“Retraining Day”
Noel King and Alex Goldmark | Planet Money
He starts by acknowledging this really sucks. You are a victim of the global economy. But he says here's some good news, kind of. He gives everyone a blue booklet. It's a copy of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act. And he explains because your job has been lost to trade, you get to take advantage of these benefits. You might not feel lucky, but you're pretty lucky. Joe's boss has a way of describing this, and you should just hear it directly from him.
This is the - what we call the Cadillac of all training programs.
* * *
“The High-Cost, High-Risk World of Modern Pet Care”
Jason Clenfield | Bloomberg Businessweek
Eight years ago is also when he made what he thought of even then as a deal with the devil. Robb is a born-again Christian who believes he’s been called to protect pets, because, he says, they can’t speak for themselves. But concern for animals wasn’t foremost in his mind in 2008, when he decided to buy a franchise of Banfield Pet Hospital, America’s biggest chain of veterinary clinics. He was thinking about money.
Many veterinarians scoffed that Banfield dumbed down its medicine by using a software program, PetWare, to standardize care. The company also put its hospitals inside the big-box retail stores of PetSmart, turning medical care into a product to be purchased along with dog food and chew toys—just another item on a one-stop shopping list. A former chief medical officer at Banfield once compared the business to the no-frills carrier Southwest Airlines. “If you want first class,” he said, “you can buy it from a different airline.” Some animal doctors called Banfield “vet in a box,” but it was a gibe that betrayed anxiety. Veterinarians feared Banfield just as mom and pop grocery stores once feared Walmart.
* * *
“Why More California Families Are Becoming Homeless”
Rina Palta and Priska Neely | KPCC
An autopsy would turn up no illness that could explain it. Zah'Nyah’s death was reported as Sudden Unexplained Infant Death and the medical examiner noted “co-sleeping” as a factor.
The shelter didn’t have a crib, just bunk beds. Marshall said the shelter operators didn’t allow her to bring a bassinet or any other “outside” furniture. Fearing Zah'Nyah would fall and hurt herself, Marshall had dragged a mattress onto the floor and that’s where the two slept every night.
* * *
“Conservatives Plot Their Course on the Rising ‘Sea of Red’ in State Capitals”
Robert Faturechi | ProPublica
ALEC executives also forecasted tax cuts and other conservative fiscal reforms in New Hampshire, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and West Virginia. Jonathan Williams, vice president of ALEC’s Center for State Fiscal Reform, reminded the group that one of the only Republican majorities lost in November came in Nevada, where taxes had been raised.
Williams acknowledged the presidential campaign was “a little light on policy details” but said he was optimistic the Trump administration would follow the states’ lead. “The stars have aligned,” Williams said.
Bowman, who is ALEC’s vice president of policy, said the change in Washington might benefit ALEC’s fight to preserve anonymity for donors to politically active nonprofit groups at the state level. With Trump in office, Democrats might now start to see the value of this privacy. “Democrats who are afraid of the Republican administration are beginning to say ‘Maybe we need to embrace some First Amendment rights,’” Bowman said.
* * *