News: Page 408

Human Rights Scholar Hugo Slim At UO

News

“When you are working with people, you make relationships; when they are on TV they are faceless,” says Oxford humanitarian ethics scholar Hugo Slim. When he was working with Save the Children doing relief work during the famine in the Horn of Africa in the 1980s, he says he never broke down while surrounded by thin and dying people. But when he returned to England and watched the famous Band Aid music video with a slow motion image of a skinny child from a refugee camp in Korem, Ethiopia where he had once worked, “Then I cried, watching it.”  Continue reading →

Pesticides That Hurt Women

Persistent environmental chemicals affect the health of the current generation

News

Endometriosis affects 10 percent of reproductive-age women and can seriously affect a woman’s quality of life and cause infertility, according to University of Washington professor of epidemiology Victoria Holt. A new study of women in the Northwest shows that endometriosis is linked to organochlorine pesticides. While these pesticides are for the most part no longer used in the U.S. — with the exception of some doctor-prescribed lice treatments — their effects linger in the environment and wind up in the bodies of women. Continue reading →

County Action Coming On NDAA Detention?

News

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and its use of indefinite detention of U.S. citizens has brought liberals and conservatives together across the country. Lane County commissioners Faye Stewart, a conservative, and Pete Sorenson, a progressive, were able to agree on the issue at a recent meeting. Continue reading →

Sweet Potato Moves Next to Sweet Life

News

Does 11th and Willamette feel like it’s missing something? Maybe that’s because Sweet Potato Pie has moved to the Whiteaker.  Sweet Potato Pie has been selling clothes, hemp products and local glass art for the last 16 years. After being given a 60-day notice on her lease, owner Elizabeth Thompson immediately set her sights on her new location at 775 Monroe St., near Sweet Life Patisserie. Continue reading →

War Dead 11-14-2013

War Dead

In Afghanistan • 2,287 U.S. troops killed (2,286 last week) • 19,464 U.S. troops wounded in action (19,447) • 1,452 U.S. contractors killed (1,452) • 16,179 civilians killed (updates NA) • $673.1 billion cost of war ($671.3 billion) • $278.3 million cost to Eugene taxpayers ($277.6 million)   In Iraq • 4,423 U.S. troops killed, 31,936 wounded • 1,604 U.S. contractors killed (1,604) • 126,337 to 1.2 million civilians killed* (126,311) Continue reading →

Activist Alert 11-7-2013

Activist Alert

• ODOT is holding a series of open houses about intercity passenger rail service between the Eugene-Springfield area and Portland-Vancouver, Wash., and providing input on the evaluation results. The next meeting will be from 5 to 7 pm Thursday, Nov. 7, at the Linn-Benton Community College Calapooia Center, 6500 Pacific Blvd. SW in Albany. See OregonPassengerRail.org or contact Jill Pearson, (503) 986-3313 or info@oregonpassengerrail.org. Continue reading →

Biz Beat 11-7-2013

Biz Beat

 Eugeneans are still pondering the boom in student housing and wondering when it will end. In light of the overbuilding (see our cover story Oct. 10) we predict several big projects on the drawing board will be shelved before groundbreaking. College enrollment has peaked, so the big out-of-state investors have been counting on drawing tenants from existing apartments and houses all over town. That’s happening to a degree, but Eugene is not a typical college town. Continue reading →