1
Booming
Marrying a Veteran Was Cool. Then It Got Difficult.
Lonni and Sue Leroux met after he returned from Vietnam, and life together smoothed out only after they dealt with his post-traumatic stress disorder.
2
Business Day
Foreign Banks Win New Delay in Tax Evasion Rule
The latest rollback of the deadline, by six months, to July 1, 2014, underscores a struggle by the Treasury Department to enforce the new law, which was approved in 2010 amid heightened scrutiny of offshore private banking services sold to wealthy Americans. It was originally supposed to go into effect last January.
3
Health
When Aggression Follows Dementia
Violent behavior often leads families to place people with dementia in care facilities.
4
Multimedia
Chronicling China's Changing Cities
Jimmy Lam, a former hedge fund manager, strives to show China as it rapidly becomes an urban consumerist society.
5
Business Day
Diverging Debate at Fed on When to End Stimulus
Although more Fed officials want the bond-buying program to end sooner, Ben S. Bernanke, the central bank’s chairman, said the overall policy would remain unchanged.
6
Opinion
Questions for the F.B.I. Nominee
Is James B. Comey as independent as he’s been made out to be?
7
Opinion
Reasons for Outrage on Health Care
Readers respond to an Op-Ed article by H. Gilbert Welch, a professor of medicine at Dartmouth.
8
N.Y. / Region
Where Streets Flood With the Tide, a Debate Over City Aid
New York City is budgeting $22 million to try to save the Broad Channel neighborhood by installing bulkheads and by raising streets and sidewalks by three feet.
9
Opinion
Summer Reading: How to Shake Up the Status Quo
Social innovation rarely comes from “eureka” moments; it’s much more deliberate. It’s something that can be studied and learned.
10
N.Y. / Region
N.Y.U. Impeding Compensation Inquiry, Senator Says
Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, wants to examine the university’s loans to faculty and executives, but a university representative said the scrutiny was unfair.
11
Business Day
Pace of Consumer Borrowing Rose in May
The Federal Reserve said Americans spent $19.6 billion more using credit in May than in April, the largest rise since May 2012.
12
U.S.
Illinois: Lawmakers May Miss Payday
Gov. Pat Quinn suspended lawmakers’ paychecks on Wednesday, saying they did not deserve compensation until the state’s escalating pension crisis was solved.
13
N.Y. / Region
After H.I.V. Diagnosis, a Life Devoted to Outreach
Michelle Lopez, who tested positive for H.I.V. in 1991, takes to the streets in Brooklyn to try and convince passers-by to take a rapid H.I.V. test.
14
Business Day
A Social Entrepreneur’s Quandary: Nonprofit or For-Profit?
Deciding whether to start fresh or work within an existing framework.
15
Opinion
Ban Menthol Cigarettes, 2 Ex-Cabinet Secretaries Say
Joseph A. Califano Jr. and Louis W. Sullivan, former federal health secretaries, respond to an editorial.
16
Business Day
A Contest From Target With a High-Tech Twist
Target joined forces with technology blog of the magazine Fast Company to find a shopping app. A group of developers from advertising agencies won the top prize.
17
N.Y. / Region
Plenty to Say About Subway Test Gas That Isn’t Seen
An urban airflow study to better understand contaminants has some New York riders skeptical.
18
Business Day
Parliament Asks Murdoch to Discuss Hacking
The British Parliament called on Rupert Murdoch to discuss recorded comments he made to journalists and newspaper executives in March about the culture of paying off police.
19
Opinion
Wrong About Tamarrod?
The leaders of the Egyptian grassroots movement are good at revolution, but now they must negotiate with the generals.
20
U.S.
A.C.L.U. Sues Pennsylvania Over Ban on Gay Marriage
The suit, with 23 plaintiffs, cites the Supreme Court’s majority opinion last month that same-sex couples are denied a “status of immense import.”
1
U.S.
Ideas to Bolster Power Grid Run Up Against the System’s Many Owners
A fragmented system, with conflicting interests, poses hurdles for improvements that the past three presidents have called a priority.
2
Your Money
That Bland Annuity Notice May Be Anything but Routine
Insurance companies that sold annuities before the downturn are sending letters to clients lowering the generous pre-crisis benefits.
3
U.S.
Holder Tightens Rules on Getting Reporters’ Data
The new guidelines announced by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. would make it harder for prosecutors to obtain calling records from telephone companies without giving news organizations notice.
4
Business Day
S.E.C. Lifts Advertising Ban on Private Investments
The new rule will fundamentally change the way that hedge funds, buyout firms and start-up companies raise money in the private marketplace.
5
N.Y. / Region
Explosion in Apartment Highlights Risks of Using Chemical Foggers to Kill Insects
Fire officials say a New York City woman set off an explosion by her use of so-called bug bombs, which are highly flammable.
6
Sports
Doping Inquiry Has Baseball Playing Tough
In contrast to how Major League Baseball once dealt with performance-enhancing drugs, officials are using tough means to expose some of the sport’s biggest stars.
7
N.Y. / Region
Plenty to Say About Subway Test Gas That Isn’t Seen
An urban airflow study to better understand contaminants has some New York riders skeptical.
8
9
U.S.
Thousands Gather to Honor 19 Arizona Firefighters
Thousands gathered at an arena to pay tribute to the 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots who died in the Yarnell Hill wildfire.|
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10
Opinion
Reckless Banking, Inadequate Rules
A new derivatives deal falls short of what’s needed to protect American taxpayers and the global economy from the calamitous effects of reckless bank trades.
11
U.S.
F.B.I. Nominee Explains How View Has Changed on Interrogation Tactic
James B. Comey, who served in the Justice Department under President George W. Bush, is facing some particularly thorny issues, like torture and surveillance, at his confirmation hearing.
12
Business Day
Foreign Banks Win New Delay in Tax Evasion Rule
The latest rollback of the deadline, a six-month extension to July 1, 2014, underscores a struggle by the Treasury Department to enforce the new law, which was approved in 2010 amid heightened scrutiny of offshore private banking services sold to wealthy Americans. It was originally supposed to go into effect last January.
13
Opinion
Summer Reading: How to Shake Up the Status Quo
Social innovation rarely comes from “eureka” moments; it’s much more deliberate. It’s something that can be studied and learned.
14
U.S.
In Health-Conscious Denver, Limits on Group Exercise
Fitness groups in the city are fuming about rules that restrict group exercise in parks and open spaces.
15
Opinion
Missing: The Food Stamp Program
By brutally stripping food aid from its farm bill, the House ended a tradition of decency.
"Something terrible has happened to the soul of the Republican Party.
We’ve gone beyond bad economic doctrine. We’ve even gone beyond
selfishness and special interests. At this point we’re talking about a
state of mind that takes positive glee in inflicting further suffering
on the already miserable. The occasion for these observations is, as you may have guessed, the monstrous farm bill the House passed last week.
For decades, farm bills have had two major pieces. One piece offers
subsidies to farmers; the other offers nutritional aid to Americans in
distress, mainly in the form of food stamps (these days officially known
as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP).
Long ago, when subsidies helped many poor farmers, you could defend the
whole package as a form of support for those in need. Over the years,
however, the two pieces diverged. Farm subsidies became a fraud-ridden program
that mainly benefits corporations and wealthy individuals. Meanwhile
food stamps became a crucial part of the social safety net.
So House Republicans voted to maintain farm subsidies — at a higher
level than either the Senate or the White House proposed — while
completely eliminating food stamps from the bill.
To fully appreciate what just went down, listen to the rhetoric
conservatives often use to justify eliminating safety-net programs. It
goes something like this: “You’re personally free to help the poor. But
the government has no right to take people’s money” — frequently, at
this point, they add the words “at the point of a gun” — “and force them
to give it to the poor.”
It is, however, apparently perfectly O.K. to take people’s money at the
point of a gun and force them to give it to agribusinesses and the
wealthy.
Now, some enemies of food stamps don’t quote libertarian philosophy;
they quote the Bible instead. Representative Stephen Fincher of
Tennessee, for example, cited the New Testament: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.” Sure enough, it turns out that Mr. Fincher has personally received millions in farm subsidies.
Given this awesome double standard — I don’t think the word “hypocrisy”
does it justice — it seems almost anti-climactic to talk about facts and
figures. But I guess we must.
So: Food stamp usage
has indeed soared in recent years, with the percentage of the
population receiving stamps rising from 8.7 in 2007 to 15.2 in the most
recent data. There is, however, no mystery here. SNAP is supposed to
help families in distress, and lately a lot of families have been in
distress.
In fact, SNAP usage tends to track broad measures of unemployment, like U6, which includes the underemployed and workers who have temporarily given up active job search. And U6 more than doubled
in the crisis, from about 8 percent before the Great Recession to 17
percent in early 2010. It’s true that broad unemployment has since
declined slightly, while food stamp numbers have continued to rise — but
there’s normally some lag in the relationship, and it’s probably also
true that some families have been forced to take food stamps by sharp
cuts in unemployment benefits.
What about the theory, common on the right, that it’s the other way
around — that we have so much unemployment thanks to government programs
that, in effect, pay people not to work? (Soup kitchens caused the
Great Depression!) The basic answer is, you have to be kidding. Do you
really believe that Americans are living lives of leisure on $134 a
month, the average SNAP benefit?
Still, let’s pretend to take this seriously. If employment is down
because government aid is inducing people to stay home, reducing the
labor force, then the law of supply and demand should apply: withdrawing
all those workers should be causing labor shortages and rising wages,
especially among the low-paid workers most likely to receive aid. In
reality, of course, wages are stagnant or declining — and that’s
especially true for the groups that benefit most from food stamps.
So what’s going on here? Is it just racism? No doubt the old racist canards — like Ronald Reagan’s image of the “strapping young buck” using food stamps to buy a T-bone steak — still have some traction. But these days almost half of food stamp recipients are non-Hispanic whites; in Tennessee, home of the Bible-quoting Mr. Fincher, the number is 63 percent. So it’s not all about race.
What is it about, then? Somehow, one of our nation’s two great parties
has become infected by an almost pathological meanspiritedness, a
contempt for what CNBC’s Rick Santelli, in the famous rant that
launched the Tea Party, called “losers.” If you’re an American, and
you’re down on your luck, these people don’t want to help; they want to
give you an extra kick. I don’t fully understand it, but it’s a terrible
thing to behold."
16
17
U.S.
California: Board Restricts Fire Rings
Southern California air quality regulators voted to establish buffer zones, to keep fire rings — and the harmful particulate matter that rises from them — away from beachfront homes.
20
Just a bad idea. Buy Broad Chanel out.
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