NEWSBYNADRA KAREEM NITTLE

To say that hair coloring has grown in popularity over the past decade would be an understatement. Anywhere between half and two-thirds of American women color their hair regularly, along with growing numbers of men and youth. In other countries that number may be as high as 85 percent. But just because hair dye use is rising doesn’t mean that consumers are any more aware of the risks involved. The toxic chemicals in hair dye, particularly para-phenylenediamine (PPD), can result in adverse reactions that lead to skin rashes, loss of hair, facial swelling and even death. Hair dye has also been linked to various cancers. Despite this, the major cosmetics companies have yet to replace dangerous substances such as PPD with nontoxic alternatives in their products.

“More than two thirds of hair dyes currently contain (PPD) and other related agents,” Science Daily reported. “During the 20th century, allergic reactions to PPD became such a serious problem that it was banned from hair dyes in Germany, France, and Sweden.”

The family of Tabatha McCourt surely wonders why the PPD ban was ever lifted. In October, the 17-year-old British girl cried out in anguish 20 minutes after coloring her locks. Tragically she died soon after. The European Scientific Committee for Consumer Products reports that PPD is to blame for 80 percent of allergic reactions to hair dye. Those who use dark dyes are particularly vulnerable, given that darker colors contain more PPD.

After six Fullerton Police officers beat a mentally ill, homeless man so severely on July 5 that he died from his injuries five days later, outraged residents of the Orange County, Calif., city demanded action—namely that the police chief and officers in question be held responsible. Now, Chief Michael Sellers and the six officers are on leave. But key footage that captured the beating of 37-year-old Kelly Thomas remains under wraps because Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas refuses to release it until an investigation of the beating, likely to take months, is complete.

It’s a move that Fullerton Councilman Bruce Whitaker finds objectionable. “I fully support and urge any efforts which will result in a clear and complete explanation of events which led to the death of Kelly J. Thomas and insist that related evidence, including video and audio recordings be made public,” Whitaker stated.

Whitaker’s far from alone. A Change.org petition demanding that the footage be made public has garnered more than 2,400 signatures. Edward Singh—a resident of La Mirada, Calif., which is near Fullerton—said he launched the petition because the audio he heard of Thomas’ beating left him heartbroken. “I can still to this day hear his voice screaming for his dad while he’s being beaten to death,” Singh said.

The public has rallied around Thomas in death because the homeless man was a familiar face on Fullerton’s streets and a known schizophrenic. Thomas’ mental illness may have led him to allegedly flee from officers when they tried to search his backpack during an investigation of attempted car burglaries at a transit center. The fatal beating ensued. In addition, Thomas was reportedly stunned with an electroshock gun several times.

While the public has organized protests to speak out against the Thomas beating and demand justice, the call to release the video footage has fallen on deaf ears. District Attorney Rackauckas has only stated that the footage he’s seen doesn’t indicate that the officers intentionally tried to kill Thomas. Moreover, when Councilman Whitaker urged for release of the footage, Fullerton Mayor Richard M. Jones stressed that the councilman was only speaking for himself and told a news blog called Fullerton Stories, “It’s just not good to speculate on things until we know all the facts.”

The irony of this, of course, is that withholding the video footage prevents the public from knowing all of the facts.

“By releasing the video people could be made more aware,” Singh said. “The reality is that this (police brutality) happens all too often, and cops get away with a slap on the wrist.”

Don’t let that happen. Demand that the footage of Thomas’ beating be released at once!

Photo Credit: Dave Conner

After 18 months of strategizing, inmates at Pelican Bay State Prison in Northern California launched a headline-grabbing hunger strike on July 1 that put the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation under intense media scrutiny. Not only did California papers such as the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times weigh in on the strike, the New York Times and the Guardian of London featured opinion pieces in support of the strikers. To boot, prisoners at 13 other California prisons joined the strike as well, and a Change.org petition urging CDCR to meet the prisoners’ demands has netted more than 9,500 signatures.

A major reason the strikers have garnered so much support is because their demands are far from exorbitant. The prisoners demanded an end to long-term solitary confinement, group punishments by race and too small portions of food, to name a few. According to Marilyn McMahon, the California Prison Focus attorney who started the Change.org petition:

“California keeps prisoners basically in solitary confinement for decades, more than 20 years, and I believe that’s torture under international law…The demands they (the strikers) put forward were really modest and so reasonable, most people could look at them and sign (the petition) to say yes.”

You’d think a corporation that owns multiple brands catering solely to women would have a female-heavy board of directors. But for clothing giant Urban Outfitters Inc. — which owns Free People, Anthropologie, and BHLDN — the opposite is true. Seven people serve on the company’s board of directors. Guess how many are women: None.

Guess how many are people of color: None.

In May, Calvert Investments, which promotes socially responsible investing, urged Urban Outfitters to consider including women and minorities on its board in the future. The result? Urban Outfitters rebuffed them, denying that they had a diversity problem, according to Calvert senior analyst Aditi Mohapatra.

To be clear, Calvert didn’t ask Urban Outfitters to actually appoint women and minorities to its board, but to simply consider doing so in the future. That the company reportedly refused to even think about including women and people of color at a later date sends a strong message: diversity isn’t important. In 2011, that’s unacceptable, which is why Mohapatra launched a petition on Change.org demanding that Urban Outfitters diversify its all-male, all-white board.

It’s been called the “most offensive political ad of all time.”  That’s because it takes aim at Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn’s support of gang intervention programs by portraying her as a booty-shaking stripper performing for black thugs who demand (or rap, rather) that she “give us your cash, b---h!”

The ad reduces both women and African Americans to stereotypes. It’s been denounced by the likes of the National Organization for Women, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and some Republicans, even though the third-party political group which launched the ad - Turn Right USA - is backing Hahn’s Republican challenger for California’s 36^th Congressional District seat, Craig Huey.

Reproductive rights are under attack in Louisiana.

State Rep. John LaBruzzo recently introduced a bill in the Louisiana House that would have criminalized abortions, even in cases of rape and incest. For the time being, the House has decided not to vote on the matter because federal law mandates that rape and incest victims have the right to obtain abortions. Since defying the Hyde Amendment could result in Louisiana losing $4.5 billion in Medicaid funding, the House moved Bill 645 to the Appropriations Committee for further study. While that constitutes a minor victory for pro-choice advocates, the words LaBruzzo used to defend the bill continue to shock.

When a female legislator questioned Labruzzo about how effective the bill would be in reducing the abortion rate during a recent committee hearing, LaBruzzo proceeded to compare women seeking abortions to drug addicts.

“We’ve illegalized murder and drugs for a long, long time, and yet those crimes continue to take place,” LaBruzzo said. “And it’s not our stance here to say that ‘just because people smoke pot and break the law or use heroin and break the law, then we should legalize it.’"

More than two-and-a-half years have passed since Oscar Grant was fatally shot by a police officer as he lay face down on a train platform in Oakland, California.

Now his family and friends are bracing for the release of his killer from jail.

As soon as June 13, ex-Bay Area Rapid Transit cop Johannes Mehserle may be released from the Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles. That’s less than a year after he entered the facility in July following a conviction of involuntary manslaughter for killing the 22-year-old Grant early on New Year’s Day 2009 while detaining him and his friends for allegedly fighting on a train.

Why so little time for taking a life?

More than a month has passed since Marilyn Davenport, an elected official with the Republican Party of Orange County, Calif., mass emailed a photo of President Obama and his parents as chimps with the caption: “Now you know why – no birth certificate.”

Despite repeated calls for her resignation from both the public and fellow Republicans, Davenport has not stepped down for sending the racist email. And because she’s an elected official, the O.C. Republican Party cannot force her to resign, although the group officially censured her for her behavior in early May.

Davenport needs to be held responsible for her actions. Change members have not only driven petitions asking that Davenport step down but also asked the O.C. Republican Party’s donors to withhold additional financial contributions to the group until Davenport leaves. In two weeks, nearly 450 people have signed the petition, making it crystal clear that the public wants Davenport to go.

More than a year after a 7.0 magnitude rocked Haiti’s infrastructure, large parts of the island-nation remain in ruins. Worse, deadly diseases such as cholera have killed nearly 5,000 people.

Although the federal government suspended deportations of Haitians in the aftermath of the natural disaster, the New York Times reported in December that Immigration and Customs Enforcement planned to resume deportations of Haitian nationals in the U.S. by January 2011.

Here at Change.org, I reported on the outrageous plans to resume deportations to Haiti and started a petition asking the federal government to extend the temporary protected status (TPS) Haitian nationals received after the quake beyond July 2011. More than 300 people signed the petition—and today they have cause to celebrate.

Victory!

Yesterday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that TPS would be extended for qualified Haitians beginning on July 23, allowing them to stay in the U.S. through Jan. 22, 2013.

Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky served time in prison even before murdering Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters four years ago during a home invasion in Cheshire, Conn.

During the criminal proceedings for the murders, it surfaced that Hayes had read a book called In the Middle of the Night: the Shocking True Story of a Family Killed in Cold Blood and other violent materials while locked up for previous crimes.

That discovery prompted Connecticut state Sen. John Kissel to ask state Corrections Commissioner Leo Arnone to crack down on the reading materials available to prisoners. In July, Arnone said that a new policy would be instituted that would impose additional restrictions on the literature in prison libraries.