Daily equity news 

“Climate bill faces hurdles in Senate,” - Washington Post
Deal on nuclear plants offered to court Republicans

The climate-change bill that has been moving slowly through the Senate will face a stark political reality when it emerges for committee debate on Tuesday: With Democrats deeply divided on the issue, unless some Republican lawmakers risk the backlash for signing on to the legislation, there is almost no hope for passage.

Like the measure adopted by the House, the legislation favors a cap-and-trade system that would issue permits for greenhouse gas emissions, gradually lower the amount of emissions allowed, and let companies buy and sell permits to meet their needs — all without adding to the federal deficit, according to projections. But key Republicans are making their opposition clear, even as Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) has enlisted Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) as his most visible GOP ally in gathering support for the bill.

 ”Who Should Get Affordable Homes?” -  The New York Times

AFFORDABLE housing has long been a contentious subject in the exclusive suburb of Darien. So earlier this year advocates took notice when, after lengthy and heated debate, Darien officials adopted a zoning policy intended to generate cheaper housing.

Called “inclusionary” zoning, the policy requires every new multifamily development, as well as every subdivision of at least five homes, to designate 12 percent of its units as below-market-rate housing.

“Amid national concern over childhood obesity, Metairie school takes to the track,” - The Times-Picayune

With rain threatening, students at Bissonet Plaza Elementary School wasted no time Thursday making their way to the back of campus. Some went straight to the field, where they ran laps around cones their teachers had set up. Others headed to a blacktop area, where they walked in groups until the start of class.

Kathy Anderson / The Times-Picayune”I think they kind of wake up here,” physical education teacher Sonia Lombardino said. “They’re kind of loud when they get to class, but the teachers like it.”

Daily equity news

“WIC nutrition program expands to cover fruits, vegetables,” - Los Angeles Times

Beginning today, women and children who receive food vouchers through the federal government’s WIC program will be able to use them to buy fresh fruits and vegetables.

“It’s a really welcome change,” said Gail Harrison, a public health professor at UCLA who was on the national Institute of Medicine panel that recommended the revisions to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children — the first major change in the program since it began in the 1970s. “The supplemental food package contributes a very substantial share of dietary intake, and so making it healthier is all to the good.”

“Swiss Health Care Thrives Without Public Option,” -  The New York Times

ZURICH — Like every other country in Europe, Switzerland guarantees health care for all its citizens. But the system here does not remotely resemble the model of bureaucratic, socialized medicine often cited by opponents of universal coverage in the United States.

Swiss private insurers are required to offer coverage to all citizens, regardless of age or medical history. And those people, in turn, are obligated to buy health insurance.

“$35 Billion Slated for Local Housing,” -  The wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is close to committing as much as $35 billion to help beleaguered state and local housing agencies continue to provide mortgages to low- and moderate-income families, according to administration officials.

The move would further cement the government’s role in propping up the housing market even as some lawmakers push to curb spending at a time of rising debt.

Daily equity news.

“Despite everything, more Americans see sunny skies ahead,” -   USA TODAY

 ”Not Paying the Mortgage, Yet Stuck With the Keys,” - Washington Post
Foreclosure Backlog Imperils Recovery

“How not to help the poor,” - The Boston Globe

Daily equity news 

 “Customers Prove There’s a Market for Fresh Produce,” - The New York Times

“How green are trains, public transportation, and hybrid cars? It depends,” -  Christian Science Monitor

 ”Investors bet on Detroit housing market,” - CNNMoney.com

A recap of this week’s equity news.

 ”All Boarded Up,” - The New York Times Magazine

TONY BRANCATELLI, A CLEVELAND CITY COUNCILMAN, yearns for signs that something like normal life still exists in his ward. Early one morning last fall, he called me from his cellphone. He sounded unusually excited. He had just visited two forlorn-looking vacant houses that had been foreclosed more than a year ago. They sat on the same lot, one in front of the other. Both had been frequented by squatters, and Brancatelli had passed by to see if they had been finally boarded up. They hadn’t. But while there he noticed with alarm what looked like a prone body in the yard next door. As he moved closer, he realized he was looking at an elderly woman who had just one leg, lying on the ground. She was leaning on one arm and, with the other, was whacking at weeds with a hatchet and stuffing the clippings into a cardboard box for garbage pickup. “Talk about fortitude,” he told me. In a place like Cleveland, hope comes in small morsels.

The next day, I went with Brancatelli to visit Ada Flores, the woman who was whacking at the weeds. She is 81, and mostly gets around in a wheelchair. Flores is a native Spanish speaker, and her English was difficult to understand, especially above the incessant barking of her caged dog, Tuffy. But the story she told Brancatelli was familiar to him. Teenagers had been in and out of the two vacant houses next door, she said, and her son, who visits her regularly, at one point boarded up the windows himself. “Are they going to tear them down?” she asked. Brancatelli crossed himself. “I hope so,” he mumbled.

 ”YouthBuild: one stimulus model,” - The Christian Science Monitor
The program has turned lives around and builds affordable community housing.

Daniel Brito finished high school, but he didn’t know what to do next. His family, in a low-income Boston neighborhood, just wasn’t there for him. He was scared he’d be a failure.

Then a former teacher connected him with YouthBuild Boston, a local affiliate of a nationwide program that enables low-income young people to stay with their education and learn job skills while building affordable housing for their communities.

“Coalition plans two food stores in Detroit,” - The Detroit News
Community-operated sites would offer more nutritional groceries.

DETROIT — A Detroit neighborhood coalition seeking to bring healthy food to the city is eyeing two sites — one on the east side and one on the West — for the community-run grocery store it envisions.

The M.O.S.E.S. Supermarket Task Force, a partnership among neighborhood groups, churches and a union, among others, is designed to give residents greater access to healthy food through community-owned and run grocery stores.

A recap of the week’s equity news

“Study Shows Colorado Has Largest Rise in Child Poverty,” New York Times

DENVER — Colorado experienced the nation’s largest rate of growth in impoverished children from 2000 to 2006, according to a study released Tuesday.

The study, by the Colorado Children’s Campaign, a nonprofit group that focuses on child welfare, said that the most recent census data show that 180,000 children — 15.7 percent of the state total — were living in poverty in Colorado in 2006, a 73 percent increase since 2000.

“Jammed Transit Systems Running on Fumes,” MSNBC, June 11

Transportation experts who have pushed mass transit since the 1970s are getting their wish as soaring gas prices persuade Americans to abandon their cars for buses and trains in record numbers. But as the adage says, be careful what you wish for.

Mass transit ridership is at its highest point in 50 years, according to research by the American Public Transportation Association. For many riders, it just got too expensive to drive.

“How HUD Mortgage Policy Fed the Crisis,” Washington Post, June 10

In 2004, as regulators warned that subprime lenders were saddling borrowers with mortgages they could not afford, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development helped fuel more of that risky lending.

Eager to put more low-income and minority families into their own homes, the agency required that two government-chartered mortgage finance firms purchase far more “affordable” loans made to these borrowers. HUD stuck with an outdated policy that allowed Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to count billions of dollars they invested in subprime loans as a public good that would foster affordable housing.