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Alvin Melathe

His First Day On The Job Was Also His Last. The Tragic Story Of Day Davis.

Day Davis was 90 minutes into the first day of his first job at the Bacardi bottling plant in Jacksonville, Fla. What happened to him is tragic. But beyond that, his story is a wake-up call about the dangers of one of the fastest-growing and most lightly regulated sectors of the U.S. economy: blue-collar temp work.

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ProPublica

In March 2014, there were a record 2.8 million temp workers in the U.S. And, as the chart below shows, a big chunk of that growth is from blue-collar jobs. In fact, since the Great Recession, the temp work sector is growing at 9 times the rate of private sector employment.

And here's where the U.S. stands compared to other countries in the OECD in terms of protections for temporary workers. These rankings are based on answer to questions like: Can you pay temporary workers less than full-time employees? How long can you employ a temporary employee before they become, well, not temporary?


The bottom line here is a pretty brazen lack of accountability for one of the fastest-growing sectors of our economy, which is a recipe for tragedy for folks like Day Davis and the millions of others who work alongside him.

Heroes

Love Penguins? Boy, Do I Have A Video For You.

OK, I'll cop to the fact that my knowledge about penguins begins and ends with what Morgan Freeman's dulcet baritone informed me of during "March of the Penguins." Here's what he didn't cover — from some incredible trivia about penguin poop at 3:52 to the big things threatening our tuxedo-wearing friends at 4:21.

While Congress is hard at work setting the galactic record for sustained inaction, President Obama is flubbing a huge opportunity to fix one of America's longest-churning crises.


FACT CHECK TIME! At one point, this video makes the claim that President Obama has deported more people than almost all previous presidents combined. We think that kind of statement requires some clarification: While by our count as of the end 2013 he's topped the totals of every other individual president since 1892, he's yet to eclipse President Bush's eight-year total of 2 million deportations. However, with time left in his presidency, and without a radical shift in his deportation policy, the smart money is on him living up to his nickname in some circles as Deporter-in-Chief.

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Two very powerful women get asked about double standards. Their responses probably won't shock you.

On stage at the Women in the World Conference, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde and former U.S. Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were asked about double standards in media coverage of women in politics. You can almost feel them restraining heavy eye rolls before delivering a couple of great stories about persisting stereotypes of women in politics and society.