My name is Maria Elena Durazo. I was born into a poor immigrant family. We were farm workers who migrated with the crops, but we always carried with us our faith, our hope and our sense of obligation to those who had even less than we did. Since Cesar Chavez and the farmworker’s movement, I have dedicated myself to a simple idea-no one who works hard should stay poor. In January, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO released a study by the Economic Roundtable that showed what many of us suspected – 46 percent of workers in Los Angeles are earning poverty level wages. That percentage translates into 810,000 breadwinners and their families trying to scrape by on poverty wages in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Imagine if 46 percent of the people in your city were being denied a basic freedom guaranteed under our Constitution? That would be considered a human rights crisis of immense proportions. It would be a crisis that would compel everyone to act. We live in a very rich country, yet working people in America are earning shamefully low wages denying basic human dignity. That’s why people of all faiths, from all over America are calling on Pope Francis to address the inequality of wealth plaguing our communities and to lift up the voices of millions of workers and their families.

The USDA is poised to approve the first genetically modified apple. If approved, these genetically engineered apples could end up everywhere from school lunches to grocery stores, posing risks to our health, our environment and apple farmers across the United States. Like other GMOs, it won’t be labeled and won’t have undergone independent safety testing -- regulators will rely on the company’s sole assessment that the apple is safe for human consumption. Worse yet, this GMO apple was genetically engineered via a new, virtually untested experimental technique called RNA interference, which many scientists are concerned may have negative, unintended impacts on human health and the environment. We need your help today, right now, to tell the USDA to say no to GMO apples.

The USDA is poised to approve the first genetically modified apple. If approved, these genetically engineered apples could end up everywhere from school lunches to grocery stores, posing risks to our health, our environment and apple farmers across the United States. Like other GMOs, it won’t be labeled and won’t have undergone independent safety testing -- regulators will rely on the company’s sole assessment that the apple is safe for human consumption. Worse yet, this GMO apple was genetically engineered via a new, virtually untested experimental technique called RNA interference, which many scientists are concerned may have negative, unintended impacts on human health and the environment. We need your help today, right now, to tell the USDA to say no to GMO apples.

The USDA is poised to approve the first genetically modified apple. If approved, these genetically engineered apples could end up everywhere from school lunches to grocery stores, posing risks to our health, our environment and apple farmers across the United States. Like other GMOs, it won’t be labeled and won’t have undergone independent safety testing -- regulators will rely on the company’s sole assessment that the apple is safe for human consumption. Worse yet, this GMO apple was genetically engineered via a new, virtually untested experimental technique called RNA interference, which many scientists are concerned may have negative, unintended impacts on human health and the environment. We need your help today, right now, to tell the USDA to say no to GMO apples.

My husband, Matthew DiPaulo, was adopted back in 1969. A time when single parenthood was a disgrace. Birth Certificates were amended to show the adoptive parents as the birth parents and original birth records were sealed. This has left 1000's of adoptees in the dark about their heritage & even more importantly their medical history. These children of adoption are now adults, many with families of their own. The time has come to end the secrecy & lies & give back to the adoptees what is rightfully theirs ..... Their original birth certificate.

The minimum wage isn't even that for which it stands living on the edge of poverty is unacceptable and we in California deserve better faster sign on and let's get California workers like yourself a much needed raise for some this is the only way they'll receive one. The working people of California are the ones who keep this state running and it's time that everyone recognize it. Struggling paycheck to paycheck is not a way for anyone to live lets mobilize and get California to be the leader it has always been

New York's current minimum wage is $8.00. That's not enough for anyone to live on! We deserve an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy and well-connected. Join with me in calling on our state legislature to pass legislation to raise the minimum wage to $15.

I am a law student at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Many of my colleagues came to law school in order to make a difference in the lives of the most marginalized members of our society. Upon graduation, my colleagues will be working to address racial justice, environmental justice, intimate partner violence, juvenile justice, education reform, LGBT equality, healthcare, and many other important issues. Many of us have taken on significant debt in order to pursue our dreams, and public interest law students will take jobs that will not pay nearly enough to make their debt manageable. Capping Public Service Loan Forgiveness at $57,500 will spell the end of public interest lawyering. Only the wealthiest members of our country will be able to afford to go to law school and then choose to work in a low-paying public service job while managing, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt accrued over undergraduate and graduate education. Senator Casey, we urge you to use your position on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to oppose the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program in its current form in the 2015 budget.

There has been vocal opposition of a few homeowners in the area. This petition is to demonstrate that many that live nearby or in other areas of Oklahoma City are in strong support of these two projects.

The Holt Drive Flathead Lake public access is a Flathead County road right-of-way that provides the only year-round public access to the North Shore of Flathead Lake east of the Flathead River. The access lies half (15') on private land and half (15') on public land. The private landowner wants the Flathead County Commissioners to 'abandon' (close) the access. If you use this access or think public access to Flathead Lake should be protected and maintained, please sign this petition. Thank you!

Last summer, the levee board responsible for protecting metro New Orleans filed suit against 97 oil, gas and pipeline companies for their part in destroying Louisiana's coast. Instead of filling thousands of miles of abandoned access canals within 90 days after they stopped using them – as their permits required – and restoring land they damaged – as the law required – the industry simply left, allowing the channels to swell and engulf the sliced, fragile vegetation of our millennia-old marsh and wetlands. The destruction of this natural buffer against hurricane storm surge endangers all residents and property of south Louisiana. Our survival is literally at stake. In one lifetime, our coast has lost nearly 2000 square miles of land, an area the size of Delaware. The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina was a symptom of that loss, and we continue to lose land at the rate of one football field every 45 minutes. Legislation backed by Governor Jindal and Big Oil to retroactively declare the levee authority’s lawsuit null and void is moving quickly through both chambers of the state legislature. If adopted, the oil and gas industry – the most profitable in world history – will enjoy virtual legal immunity in Louisiana. It will be above the law, and it will leave the taxpayers in one of America’s poorest states with the impossible task of raising the $50 billion minimum required to rebuild our coast.

Since the passage of the Equal Pay act of 1963 the pay gap has improved but not nearly enough. Over the past decade the wage gap in Maine has improved by only 3 percent. This disparity impacts all Mainers. It not only restricts opportunity for women but also limits ways mothers can provide for their children. Senior women will find it harder to retired while more Maine children are raised in poverty. We need to broaden career choices for women, expand the minimum wage, enforce equal employment laws and eliminate discrimination in the work place.