Media

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is considering allowing hydraulic fracking on a limited basis in towns  that approve drilling for natural gas. New York currently has a temporary moratorium on all fracking while an environmental review is conducted.

Ahead of Rio+20, advocates are coalescing around the idea that we need to change the way we measure what is important to achieve true sustainable development. Currently countries measure economic growth, which is often equated with progress, through GDP. However, growth in GDP is increasingly not resulting in progress.

Many high school and college grads face a tough rode ahead, given high unemployment and record levels of student debt. But the future is especially bleak for undocumented students graduating from high school, the so called Dreamers, in reference to the DREAM Act, a bill stalled in Congress for close to eleven years that would allow this population to regularize their status and access a path to citizenship if they meet certain conditions.

Citing clear evidence that low-income Arkansas residents have been denied the opportunity to register to vote, attorneys from voting rights groups Project Vote and Demos sent a pre-litigation notice letter to Secretary of State Mark Martin, the Arkansas Department of Human Services, and the Arkansas Department of Health, regarding the state’s non-compliance with the federal requirements of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA).

The Washington Post has a long story today that offers a horrifying glimpse into how one of America's largest banks systematically stripped wealth from the some of the poorest people in the nation. It details the sordid career success of a former star subprime loan officer at Wells Fargo:

The recent Fed report on household wealth contains yet more evidence of how distorted and unequal the U.S. economy has become.

The big headline around the study, which comes out every three years, has been that the household wealth of Americans dropped by 40 percent between 2007 and 2010, and is now basically where it was in 1992, adjusting for inflation.

A new report from Dēmos, "The Retirement Savings Drain: The Hidden and Excessive Costs of 401(k)s," urges Americans to trade in their old 401(k)s for a new, more efficient retirement model.