From the mid-1950s to the late 1970s, Ford operated an assembly plant in northern New Jersey, and dumped tonnes of toxic waste nearby. The car giant has yet to make the site safe
By RON STODGHILL
In the summer of 2005, around the time that residents of Upper Ringwood, New Jersey, began to wonder whether the skin rashes, nose bleeds and bronchitis that plagued their community were more than bad luck, the Ford Motor Co and the Environmental Protection Agency made a request: The automaker and the regulator wanted access to the yards around two families' homes to remove waste that had been dumped in the area. Ford boasts in its ads that "It's Easy Being Green," but residents feared the request suggested something not so easy at all. From the mid-1950s to the late 1970s, Ford operated an assembly plant in northern New Jersey, in nearby Mahwah, that cranked out millions of passenger cars. Ford closed the plant in 1980, after dumping what the EPA describes as thousands of tonnes of paint sludge and other waste in Upper Ringwood, a community of about 350 working-class residents located in the foothills of the Ramapo Mountains.

[ FULL STORY ]

One day Perez Hilton was a struggling actor, paying bills with nonglamorous day jobs, the next he was an orange-haired pop culture phenomenon
By MIREYA NAVARRO
Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr, better known as Perez Hilton, the self-proclaimed "Queen of All Media," clearly operates by media rules of his own.

[ FULL STORY ]

More than 150 pythons have been found in the Everglades since 2002, with more showing up in mangroves They pose a growing threat to indigenous wildlife
by ANDREW REVKIN
Skip Snow, a federal biologist in Everglades National Park, would love to spend his days monitoring the dizzying array of native wildlife across this 607,000-hectare "river of grass" west of the ever-expanding Miami metropolis.

[ FULL STORY ]

Duncan Hewitt has penned a wide-ranging account of modern China's transformation from the inside. What the book lacks in depth, it makes up for in scope
By BRADLEY WINTERTON
After my review of Feather in the Storm last March [Taipei Times, 25 March, 2007] a friend in America wrote to me saying he disapproved of what I'd written "both critically and morally." I had no idea what he meant. As he presumably hadn't read the book, how could he disapprove critically? And as for "morally," I'd merely argued against any more books about what everyone now agrees were the evils perpetrated by the Red Guards. Did he want such books to be produced until the crack of doom? But my friend is a lover of five-star hotels who also claims to be a Marxist (not as an unusual a combination as you might think) so I didn't take his comments too much to heart. Anyway, here is a welcome new book on, yes, China today. It's full of interest, if nowhere earth-shattering.

[ FULL STORY ]

The publication of 'Mere Anarchy,' a collection of skits and squibs, has sparked comparisons of old and new Woody Allen, with the former coming out on top
by Adam Mars-Jones
As a filmmaker, Woody Allen just about hangs on to his status as the arch-comic spirit of his age, despite a welter of poor films. It would be as easy to program a week of his clunkers as one of near-classics (a distinction, admittedly, that he shares with Robert Altman). On the page, to judge by this collection of humorous writing, it's a different story - he's just another arch comic.

[ FULL STORY ]

FICTION
[ FULL STORY ]