Study: Median Wealth for Single Black Women: $100, Single Hispanic Women: $120, Single White Women: $41,000
The Insight Center for Community Economic Development released a report on the gender wealth gap to mark International Women’s Day. The report found: Nearly half of all single Black and Hispanic women have zero or negative wealth meaning their debts exceed all of their assets.The median wealth for single Black women is only $100, for single Hispanic women $120. This compares to just over $41,000 for single White women. About one-third of single Hispanic women and one-fourth of single Black women have no checking or savings account. The study is titled “Lifting as We Climb: Women of Color, Wealth and America’s Future.”


AIG Units Settle Allegations of Discriminatory Lending
Two units of the insurance giant AIG have settled claims around allegations they systematically discriminated against African American borrowers. AIG Federal Savings Bank and Wilmington Finance have agreed to pay up to $6.1 million to African Americans who were charged higher fees on loans than White clients.


Rangel Takes Leave as Ways and Means Chair
On Capitol Hill, Democratic Congress member Charles Rangel of New York has announced he’s taking a leave of absence from his post as chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. The move comes days after the House Ethics Committee faulted Rangel for accepting corporate-sponsored trips to the Caribbean. On Wednesday, Rangel said he was temporarily stepping aside to avoid becoming a liability amidst the healthcare reform push and ahead of the November mid-term elections.

Rep. Charles Rangel: “In order to avoid my colleagues having to defend me during their elections, I have this morning sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi asking her to grant me a leave of absence until such time as the Ethics Committee completes its work.”


Report: Right-Wing Extremist Groups Grew 244% in 2009
A new report says the United States is seeing a major rise in the number of domestic right-wing extremist groups. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, anti-government “Patriot” groups grew to 512 in 2009, an increase of 244 percent. Right-wing militias tripled over the same period to 127.


Labor Dept: Unemployment Increases in 30 States
In the United States, new figures show unemployment has increased in at least thirty states since the start of the year. The Labor Department says five states reported record-high unemployment, including California, at 12.5 percent, and Florida, at 12 percent. Michigan still has the nation’s highest unemployment rate, at 14.3 percent.


Kansas City Announces Major School Closures, Layoffs
In Missouri, the Kansas City Board of Education has voted to close almost half of the city’s public schools amidst a $50 million deficit. The so-called “Right-Size” plan would shutter twenty-eight of Kansas City’s sixty-one schools and cut 700 of 3,000 jobs, including 285 positions for teachers


Admin to Adopt Second Measure of US Poverty Rate
The Obama administration has announced plans to adopt an alternative formula for measuring poverty in the United States. Under the new approach, expenses including housing, utilities, childcare and medical treatment will also be factored in. The new standard won’t replace the current federal formula, which is based on the cost of food and family income.


Study: Insurance Premium Hikes Far Exceed Costs, Inflation
A new report says the price insurance premiums have far outpaced medical costs and inflation over much of the last decade. According to Health Care for America Now, insurance premiums for families rose 97 percent from 2000 to 2008. During the same period, payments from insurers to medical providers increased only 72 percent, while underlying medical inflation increased only 39 percent. Premiums also increased over three times faster than wages, which increased only 29 percent.


Dems to Bar Federal Earmarks for Corporations
In other congressional news, House Democrats have announced plans to unveil a measure that would ban federal earmarks for private corporations. Under the proposal, companies would no longer be eligible for no-bid contracts from government agencies.


Bank of America to End Overdraft Fees on Debit Purchases
The banking giant Bank of America has announced it will end overdraft charges on debit card purchases. Customers with insufficient funds will now have their purchases declined instead of being hit with large fees. The decision comes amidst a federal push to regulate overdraft fees. The Federal Reserve has proposed to bar banks from charging overdraft fees without consumer consent. Banks collected at least $32 billion dollars in overdraft fees last year.


Study: Number of US Millionaires Increased 16% in 2009
A new study says the number of millionaires in the United States grew by 16 percent last year. The jump in wealthy households coincided with a rising unemployment rate and stagnant wages for most American workers. The research firm Spectrem Group says that if income inequality continues apace, the divide between rich and poor in the United States “will resemble that of Mexico by year 2043.”


Judge Instructs Fed Agencies to Resume ACORN Funding
A federal judge has reaffirmed her earlier ruling blocking the congressional effort to de-fund the anti-poverty group ACORN. On Wednesday, Judge Nina Gershon cemented a decision from last year that stripping ACORN of its federal funding amounted to an unconstitutional “bill of attainder.” Judge Gershon has asked all federal agencies to allow ACORN funding without delay. The congressional vote followed the release of videos appearing to show ACORN staffers offering advice to two right-wing activists posing as a pimp and prostitute. ACORN has long been a target of right-wing scorn for its work helping low-income Americans with voter registration, tax problems and foreclosures.


Veteran Activist Doris “Granny D” Haddock Dies at 100
The longtime activist Doris “Granny D” Haddock has died. She was 100 years old. Haddock made headlines ten years ago after walking across the United States in a bid to support campaign finance reform. She was ninety years old at the time. Four years later, Granny D challenged Republican Senator Judd Gregg, capturing 34 percent of the vote.


Study: Common Weedkiller Turns Male Frogs into Females
And in science news, a new study shows one of the world’s most commonly used weedkillers can turn male frogs into females. The chemicals in the weedkiller atrazine disrupt development and make frogs develop both male and female features. The European Union banned atrazine in 2004, but the weedkiller is still widely used in agriculture here in the United States. Researchers said approximately 80 million pounds of atrazine are applied annually in the United States alone. Atrazine is now the most common pesticide contaminant of ground and surface water.


From New York to Liberia, Investigative Journalist Greg Palast Tracks Vulture Funds Preying on African Debt
In Britain, lawmakers have voted in favor of a bill to restrict so-called vulture funds—that is, financiers that buy up poor country debts cheaply and then sue for massive profits. The Debt Relief Bill would pave the way for banning private investors from pursuing the world’s poorest countries for debts in British courts.

Over the last five years the British, the United States, the countries have written off billions of dollars in loans to the world’s poorest countries. But a group of vulture funds have been trying to divert that money into their own pockets.

Investigative journalist Greg Palast traveled to the West African country of Liberia to investigate how vulture funds have been operating there and why Liberia lost a $20 million case against two vulture funds in a British court.

Palast: In Liberia in West Africa, 80 percent of the people survive on less than a single dollar a day. Now these people are being told that they have to pay $28 million to a bunch of financial speculators known as vulture funds. This was not supposed to happen.
Just as Britain, Europe and America were about to pay off all of Liberia’s debts, down swooped vultures, who put their claws on the money. They were waving worthless sheets of paper, old debts that they had picked up for next to nothing, and now they were demanding that these Liberians pay them ten times, even a hundred times, what the vultures themselves had paid for this worthless junk.


PA Rejects Talks with Israel in Settlement Row
The Palestinian Authority has pulled out of informal talks with Israel over a newly announced settlement expansion in East Jerusalem. Israel announced this week it had authorized plans to build 1,600 new homes in the settlement of Ramat Shlomo. The move came just as Vice President Joe Biden was in Israel to promote a renewal of US-backed peace talks. On Wednesday, the head of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, announced Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had ruled out talks for now. Moussa also called on the Obama administration to exert meaningful pressure on the Israeli government.

Amr Moussa: “The condemnation is not enough. The condemnation is welcome but cannot really bring the parties to the table of negotiations while the territories are being settled and the announcements, one after the other, by the government of Israel that they are going to build more settlements in Jerusalem, occupied Jerusalem, or in the rest of the Occupied Territories.”

Moussa’s comments came hours after Vice President Biden met with Abbas in Ramallah. Biden condemned the Israeli settlement expansion, but offered no new steps to pressure Israel, including the conditioning of US aid on freezing and dismantling settlements.

Vice President Joe Biden: “Yesterday, the decision by the Israeli government to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem undermines that very trust, the trust that we need right now in order to begin, as well as produce, have profitable negotiations. That is why I immediately condemned the action. As we move forward, the United States will hold both sides accountable for any statements or actions that inflame tensions or prejudice the outcome of talks, as this decision did.”


Report: High Number of Birth Defects Seen in Fallujah
In other Iraq news, BBC News is reporting the town of Fallujah is experiencing an unusually high number of birth defects among its newborn children. One hospital doctor reported seeing two or three cases of birth defects each day, which would translate to over a thousand per year. Doctors and parents are said to widely blame US weaponry used during the two major attacks on Fallujah in 2004. The assaults killed hundreds of Fallujah residents and displaced thousands more.

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