Editorials

Nowhere in the United States is it possible for a full-time worker earning the minimum wage to rent a one-bedroom apartment at market rates. Despite this shameful reality, Congress has again balked at increasing the minimum wage from its present $5.15 an hourunchanged since 1997. According to a repo

In its short modern history, Lebanon has been brutalized by both its neighbors and its own internal divisions. Syria, the Palestinians, Hezbollah, Israel and the country’s own religious militias all have inflicted blows on the small Mediterranean state. Besides its 1982 invasion to dislodge th

Forced from their homes by armed conflicts, political unrest and human rights abuses, refugees and asylum seekers throughout the world continue their painful search for safety. According to the 2006 World Refugee Survey, released recently by the nonprofit U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants,

Racism in the United States can take many forms. Some are as obvious as slurs shouted from cars or hate crimes; others are less apparent. One of racism’s covert guises is housing discrimination. In April the National Fair Housing Alliance released its fair housing trends report, Unequal Opport

A tragic irony of the war in Iraq is that it is a Marine Corps unit that is suspected of the largest single atrocity so far reported there. For while the Marines have suffered a disproportionate number of casualties, they have also made an exemplary effort to treat Iraqi civilians with respect. They

The need to expand and better integrate the resources of the U.S. intelligence community was one of the central recommendations of the admirably bipartisan 9/11 commission. With the close of the cold war, Congress had reduced the resources available to the Central Intelligence Agency, as the traditi

The recent letter from Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to President George W. Bush raises an important question: Does an interlocutor have to have clean hands in order for his or her words to be worthy of consideration? The actions of Iran’s leader certainly give the world much caus

Although the number of women prisoners is far smaller than the number of men, the rate of incarceration for women is rising at a much faster rate than for men. Over 200,000 women are now behind bars throughout the country, most of them African American and Hispanic. And according to the nonprofit Se

Mother Nature’s fury, as we have experienced in our own nation in the aftermath of hurricanes and tornadoes, devastates communities. But Mother Nature’s worst pales when compared to the disasters created by man’s furyand folly. A hurricane of hatred has created in Darfur a human-ma