The body of an openly gay candidate for mayor of Clarksdale, Miss., was recovered by authorities today, and although his death is being ruled a homicide, officials say they don’t believe it was a hate crime.

Marco McMillian was just 34, one of the first viable candidates for mayor in conservative Mississippi who was openly gay. While he wasn’t assured of winning the seat being vacated after more than two decades by Mayor Henry Espy Jr., …

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Over the past year, thousands of civilians were brutally murdered during confrontations in Syria, people in Mali fell victim to an escalation in human rights abuses and women in Afghanistan and Pakistan continued to suffer great discrimination.

But underneath the radar, away from international attention, governments and armed groups are also abusing the rights of men, women and children in many other countries.

Here are five of them:

click here to learn what they are. …

US Army Private Bradley Manning read a prepared statement on Thursday, revealing before a packed military courtroom exactly what government and military information he leaked to the whistleblower media outlet Wikileaks, and why he chose to do so.

Manning has reportedly pleaded guilty to providing Wikileaks with confidential military information though he has denied the most serious charge against him, “aiding the enemy.”

According to FireDogLake’s Kevin Gosztola, reporting live from the courtroom, Manning’s plea makes …

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JOHANNESBUG — The footage is shaky but unmistakable. A slender black man dressed in a red T-shirt, black pants and sneakers is tied to the back of a police truck. He kicks. He writhes. The vehicle pulls away, dragging the man behind it. Police officers run along with him. Cellphone cameras snap away.

“What did he do?” bystanders shouted.

“It was him who started it,” a police officer replied.

Late Tuesday night, the man, who has since …

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Washington (CNN) — Struggling again with an issue important to women and minority groups, House Republicans on Thursday failed to pass their version of a new Violence Against Women Act and then split over a Senate version that won approval with unanimous Democratic support.

The measure now goes to President Barack Obama, who said in a statement that it was “an important step towards making sure no one in America is forced to live in fear.”

“I …

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Listen to Thom Hartmann discuss the recent challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act with Shane Farnan, Supreme Court reporter for Talk Radio News Service.

HARTMANN: The case that we’re talking about is the Voting Rights Act.

FARNAN: The Voting Rights Act of 1965 which has been reauthorized a few times by Congress through the years and most recently in 2006. Shelby County Alabama has …

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WASHINGTON — A central provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 may be in peril, judging from tough questioning on Wednesday from the Supreme Court’s more conservative members.

Justice Antonin Scalia called the provision, which requires nine states, mostly in the South, to get federal permission before changing voting procedures, a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked a skeptical question about whether people in the South are more racist …

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Europe’s 2013 protest season finally kicked off this week. On Saturday, three days after the umpteenth general strike paralyzed Greece, a “citizens’ wave” of indignation washed over Spain with hundreds of thousands of protesters swarming onto the streets of Madrid and over 80 cities in yet another major popular outcry against the ongoing financial coup d’étât. In Madrid, clashes broke out and at least 40 were arrested after police sought to disperse protesters who had …

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While the Obama administration has been issuing dire warnings about the effects of the impending sequestration deal, Republicans have been more sanguine, apparently happy to reduce the deficit and try to blame the president for the pain the cuts will cause.

But of all the hundreds of government programs on the chopping block, one rose above the others to demand unique outrage from GOP leaders, as the Hill reports:

Republicans are condemning the …

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Washington (CNN) — It may be politically quixotic, but Sen. Dianne Feinstein proceeded undeterred Wednesday in seeking an updated version of the assault weapons ban she sponsored in 1994 that expired a decade later.

Fierce opposition by the influential National Rifle Association and conservative legislators, including some Democrats, makes it virtually impossible that the kind of ban proposed by Feinstein will win congressional approval.

The legislative focus has shifted to expanding and strengthening background checks for gun …

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