This week, JPMorgan Chase agreed to a $13 billion settlement with the Justice Department over the sale of faulty mortgage securities that led to the financial crisis. It's the largest settlement with a single company in U.S. history.
From that settlement, $4 billion must go to help the millions of families who saw the values of their homes plummet and who still struggle to keep up with mortgage payments.
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When You Hear $13 Billion, Don't See Dollar Signs
Public transit vehicles may be the key to China's success in the U.S. auto market. Chinese company BYD, based in Shenzhen, is manufacturing electric buses. It's an appealing option for a place like California, where emission standards are strict.
At BYD's North American headquarters in Los Angeles, one of the 40-foot electric K9 buses sits on display. BYD Fleet Sales Manager James Holtz sits in the driver's seat and pushes the power button on the dashboard.
Unlike a grumbling diesel engine, this electric bus is quiet. Holtz walks out to the rear of the vehicle and opens the back hatch to reveal its electric components.
"Because it's non-internal combustion, you don't have the moving parts," says Holtz. "You don't have the belts, you don't have the soot, you don't have all the oil. It's a lot cleaner."
This bus can run up to 155 miles on a single charge. It's equipped with huge battery packs located inside the bus columns, behind the rear wheels and mounted on top of the bus.
"It takes about five hours to fully charge our bus from zero state of charge to 100 percent," says Holtz.
BYD already has buses running at Denver International Airport and Disneyworld in Orlando. Fla. Just last month, Los Angeles Metro purchased five buses and nearby Long Beach Transit bought 10.
"It offers opportunities to implement and evaluate a new technology," says Richard Hunt, general manager of Metro's Transit Capital Programs. "They call this the cutting edge or the bleeding edge and we want to be cutting, we don't want to be bleeding. So we're going to evaluate these vehicles very carefully."
Those buses LA bought will be manufactured up the road in Lancaster, Calif., next year. Micheal Austin, vice president of BYD America, says it's a huge step for China's auto industry.
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The anti-poverty group Oxfam is asking Pepsi's shareholders to approve a resolution that, if passed, would force the company to disclose its sugar suppliers and investigate whether those suppliers are implicated in "land grabs" that unfairly take land from the poor.
Pepsi's arch-rival has already announced its own anti-land grab initiative. Earlier this month, Coca-Cola announced a new initiative "to use our influence to help protect the land rights of local communities." The company revealed its top three sugar suppliers and promised to launch an independent review of its operations in Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, India, Philippines, Thailand and South Africa.
It's a major success for a campaign that Oxfam launched earlier this year called "Behind the Brands." The campaign attempts to embarrass, cajole and threaten the world's biggest food companies into protecting the environment and treating workers or local communities more fairly.
Oxfam has taken particular aim at the sugar industry, with a report on land disputes involving large-scale sugar producers in Brazil and Cambodia. In these cases, impoverished local communities blame large sugar producers for forcing them from their traditional lands.
There have been many reports of such "land grabs" in recent years, as rising food prices have increased investor interest in land around the world. The problem is especially acute in places where people don't have clear legal rights to the land that they depend on for their livelihoods, including many countries in Africa.
According to Oxfam, the three agricultural crops most often implicated in land grabs are sugar, soybeans and palm oil. Of the three, sugar production accounts for the most land — 75 million acres, an area the size of Italy.
In the U.S., Pepsi and Coke don't rely heavily on sugar, since corn-derived sweeteners are cheaper. But in the rest of the world, sugar remains the sweetener of choice.
The anti-poverty group Oxfam is asking Pepsi's shareholders to approve a resolution that, if passed, would force the company to disclose its sugar suppliers and investigate whether those suppliers are implicated in "land grabs" that unfairly take land from the poor.
Pepsi's arch-rival has already announced its own anti-land grab initiative. Earlier this month, Coca-Cola announced a new initiative "to use our influence to help protect the land rights of local communities." The company revealed its top three sugar suppliers and promised to launch an independent review of its operations in Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, India, Philippines, Thailand and South Africa.
It's a major success for a campaign that Oxfam launched earlier this year called "Behind the Brands." The campaign attempts to embarrass, cajole and threaten the world's biggest food companies into protecting the environment and treating workers or local communities more fairly.
Oxfam has taken particular aim at the sugar industry, with a report on land disputes involving large-scale sugar producers in Brazil and Cambodia. In these cases, impoverished local communities blame large sugar producers for forcing them from their traditional lands.
There have been many reports of such "land grabs" in recent years, as rising food prices have increased investor interest in land around the world. The problem is especially acute in places where people don't have clear legal rights to the land that they depend on for their livelihoods, including many countries in Africa.
According to Oxfam, the three agricultural crops most often implicated in land grabs are sugar, soybeans and palm oil. Of the three, sugar production accounts for the most land — 75 million acres, an area the size of Italy.
In the U.S., Pepsi and Coke don't rely heavily on sugar, since corn-derived sweeteners are cheaper. But in the rest of the world, sugar remains the sweetener of choice.