March 3, 2010 3:51 pm
The New York Times, “Senator Relents, and Jobless Bill Passes”
by Carl Hulse
The Senate ended a politically charged impasse over unemployment pay on Tuesday night, voting to allow jobless Americans in danger of exhausting their benefits another month of aid.
The bipartisan 78 to 19 vote in favor of the extended compensation came after Senator Jim Bunning, Republican of Kentucky, dropped his objection to extending unemployment compensation in exchange for a largely symbolic vote on paying for the aid.
The measure, which now goes to President Obama, should also allow 2,000 federal workers furloughed from the Department of Transportation to return to work as early as Wednesday and construction to resume on dozens of highway projects. Senators now will begin debating in earnest a much broader bill that would extend the safety net programs through the end of the year.
The New York Times article continues here.
February 16, 2010 11:24 pm
The New York Times, “Jobs Is Said to Assist With Book on His Life”
by Brad Stone
A handful of presumptive biographers have, over the years, tried to tell the remarkable story of Steven P. Jobs: the youthful visionary who, after being ousted from Apple, the company he helped to found, triumphantly returned to lead a new era of high-tech innovation.
But those efforts lacked one important ingredient: cooperation from Mr. Jobs himself.
Now Apple’s chief executive is set to collaborate on an authorized biography, to be written by Walter Isaacson, the former managing editor of Time magazine, according to two people briefed on the project.
The book, which is in the early planning stages, would cover the entire life of Mr. Jobs, from his youth in the area now known as Silicon Valley through his years at Apple, these people said.
The New York Times article continues here.
February 4, 2010 1:01 pm
The New York Times, “Justice Defends Ruling on Finance”
by Adam Liptak
In expansive remarks at a law school in Florida, Justice Clarence Thomas on Tuesday vigorously defended the Supreme Court’s recent campaign finance decision.
And Justice Thomas explained that he did not attend State of the Union addresses — he missed the dust-up when President Obama used the occasion last week to criticize the court’s decision — because the gatherings had turned so partisan.
Justice Thomas responded to several questions from students at Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, Fla., concerning the campaign finance case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. By a 5-to-4 vote, with Justice Thomas in the majority, the court ruled last month that corporations had a First Amendment right to spend money to support or oppose political candidates.
“I found it fascinating that the people who were editorializing against it were The New York Times Company and The Washington Post Company,” Justice Thomas said. “These are corporations.”
The New York Times article continues here.
January 24, 2010 10:03 pm
The New York Times, “Most U.S. Union Members Are Working for the Government, New Data Shows”
by Steven Greenhouse
For the first time in American history, a majority of union members are government workers rather than private-sector employees, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on Friday.
In its annual report on union membership, the bureau undercut the longstanding notion that union members are overwhelmingly blue-collar factory workers. It found that membership fell so fast in the private sector in 2009 that the 7.9 million unionized public-sector workers easily outnumbered those in the private sector, where labor’s ranks shrank to 7.4 million, from 8.2 million in 2008.
“There has been steady growth among union members in the public sector, but I’m a little bit shocked to see that the lines have actually crossed,” said Randel K. Johnson, senior vice president for labor at the United States Chamber of Commerce.
The New York Times article continues here.
January 21, 2010 3:44 pm
The New York Times, “Justices Overturn Key Campaign Limits”
by Adam Liptak
Sweeping aside a century-old understanding and overruling two important precedents, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections.
The ruling was a vindication, the majority said, of the First Amendment’s most basic free speech principle — that the government has no business regulating political speech. The dissenters said allowing corporate money to flood the political marketplace will corrupt democracy.
The 5-to-4 decision represented a sharp doctrinal shift, and it will have major political and practical consequences. Specialists in campaign finance law said they expected the decision, which also applies to labor unions and other organizations, to reshape the way elections are conducted.
The New York Times article continues here.
