April 15, 2006

NEW YORK — In the city that is home to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, 125,000 people, native- and foreign-born alike, turned out April 10 for a historic National Day of Action for Immigrant Justice. It was the city’s largest demonstration so far for immigrant rights.

French President Jacques Chirac bowed April 10 to the pressure of millions of students and workers marching across France and withdrew a hated law granting employers the right to fire a young worker at will for up to two years after he or she is hired.

May Day/Cinco de Mayo supplement to print edition: Advertise your book, bumper sticker, CD or DVD or send greetings in this special supplement to the print edition, which will be published in the May 6-12 issue.

WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney’s role in leaking classified information to discredit critics of the Iraq war is pouring more fuel on demands that Congress censure and impeach both Cheney and President George W. Bush.

PITTSBURGH — While coal companies are tallying up their first-quarter profits, two more West Virginia families have an empty chair when they sit down for a meal.

According to Time magazine, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) decided not to support the Republican-led Senate “compromise” bill on immigration reform because he felt he was walking into a trap. This recalls Patrick Henry’s famous quote, “I smell a rat,” when the U.S. Constitution was first proposed without a Bill of Rights.

Immigrants and their supporters turned up the pressure on President Bush and Congress with a wave that swept through more than 120 cities, suburbs and towns coast to coast from April 7 to April 10, the National Day of Action for Immigrant Justice.

The Department of Energy said last week it plans to remove all “nuclear bomb useable” quantities of plutonium and highly enriched uranium from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory by the end of 2014, establishing a new plutonium megaplex at another location. The lab is at the edge of the San Francisco Bay Area.

BALTIMORE — Defying Republican Gov. Bob Ehrlich’s veto and Bush administration threats of a cutoff in federal funding, the Maryland General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to block a state takeover of 11 Baltimore public schools under Bush’s No Child Left Behind law.