• State budget woes worsen as deadline arrives, By Deborah Tedford, July 1, 2009, National Public Radio: “States across the country got their 2010 fiscal years off to a bumpy start Wednesday, as some faced shutdowns with their budgets in limbo and others braced for deep cuts after passing bare-bones plans to deal with recession-driven revenue shortfalls…”
• Coffers empty, California pays with I.O.U.’s, By Jennifer Steinhauer, July 2, 2009, New York Times: “An ever-widening budget gap joined with intractable political paralysis to deliver California its biggest fiscal blow in decades on Thursday, when the state’s controller began printing i.o.u.’s in lieu of cash to pay taxpayers, vendors and local governments.   It was only the second time the state had adopted the emergency payment method since the Great Depression. The National Conference of State Legislatures had no record of any other state’s ever using them…”

What happens when you don’t own the land, By Chuck Shuford, July 3, 2009, Daily Yonder: “The national broadcast media rarely grapples with the interplay of concentrated wealth and power and the functioning of democracy when it attempts to explain the widespread, stubborn poverty in rural Central Appalachia. ..”

Pakistan’s kiln workers bricked in by debt, By Pamela Constable, July 3, 2009, Washington Post: “At the end of a village road, behind a grassy bluff, lies a hidden valley carpeted with thick red dust and canyoned with craggy mounds of earth. At the bottom, clay-colored figures squat barefoot all day, shaping balls of mud into bricks. In the distance, a dozen scattered chimneys spew clouds of black smoke, which trail off prettily across the horizon…”

U.S. shifts strategy on illicit work by immigrants, By Julia Preston, July 2, 2009, New York Times: “Immigration authorities had bad news this week for American Apparel, the T-shirt maker based in downtown Los Angeles: About 1,800 of its employees appeared to be illegal immigrants not authorized to work in the United States.  But in contrast to the high-profile raids that marked the enforcement approach of the Bush administration, no federal agents with criminal warrants stormed the company’s factories and rounded up employees…”

Constant fear and mob rule in South Africa slum, By Barry Bearak, June 29, 2009, New York Times: “The two robbery suspects had already been viciously beaten, their swollen faces stained with rivulets of red. One of them could no longer sit up, and only the need to moan seemed to revive him into consciousness. The other, Moses Tjiwa, occasionally stared into the taunting crowd and muttered, ‘I didn’t do anything’…”

Nebraska judge strikes down Medicaid rule, By Nate Jenkins (AP), July 2, 2009, Lincoln Journal Star: “Nebraska has been wrongfully denying Medicaid coverage to hundreds of low-income residents whom state officials argued did not work enough to comply with a welfare-to-work program, a judge has ruled.  The ruling nixes a controversial state policy that required a single parent with one or more children younger than 6 years old, for instance, to work at least 20 hours a week to retain the Medicaid benefits…”

State welfare rolls feel impact of recession, By Pam Fessler, July 3, 2009, National Public Radio: “Welfare caseloads have been going up in most states over the past year, but not in every state. In fact, cases are going down in some of the hardest-hit areas. That’s raised questions about whether the program is an adequate safety net for families in need…”

Stimulus eases community college troubles, By Kimberly Leonard, July 2, 2009, Stateline.org: “States are digging into their federal stimulus money to help finance community colleges, where rising tuition, soaring enrollment and budget cuts threaten to shut students out of the system.  But the $144 billion in stimulus money for state and local fiscal relief won’t make up for budget cuts in every state…“