The Markets and the Financial Media were stunned by the August Jobs report, which said there were no net jobs created in August. Whatever gains there have been in certain sectors of private industry, every parent in the country with school-age kids can tell you how a sizable chunk of those gains were erased.

Cuts to school budgets.

Serious business leaders know that poor schools today means less qualified workers tomorrow. Local chambers of commerce get it, but if you expect the US Chamber of Commerce to come out in favor of more actual spending for school districts . . . well, I’ve got an abandoned school building to sell you.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, just two months from the tragic shooting in Tuscon where she suffered a bullet wound to the head, is doing so well in rehabilitation in Houston, Texas, that she may attend the shuttle launch of her husband, Mark Kelly, on April 19.

This is a child who at the time of this battery was suspected of being involved in a home burglary along with three other suspects. The other three had been under surveillance; Holley was seen exiting a townhome with two of the suspects. When the police gave chase, Holley ran — and what appears in this video is the outcome of that chase.

Mark Hertsgaard is one of America’s veteran environmental journalists, a forceful voice for two decades. His important book, Earth Odyssey, was an early attempt to help Americans understand the underlying dynamics that would give rise to, say, the Chinese economic explosion, with its attendant environmental implications. His work in the Nation and elsewhere has been an essential part of the dialogue about climate change, the most pressing of our environmental issues.

On my call with her, Parker talked about how electing gay candidates has at this stage become easier than voting through gay issues at the ballot box.

You’d never know it from reading the RNC talking points at Politico or the Washington Post, but guess what: Houston, Texas — a historically-conservative city in a historically-conservative state — is on the verge of getting its first openly-gay mayor. What’s more is that she was by no means the only progressive or trailblazing major candidate in the race.