spend trillions on two wars that were unprovoked, not to mention completely immoral. Government also has the loot to bail out banks in our current mortgage crisis. It’s already bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Millions of Americans are losing their homes because of predatory lending practices, and they don’t get any help. It’s not called welfare for the rich for nothing.

By Associated Press

RICHMOND, Va. - With hopscotch speed, Shanawa Littlebow leapt to the side of the road, scooped up a plastic bottle cap and fell back into line with his fellow walkers, passing trailer homes and gas stations along Jefferson-Davis Highway.

Sweat beaded at his temples and dampened the seat of his cargo shorts.

The Tigua Indian man walked and searched for litter — a feathered staff in the crook of his right arm — in honor of Mother Earth.

"There may be a lot of people who don't even care," he said. "But at least we're out here, and we're speaking out."

By Associated Press

PASADENA, Texas - All along the Texas coast, Latino immigrants are hauling away fallen trees, slashing through storm-tangled brush, patching punctured roofs.

On working-class corners, on ladders in front of Victorian houses, in the yards of ornate mansions, crews of men in dusty jeans, sturdy workboots and baseball caps are nearly as omnipresent in the post-Hurricane Ike landscape as blue tarps on rooftops.

These workers, who get picked up off the street by homeowners looking for quick, cheap labor, are helping to rebuild the devastated cities of southeast Texas.
Many of them are here illegally. Others are legal residents in need of income after their regular jobs were disrupted by the hurricane.

Ike brought a wide swath of destruction, and with it the prospect of more work, higher wages and a respite from the ever-present threat of deportation. In recent months, many day laborers say, jobs in the Houston area had started to dry up, and police and immigration officials had been cracking down.

By Peter Phillips

A new report from The World Bank admits that in 2005 3.14 billion people live on less that $2.50 a day and about 44 percent of these people survive on less than $1.25. Complete and total wretchedness can be the only description for the circumstances faced by so many, especially those in urban areas. Simple items like phone calls, nutritious food, vacations, television, dental care, and inoculations are beyond the possible for billions of people.

Starvation.net logs the increasing impact of world hunger and starvation. Over 30,000 people a day (85 percent of children under 5) die of malnutrition, curable diseases and starvation. Over the past 40 years, the number of unnecessary deaths has exceeded 300 million.

By Hilary Costa

Crystal Whitehead sat down with her family to a free hot lunch at Antioch's Light Ministries church for the first time last week. It was also the first time the 26-year-old mother of three had ever sought this kind of assistance.

"Normally, I feel there's other people out there that need (these programs) more than I do," she said.

While her husband stealthily forked a bite of salad off her plate, Whitehead said that with the price of basic necessities jumping and her husband, a hardwood floor installer, out of work, her family needs the help right now.

By Evelyn Nieves

A few tents cropped up by the railroad tracks, pitched by people left with nowhere to go once the emergency winter shelter closed for the summer. Then others appeared - folks who had lost their jobs to the ailing economy, or newcomers who had moved to Reno for work and discovered no one was hiring.

Within weeks, more than 150 people were living in tents big and small, barely a foot apart in a patch of dirt slated to be a parking lot for a campus of shelters Reno is building for its homeless population. Like many other cities, Reno has found itself with a tent city - an encampment of people who had nowhere else to go.

From Seattle to Athens, Ga., homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the most visible rise in homeless encampments in a generation.