Migrant workers in Qatar are literally being worked to death as the Gulf State prepares to host the World Cup in 2022:

Dozens of Nepalese migrant labourers have died in Qatar in recent weeks and thousands more are enduring appalling labour abuses, a Guardian investigation has found, raising serious questions about Qatar’s preparations to host the 2022 World Cup.

This summer, Nepalese workers died at a rate of almost one a day in Qatar, many of them young men who had sudden heart attacks. The investigation found evidence to suggest that thousands of Nepalese, who make up the single largest group of labourers in Qatar, face exploitation and abuses that amount to modern-day slavery, as defined by the International Labour Organisation, during a building binge paving the way for 2022. [Guardian]

According to documents obtained by the Guardian from the Nepalese embassy in Doha, workers are alleging wage theft, forced labor, and brutal living and working conditions. Some say they were denied free drinking water while toiling in the dessert heat. Many report having their passports confiscated. Some say they are forced to beg in the streets for food after work because their wages are being withheld. At least forty-four Nepalese workers died between early June and early August, mostly from heart attacks and workplace activists, according to embassy statistics. Thirty Nepalese workers sought refuge in their embassy in Doha. 

[Photo credit: Fatboyke, Creative Commons.]

Rachel Monroe investigates the crumbling federal public defender system for Al Jazeera America. As Sam Stein reported in his Sidney-winning coverage of sequestration, the federal public defender system is rapidly become a casualty of the across-the-board budget cuts imposed by Congress in the name of deficit reduction. The constitutional rights of defendants are suffering as a result. 

[Photo credit: Sal Falko, Creative Commons.]

In New York City, more people are punching the clock at work and going home to homeless shelters, the Times reports:

On many days, Alpha Manzueta gets off from one job at 7 a.m., only to start her second at noon. In between she goes to a place she’s called home for the last three years — a homeless shelter.

“I feel stuck,” said Ms. Manzueta, 37, who has a 2 ½-year-old daughter and who, on a recent Wednesday, looked crisp in her security guard uniform, waving traffic away from the curb at Kennedy International Airport. “You try, you try and you try and you’re getting nowhere. I’m still in the shelter.”

Fifty thousand people live in New York City’s shelter system. The working residents are predominantly female, working low-wage jobs in security, home health care,  and retail. Their plight is a dramatic illustration of the widening gap between wages and rents in New York City. 

Remember how that bridge collapsed in Washington State back in May, dumping drivers into the Skagit River, and severing Interstate 5? How many bridges in the United States would you guess are at serious risk of a similar collapse? 7,795, according to a review by the Associated Press, including the Brooklyn Bridge:

An Associated Press analysis of 607,380 bridges in the most recent federal National Bridge Inventory showed that 65,605 were classified as ‘‘structurally deficient’’ and 20,808 as ‘‘fracture critical.’’ Of those, 7,795 were both — a combination of red flags that experts say indicate significant disrepair and similar risk of collapse.

A bridge is deemed fracture critical when it doesn’t have redundant protections and is at risk of collapse if a single, vital component fails. A bridge is structurally deficient when it is in need of rehabilitation or replacement because at least one major component of the span has advanced deterioration or other problems that lead inspectors to deem its condition poor or worse.

Engineers say the bridges are safe. And despite the ominous sounding classifications, officials say that even bridges that are structurally deficient or fracture critical are not about to collapse.

Each day, over 29 million drivers cross bridges that are both fracture critical and structurally deficient. They are found in all 50 states. Many of these bridges have spans with sufficiency ratings less than the Skagit River bridge. A bridge that scores less than 50 out 100 points for sufficiency may be eligible for federal funds for repairs. The AP found 400 bridges with sufficiency rating of less than 10, and “[t]he Brooklyn Bridge was among the worst.”

[Photo credit: ravi, Creative Commons.]