Archive - May 7, 2010

• Concerns raised over use of chemical dispersants in BP Gulf Coast oil clean up
• Ohio police arrest activists resisting foreclosure in Toledo neighborhood
• After compromise, financial reform moves closer to Senate passage
• UN conference on nuclear treaty ends first week with pledges, clashes
• British election results show no clear majority winner

• US economy adds jobs
• Fourteen jailed in LA at protest against Arizona immigration law
• “Ban the Box” measure means CT felons may have better shot at employment
• NH court extends press protections to internet sites
• UK finds oil in area claimed by Argentina

Federal officials have postponed hearings on offshore oil drilling in Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina pending an investigation into the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. At the site, efforts continue to stem the flow of oil. Workers from British Petroleum have lowered a 100-ton metal and concrete cap over the damaged wellhead that has been gushing an estimated 5,000 barrels of crude a day. BP officials say the cap should stop the flow of oil by 60 percent. Meanwhile, environmental groups continue to raise concern over the potential harmful effects that dispersant chemicals could have on humans and animal life in the long-term.  Dolores M. Bernal is in Louisiana and brings us this report.

Ohio police raided a Toledo home early this morning, arresting seven people who were occupying the property to resist eviction. A video from inside the house shows heavily armed officers with weapons drawn entering a room. Activists had barricaded themselves inside the house along with the owner, who lost the home after going on disability and falling behind on mortgage payments. The action is part of a nationwide campaign by local groups and the Take Back the Land coalition to protest foreclosures and assert housing as a fundamental human right.

To get the latest, we're joined by Lance Crandall with the Toledo Foreclosure Defense League. He joins us from Toledo, Ohio.

On Capitol Hill, financial reform legislation moved a step closer to passage in the Senate. Democrat leaders beat back a GOP challenge to the bill as well as an amendment offered by fellow Democrats that would have broken up large banks. Like the health care bill and pending climate legislation, the Wall Street reform package is a compromise. But consumer advocates say the bill still has enough teeth to make a difference. Tanya Snyder reports.

Today concludes the first week at the United Nations Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and several signatory countries pledged to strengthen the treaty and to achieve nuclear disarmament targets. Also, many countries promised to work for various nuclear weapons free zones. But not all was smooth: the US and Iran clashed over nuclear policy. Salim Rizvi reports.

After the most closely fought general election in many decades, British voters have not given an overall majority to any of the parties and it’s a hung parliament for the first time since 1974. Parties have started coalition negotiations and Britons still don’t know what their new government is going to look like. From London, Naomi Fowler reports.