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 ”Designed to Help Uplift the Poor,” - New York Times

LIKE almost every other American architect who came to prominence in the recent gilded age, Michael Maltzan built his reputation with commissions for prestigious museums and luxurious private houses. In 2002 he garnered national attention for his graceful design for the temporary Museum of Modern Art in Queens. His most recent projects include a flying-saucer-like house for the artists Lari Pittman and Roy Dowell in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and a far grander, 28,000-square-foot Beverly Hills mansion — part art gallery, part home — for the investor and former Hollywood über-agent Michael Ovitz.

Yet Mr. Maltzan may be the only American architect of his stature with significant experience in a far less glamorous field: providing shelter and other accommodations for his city’s poor. Over the past 16 years he has worked on several housing projects for the homeless and an arts complex for underprivileged children that are remarkable for their architectural sophistication and their spirit of public service.

“Senate Advances Jobs Bill,” - The Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON—The Senate voted to advance a $15 billion job-creation package Monday, showing a rare hint of bipartisanship as five Republicans voted to end debate on the Democratic bill, including newly elected Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts.

Associated Press Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, shown at his temporary office on Capitol Hill Monday, backed the jobs bill in one of his first Senate votes.

 ”EPA lays out timetable for regulating greenhouse gas emissions,” - Washington Post

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson laid out the timetable for regulating greenhouse gas emissions Monday, writing in a letter to lawmakers that she plans to start targeting large facilities such as power plants next year but won’t target small emitters before 2016.

The letter makes it clear the Obama administration will move ahead with curbing global warming pollution under the Clean Air Act unless Congress moves to stop it. Jackson emphasized that the administration was required to act under a 2007 Supreme Court decision that said greenhouse gases from motor vehicles qualified as a pollutant under the 40-year-old air-quality law. Jackson was responding to a letter several coal-state senators sent her late Friday.

Today’s equity news,  

 “Making a Healthy Lunch, and Making It a Cause,” -  The New York Times

Between them, Kristin Richmond and Kirsten Tobey have worked on Wall Street, traveled the world and taught school from East Africa to Ecuador. Now they make lunch for a living.

Friends since they met in business school at the University of California, Berkeley, Ms. Richmond and Ms. Tobey founded Revolution Foods Inc. to ride a political and economic wave: surging support for healthier food in school cafeterias.

“ACORN’s Real Crime: Empowering the Poor,” - alternet.org

The name Felix Walker is not one you would recognize, but this 19th-century congressman inadvertently contributed a word to America’s political lexicon that you will recognize–a word that fairly well sums up a lot of what we’re getting these days from right-wing politicos and pundits.

In the 1820s, Walker was the U.S. representative for Buncombe County, North Carolina. In an age of great political orators, Walker was not one. He was a droner, a dull fellow known for expressing his dullness at great length on every topic. No matter what issue was up for debate in the House–no matter whether he had any real knowledge, facts, or insights to add–Walker would rise to speak, insisting that his constituents back home would want his voice heard. He would then launch into a wandering, wearisome, often-nonsensical discourse that he always called “a speech for Buncombe.”

“New push for infrastructure funding in US jobs bill,” -  Reuters

WASHINGTON, Jan 21 (Reuters) - The Obama administration, key lawmakers and big trade groups want to include billions of dollars for transportation and infrastructure in pending legislation aimed at easing stubbornly high U.S. unemployment.

The move reflects cold calculations about what initiatives will take priority amid joblessness that is near a 26-year high at 10 percent and rapidly shifting political sands in Washington ahead of next November’s congressional elections.

Today’s equity news.

“Administration Loosens Purse Strings for Transit Projects,” -  The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will make it easier for cities and states to spend federal money on public transit projects, and particularly on the light-rail systems that have become popular in recent years, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Wednesday.

Administration officials said they were reversing guidelines put in place by the Bush administration that called for evaluating new transit projects largely by how much they cost and how much travel time they would save.

 “White House: Stimulus saved 2 million jobs,” -  Reuters
Obama has called for more measures to boost $787 billion package

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama’s emergency spending measures last year saved up to 2 million U.S. jobs, the White House said on Wednesday, but it warned that the outlook for the economy remained uncertain.

Obama, anxious to reduce double-digit U.S. unemployment which has dented his popularity, has already called for additional government measures to boost jobs on top of the $787 billion stimulus package he signed in February 2009.

“Americans are fat, study says, but not getting fatter,” - Mercury News

Americans are fat, but at least they’re not getting fatter.

Sixty-eight percent of Americans are overweight or obese, but that number hasn’t changed much in the last decade, according to a team of doctors Wednesday in two studies in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Today’s equity news

“Learning Curve: Diverse and poorer,” - Atlanta Journal Constitution

The South has become the first region in the country in which more than half of public school students are poor and more than half are minorities, according to a report by the Atlanta-based Southern Education Foundation.

The foundation found that African-American, Latino, Asian-Pacific Islander, American Indian and multi-racial children constituted a little more than half of all students attending public schools in the 15 states of the South by the end of the last school year.

“A Modern Heschel-King Alliance: The Struggle for Food Access,” - The Jewish Journal

Like Veterans Day or Memorial Day, the annual celebration of the birth of Martin Luther King Jr. has, over time, become just another three-day weekend for many Americans. Forty-two years after King’s assassination, the holiday presents us with an opportunity for reflection. How does our society compare to the one he fought for? Have we put an end to the discrimination and grinding poverty that King called upon us to heal? Are we capable of a mass movement equal to the millions who marched and practiced civil disobedience, reforming our country from within? Where is the Jewish community in modern struggles for justice and equality?

During the Civil Rights movement, another great lion of justice called the Jewish community to task. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel established a lasting friendship with King, one filled with mutual admiration and affection and based on shared purpose, values and experience. Both were survivors of systems that legalized discrimination and oppression: King in the segregated South, Heschel in pre-war Nazi Germany.

“Poll: Feeling of progress rises among African Americans,” - The Washington Post

Despite being hit especially hard by the bad economy, job losses and the high rate of foreclosures, African Americans’ assessment of race relations and prospects for the future has surged more dramatically during the past two years than at any time in the past quarter-century, according to a new poll.

In a survey of American racial attitudes released Tuesday, researchers reported that the feeling of progress is driven in large part by the election of President Obama, along with a greater sense of local community satisfaction and a more positive outlook. The majority of African Americans say they are better off now than they were five years ago.

Daily equity News

“Poverty Fighters Get Their Own Consultancy,” - City Limits WEEKLY
 
Among the countless ways in which New York City is a superlative place, one is its high number of poor people – and the quantity of organizations in existence to help them.

The latter list just grew by one, with the establishment of the McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy, Practice and Research at NYU’s Silver School of Social Work. Launched last month, the new institute is aimed at collecting, developing and spreading best practices among those who serve the estimated 3 million of New York City’s 8.3 million residents who live on incomes under 200 percent of the federal poverty level, which comes to $36,620 for a family of three.

“Study: Half of U.S. kids will receive food stamps,” - USA TODAY

Half of American kids will live in households receiving food stamps before age 20, according to a study reported Monday in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Although one in five children rely on food stamps for years, many more live in families who turn to food stamps during a short-term crisis, says author Mark Rank of Washington University in St. Louis. He analyzed 30 years of data from the University of Michigan’s Panel Study of Income Dynamics survey.

“Chief Factor in Mayor’s Race: Bloomberg Influence,” - New York Times

The White House switchboard lit up with calls from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s emissaries several weeks ago with a message that was polite but firm: The mayor is going to win re-election, they said. We think the president should stay out of the race.

Members of Mr. Bloomberg’s inner circle were especially worried because they knew President Obama planned to visit the region to campaign with Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey, and he would face pressure to support the Democratic candidate, William C. Thompson Jr., the city’s first black comptroller.

Daily equity news

“Deficit Complicates Push on Jobs,” - The Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON — Democratic leaders pressed President Barack Obama on Wednesday to extend more elements of the existing economic-stimulus package, and to possibly add tax cuts that were rejected the first time around, despite a record budget deficit that is giving some lawmakers pause.

On Wednesday, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the federal deficit for fiscal 2009 will be $1.4 trillion. That is somewhat better than the nearly $1.6 trillion the CBO projected in August, but much of the change stems from different accounting treatments for losses at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies the government took over last year.

“Putting America’s Diet on a Diet,” - The New York Times

On his first day in Huntington, W. Va., Jamie Oliver spent the afternoon at Hillbilly Hot Dogs, pitching in to cook its signature 15-pound burger. That’s 10 pounds of meat, 5 pounds of custom-made bun, American cheese, tomatoes, onions, pickles, ketchup, mustard and mayo. Then he learned how to perfect the Home Wrecker, the eatery’s famous 15-inch, one-pound hot dog (boil first, then grill in butter). For the Home Wrecker Challenge, the dog gets 11 toppings, including chili sauce, jalapeños, liquid nacho cheese and coleslaw. Finish it in 12 minutes or less and you get a T-shirt.

So much for local color. Earlier that day, Oliver met with a pediatrician, James Bailes, and a pastor, Steve Willis. Bailes told him about an 8-year-old patient who was 80 pounds overweight and had developed Type 2 diabetes. If the child’s diet didn’t change, the doctor said, he wouldn’t live to see 30. Willis told Oliver that he visits patients in local hospitals several days a week and sees the effects of long-term obesity firsthand. Since he can’t write a prescription for their resulting illnesses, he said, all he can do is pray with them.

“Universal healthcare coverage appears elusive,” - Los Angeles Times

As a key Senate committee prepares today to pass its plan to overhaul the nation’s healthcare system, senior Democrats are acknowledging that it may be impossible to provide coverage to all Americans — a central goal of President Obama and his congressional allies.

That is fueling growing alarm among hospitals and insurance companies, which have made universal coverage a condition of their support.

“Reducing poverty with the guidance of the poor,” - Philadelphia Inquirer

Never underestimate the power of an old blue sweater - even one with a cheesy design of two zebras in front of Mount Kilimanjaro. Maybe especially one with zebras and a mountain.

That very sweater launched Jacqueline Novogratz’s career as an international social investor, and it is the inspiration of her recently published book, The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World (Rodale, $24.95).

“States not meeting renewable energy goals,” - USA TODAY

Across the USA, states are falling short of their goals to increase the use of renewable energy as Congress weighs a national renewable-energy standard.

Thirty-five states have set goals to use more electricity from solar panels, windmills and other renewable forms of energy, according to a database funded by the Energy Department. There is no central clearinghouse of states’ compliance records, but USA TODAY research and interviews with state and power company officials found nine states that have failed or expect to fail to meet their energy goals.

“A Better Way to Health Reform,” - The Washington Post

The American health-care system suffers from three serious problems: Health-care costs are rising much faster than our incomes. More than 15 percent of the population has neither private nor public insurance. And the high cost of health care can lead to personal bankruptcy, even for families that do have health insurance.

These faults persist despite annual federal government spending of more than $700 billion for Medicare and Medicaid as well as a federal tax subsidy of more than $220 billion for the purchase of employer-provided private health insurance.

Daily equity news

“Detroit: The Death — and Possible Life — of a Great City,” - TIME MAGAZINE

If Detroit had been savaged by a hurricane and submerged by a ravenous flood, we’d know a lot more about it. If drought and carelessness had spread brush fires across the city, we’d see it on the evening news every night. Earthquake, tornadoes, you name it — if natural disaster had devastated the city that was once the living proof of American prosperity, the rest of the country might take notice. (See pictures of the remains of Detroit.)

But Detroit, once our fourth largest city, now 11th and slipping rapidly, has had no such luck. Its disaster has long been a slow unwinding that seemed to remove it from the rest of the country. Even the death rattle that in the past year emanated from its signature industry brought more attention to the auto executives than to the people of the city, who had for so long been victimized by their dreadful decision-making.

“Geoffrey Canada’s initiative, Harlem Children’s Zone, has grown to reach 8,000 children across nearly 100 city blocks,” - The Christian Science Monitor

Geoffrey Canada still remembers the saddest day in his first nine years on earth. Back then, Mr. Canada clung to superheroes – and to Superman especially. He liked the guy, but he especially liked the idea he symbolized: immediate and dramatic salvation. In his earliest days, Superman was a social-justice hero, saving a man from a lynch mob, fighting fires, stopping robberies – rescuing people from the same kinds of dangers that seemed to lurk, in the 1960s, in Canada’s rough South Bronx neighborhood. Superman, Canada had decided, was just the guy to fix a neighborhood full of poverty and drugs, to rescue Canada and his friends, to bring a little optimism to the merciless streets.

“A Brooklyn of Wealth and Needs Gets a Major Charity All Its Own,” - The New York Times

Brooklyn, which never fully recovered from merging with Manhattan and losing the Dodgers, is about to get new fuel to stoke its stubborn brand of local pride: It is now rich enough to support a major charity of its own.

The Independence Community Foundation, long the largest private charity based in the borough, is changing its tax status so it can raise money rather than simply rely on income from its roughly $50 million endowment.

Daily equity news

“Cash Incentive Program for Poor Families Is Renewed,” -  The New York Times

An experimental antipoverty program that pays poor families up to $5,000 a year for going to regular medical checkups, attending school and keeping jobs has been extended for a third year.

Linda I. Gibbs, the deputy mayor for health and human services, said she was encouraged by some early results in the education component of the program that showed students improved their attendance and passed more exams when they were rewarded with cash.

“Experts: Penny per ounce soda tax to fight obesity, health costs,”   - Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — In a bid to ramp up the public health battle against obesity, a group of nutrition and economics experts are pushing for a tax of 1 cent on every of ounce of sodas and other sweetened beverages.

Proposals for a hefty soda tax though have repeatedly fallen flat. The idea was even floated as a way to help pay for health care reform, but government officials on Wednesday said that’s not likely to happen.

 ”As farm incomes drop, grocery deals rise,” - USA TODAY

Consumers are reaping some benefits as farmers take their biggest hit in 35 years: lower food prices at the supermarket. The U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts farm income of $49.1 billion in 2009 when adjusted for inflation. That would be a 39% drop from 2008, a record year when U.S. farmers earned $80.4 billion after expenses.

It would also be the worst annual percentage drop since 1983. In dollars, it would be the worst since 1974, adjusted for inflation.

Daily equity news

“Tennessee Experiment’s High Cost Fuels Health-Care Debate,” - The Wall Street Journal

In 1994, Tennessee launched an ambitious public insurance program to cover its uninsured. The plan, TennCare, fulfilled that mission but nearly bankrupted the state in the process.

 ”Poll: 57% don’t see stimulus working,” - USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Six months after President Obama launched a $787 billion plan to right the nation’s economy, a majority of Americans think the avalanche of new federal aid has cost too much and done too little to end the recession.

 ”New Orleans Neighborhood Housing Services to run $20 million home repair effort,” - The Times-Picayune

The city is negotiating a deal with the nonprofit Neighborhood Housing Services to run a home-repair program that would make nearly $20 million available to owners of storm-damaged property, according to a recent city memo describing the proposal.