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March 29, 2012 -- (San Diego’s East County) – ECM World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflecting all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:
U.S.
- Supreme Court weighs all or nothing on healthcare law (Reuters)
- Jobs bill clears Congress despite warnings (Los Angeles Times)
- Trayvon Martin: confronting the problem of enduring racism (Forbes)
- A job at what cost? When employers log in to dig in (NPR)
- Gingrich scales back his presidential bid (USA Today)
- Cooking school spreads immigrant skills and ethnic recipes (NPR)
WORLD
- Very high radiation, little water in remaining Japanese reactor (UT San Diego)
- Japan left with one nuclear reactor after shutdown (BBC)
- Syrian authorizes are targeting children, says UN rights chief (BBC)
Scroll down for excerpts and links to full stories.
U.S.
Supreme Court weighs all or nothing on healthcare law (Reuters)
March 28, 2012 -- The Obama administration's top courtroom lawyer made an impassioned plea on Wednesday for the Supreme Court to save President Barack Obama's healthcare law, capping three days of historic arguments that left it unclear how the nine justices would rule.
Having peppered lawyers for and against the law with questions for more than six hours over the three days, the justices withdrew to their chambers to begin up to three months of deliberation expected to yield a decision by late June.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/28/us-usa-healthcare-court-idUSBRE82L1CJ20120328
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/28/us-usa-healthcare-court-idUSBRE82L1CJ20120328
Jobs bill clears Congress despite warnings (Los Angeles Times)
March 27, 2012 -- Congress gave final approval to a popular, but controversial, bill that aims to make it easier for small businesses to access investment capital, sending President Obama one of his top job-creation priorities in a rare burst of bipartisanship.
Even as consumer regulators warned that the bill could lead to a new era of investor fraud, swift passage had been sought by Republicans and Democrats intent on scoring a political victory on the jobs front, which remains among the most pressing issues for voters.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-jobs-bill-clears-congress-despite-warnings-20120327,0,7100641.story
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-jobs-bill-clears-congress-despite-warnings-20120327,0,7100641.story
Trayvon Martin: confronting the problem of enduring racism (Forbes)
March 26, 2012 -- America is a land of liberty and opportunity, and has admirably served as “a city upon a hill” in the words of Puritan John Winthrop, who led the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the New World. The U.S. continues to attract freedom-seekers from around the world.
Yet America’s greatness has come at a cost. Indeed, the nation founded on the principle of individual liberty enshrined slavery in its founding document. Although the U.S. has come far in the 150 years since the great civil war which destroyed that system, racism lives on.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougbandow/2012/03/26/trayvon-martin-confronting-the-problem-of-enduring-racism/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougbandow/2012/03/26/trayvon-martin-confronting-the-problem-of-enduring-racism/
A job at what cost? When employers log in to dig in (NPR)
March 21, 2012 -- How would it feel if you were in a job interview and the prospective employer asked for your username and password to see your Facebook profile? Robert Collins says he felt "violated."
"I felt disrespected. I felt that my privacy was invaded," he tellsAll Things Considered host Robert Siegel, "but not only my privacy, the privacy of my friends and that of my family that didn't ask for that."
Collins was applying for a job with the Maryland Department of Corrections. He let his interviewer log in and search his profile with the screen facing away from him. The justification? The department says it's concerned about gang affiliation and gang infiltration in its facilities.
Gingrich scales back his presidential bid (USA Today)
March 27, 2012 -- Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is drastically reorganizing his money- and delegate-deprived campaign, scaling back a traditional operation to focus on low-cost social media and an effort to cajole delegates to back him over front-runner Mitt Romney.
One-third of Gingrich's campaign staff has been laid off and his campaign manager has been asked to resign, Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said Tuesday night.
The new strategy hinges on preventing Romney from winning the 1,144 delegates he needs for the nomination, Hammond said. Gingrich plans to spend much less time in primary states and will instead personally call delegates to try to persuade them to back him at the Republican National Convention in August.
Cooking school spreads immigrant skills and ethnic recipes (NPR)
March 21, 2012 -- If you want to learn how to make Vietnamese egg rolls, you can always check out a cookbook, a food blog, or perhaps a site like Epicurious.
But Linh Nguyen — who is teaching a cooking class here in San Francisco — says that that's not really the way to do it. In fact, her family doesn't even own a cookbook.
"In a Vietnamese house, there are no measuring spoons or measuring cups," says Nguyen. "Everything is sort of just done by the handful, or the bowlful. And the recipes are all sort of passed down from one person to another."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/03/24/148745237/cooking-school-spreads-immigrants-skills-and-ethnic-recipes?ft=1&f=7
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/03/24/148745237/cooking-school-spreads-immigrants-skills-and-ethnic-recipes?ft=1&f=7
WORLD
Very high radiation, little water in remaining Japanese reactor (UT San Diego)
March 27, 2012 -- One of Japan's crippled nuclear reactors still has fatally high radiation levels and hardly any water to cool its fuel, according to an internal examination that reinforces doubts about the plant's stability.
A tool equipped with a tiny video camera, a thermometer, a dosimeter and a water gauge was used to assess damage inside the No. 2 reactor's containment chamber Tuesday for the second time since the tsunami swept into the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant a year ago.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/mar/27/very-high-radiation-little-water-in-japan-reactor/
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/mar/27/very-high-radiation-little-water-in-japan-reactor/
Japan left with one nuclear reactor after shutdown (BBC)
March 26, 2012 -- Japan has shut down another nuclear power station, bringing it a step closer to suspending atomic energy, following the Fukushima disaster.
Only one of the 54 nuclear reactors remains in operation, and it is due to be switched off in May.
Residents have demanded reactors not be turned back on after routine maintenance due to safety fears.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17508657
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17508657
Syrian authorizes are targeting children, says UN rights chief (BBC)
March 28, 2012 -- Syrian authorities are systematically detaining and torturing children, the United Nations' human rights chief, Navi Pillay, has told the BBC.
Ms Pillay said President Bashar al-Assad could end the detentions and stop the killing of civilians immediately, simply by issuing an order.
Syria has accepted a peace plan, amid scepticism about its intentions.
Most opposition groups have now agreed that the Syrian National Council will formally represent the Syrian people.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17532966
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17532966
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