The Case of the Jena Six
By Jacquie Soohen, Democracy Now!
Mychal Bell, a 17-year-old African American, faces 22 years in prison without parole after an all-white jury in Jena, Louisiana, convicted him of conspiracy charges and aggravated battery following a school yard fight that left a white student with a concussion. The fight broke out after three nooses were hung from a tree where white students normally sat and where, the previous day, a black student had ventured. Six African American students, including Bell, were arrested and now collectively face up to 100 years in prison in a case that has the teens' families and activists calling for justice in the racially divided town. -- Bennett Gordon
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/10/1413220

17 Reasons (or More) to Stop Charging People to Ride the Bus
By Dave Olsen, The Tyee
They say there's no such thing as a free ride. Maybe there should be. In the first installment of a five-part series sponsored by the reader-funded Tyee Fellowship for Solutions-Oriented Reporting, Dave Olsen lays out the many advantages of a fare-free transit system. They include reducing greenhouse gases, boosting the local economy, leveling the socioeconomic playing field, and increasing civic pride. The system would not be totally free, Olsen acknowledges -- funding would come from taxes in what he calls 'the ultimate implementation of prepaid fares.' -- Natalie Hudson
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/07/05/NoFares1/

The Politics of Stillbirth
By Allison Stevens, American Prospect Online
'Missing Angels' laws started as a grassroots effort to address the emotional needs of parents of stillborns. The idea is to grant certificates of stillborn birth to these parents, who would normally receive death certificates but no birth certificates. Allison Stevens, the Washington bureau chief for Women's eNews, reports that abortion-rights activists worry that the laws -- now on the books in 20 states -- could become another tactic for anti-choice advocates looking to assert personhood rights to fetuses. -- Julie Dolan
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_politics_of_stillbirth