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Canada OKs Over-the-Counter Morning-After Pill
Vancouver Sun
05/16/2008
The emergency contraceptive pill Plan B will now be sold on the front shelves of Canadian pharmacies without any medical consultation after a landmark decision came down Thursday to make the drug more accessible.
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Maker of HPV Vaccine Under Fire
The Tyee
05/16/2008
While British Columbia Health Minister George Abbott was announcing the province will provide a controversial new vaccine starting in September with assurances that it is "safe," the American Food and Drug Administration was threatening to close the factory where it is made.
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Timothy Egan: It's November in Oregon
New York Times
05/15/2008
This state is known for many things -- good wine, the imperial branding of the Nike swoosh, a political culture that produces contrarians of both parties -- but ethnic diversity is not one of them. This state has an African-American population of less than 2 percent.
And yet on May 20, when voters here could finally end the Democratic presidential marathon by giving Senator Barack Obama an outright majority of pledged delegates, don't expect to hear much about how a black man has broadened the playing field for his party by winning a heavily white state.
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Seattle's Intersection of Gentrification and Neglect
Seattle Weekly
05/14/2008
The effort to "improve" poor parts of town is always a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't proposition. When government leaves a neighborhood to languish, it's accused of neglect. When it tries to spruce things up, it gets ripped for promoting gentrification.
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Rural Alaskans Are Leaving the Village
Anchorage Daily News
05/14/2008
The migration of rural Alaskans from village to city has accelerated in the last two years, though the reasons are complex and cannot be easily linked to higher energy costs, a new university study says.
What makes the numbers stand out, said ISER interim director Steve Colt, is that the birth rate in rural Alaska has declined as well.
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Missoula Studies City's Density
Missoula Missoulian
05/14/2008
A denser city center in the future would require less money for transportation and lead to less congestion, according to a draft 2008 Envision Missoula report released this week by the Office of Planning and Grants.
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Guest Worker Program Could Bring Tension
Yakima Herald-Republic
05/14/2008
New statewide numbers show that growers are increasingly more comfortable with a federal guest worker program that allows them to hire documented foreign help instead of local workers who may not have legal immigration status.
But with a growing H-2A program, some employers are worried about possible tensions between the two groups of workers: the illegal immigrants who have traditionally worked the harvest and the foreign workers who may get preference in the hiring process.
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Seattle Housing Struggles with Cultural Divide
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
05/13/2008
New Holly, in the Beacon Hill area, is one of the experimental -- and controversial -- public housing programs around the country that attempts to mingle socio-economic groups. The goal of the federally funded Hope VI project is to eliminate pockets of poverty in cities, and encourage daily interaction among residents across class and cultural divides.
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Paving Puget Sound
Seattle Times
05/11/2008
It happens one creek at a time as bulldozers and pavement disrupt the natural flow of water through the ecosystem, destroying habitat and sending billions of gallons of polluted runoff into the Sound.
At McCormick Woods the next victim is Anderson Creek, once one of the most unspoiled streams flowing to Sinclair Inlet. Today, there are plans to build hundreds of homes around it.
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Group Urges F.D.A. to Take Contraceptive Off Market
New York Times
05/09/2008
A consumer advocacy group petitioned the government Thursday to pull the birth control patch off the market, calling it far riskier than the pill.
“Ortho-Evra is a poor choice for women,” Dr. Sidney Wolfe of the group, Public Citizen, wrote the Food and Drug Administration.
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Immigrant Construction Workers Get Stiffed
Seattle Weekly
05/07/2008
Contractor Shawn Campbell brought in over a dozen Spanish-speaking immigrants to help build a new apartment complex in Renton. But he didn't call them employees; they were "business partners." Because of that designation, Campbell was able to avoid over $1 million in payments to the state workers' compensation fund and keep his employees working up to 46 hours a week with no overtime, a judge found.
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Views: Utopian Dreams Aside, Suburbs Here To Stay
Vancouver Sun
05/07/2008
Suburbs aren't adjuncts to urban cores, anymore. They have their own dynamics and interests to protect. And in a world of An Inconvenient Truth, the inconvenient truth about suburbs, at least in the Lower Mainland, is: They not only constitute the majority of inhabited land, they will soon constitute the majority of the population.
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Redesign for Vancouver, B.C. Low-Density Housing
Vancouver Sun
05/07/2008
The developer selected to do a massive and potentially controversial makeover of Vancouver's oldest social-housing site says his first priority will be to pay attention to what the community wants for the site.
The deal, which the province hopes will be the first of many as it sells off old low-density social housing sites to generate new money for housing, will require Simon Lim of Holborn Porperties to replace the site's existing 224 social-housing units within the market housing he builds there.
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Cascadians: Shared Cultural Traits, Values
Vancouver Sun
05/07/2008
Residents of the region have a subtle separatist streak, and a passion for outdoor activity.
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Improved Census for Montana Natives in 2010
Great Falls Tribune
05/07/2008
Members of the Native American Local Government Commission — pointing out that a few thousand Cascade County Indians were not recorded in the 2000 census — told U.S. Census Bureau officials Tuesday they could reduce the undercounting by hiring better counters in 2010, including more Native Americans.
An accurate population estimate is important to Native Americans and non-Native Americans alike because federal funding for state and tribal services often is linked to population size.
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Dream of Cohesive Cascadia Never Dies
Vancouver Sun
05/06/2008
Most advocates for Cascadia don't seriously think about creating a separate, free-standing nation. But they do talk a lot about what could come of closer political, cultural and economic ties.
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Oregon Granges Struggle Against Decline
AP
05/05/2008
A few members of the Grange are fighting the long-term decline of their organization, which mirrors that of the rural America it was formed to defend. They're up against pessimism in the ranks, as well as changing demographics.
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Canada's Income Gap
Toronto Globe and Mail
05/01/2008
The earnings gap between the rich and the poor is widening in Canada, with incomes among recent immigrants showing especially dramatic declines in recent years, according to sweeping new census data.
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Rise in Minorities Led by Young Children
Washington Post
05/01/2008
Hispanics, the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority group, now account for about one in four children younger than 5 in the United States, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released today.
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Idaho's Hispanic Population Growing Rapidly
Twin Falls Time-News
05/01/2008
Hispanics remain the largest minority group in Idaho, growing by more than 43 percent from 2000 to 2007, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
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Seattle Immigration March Will Rally for Workers' Rights
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
04/29/2008
The passionate debate over immigration and workers' rights has dropped a few degrees from past years, but hundreds or thousands of demonstrators are expected to march through downtown Seattle during afternoon rush hour Thursday with a basic message:
"We are not undocumented. We are not illegal. We are workers." Or, as a bilingual flier for the event states in Spanish, "No somos ilegales. No somos indocumentados. Somos trabajadores."
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Missoula Affordable Housing Project Gets Lift
Missoula Missoulian
04/22/2008
In a windfall for low-income housing at the Intermountain Lumber site, the Missoula Housing Authority received tax credits this year for its project just off Russell Street.
The Montana Board of Housing awarded the MHA its full request, some $474,000 in tax credits. The agency passed over MHA last year, but the Housing Authority now plans to move quickly to build Garden District I.
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A New Generation of Homeless Vets
KPLU
04/18/2008
More help is on the way for homeless veterans, including those just back from Iraq and Afghanistan. Next month, the federal government will disperse $75-million to public housing agencies across the country. The money will pay for rental vouchers.
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Commentary: Balance with Seattle's Homeless
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
04/17/2008
Dealing with homeless encampments is a tricky business, one that requires that the city weigh the needs of the homeless with safety issues. To that end, Seattle has taken on the issue, but the city is still stumbling to get the balance right in its fight to end homelessness.
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$5 Million to Help Vancouver's Street Kids
CBC BC
04/14/2008
Vancouver's largest shelter and resource centre for homeless youth will receive $5 million in the next three years to double its capacity and maintain operational needs.
The money will allow Covenant House to create 32 transition beds and open a communal kitchen, lounge area and additional space for programs and services.
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