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Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Barbara Boxer of California have introduced a historic bill to address climate change in the United States. The bill would issue a $20 per ton carbon tax on 2,869 power plants and refineries which have emissions exceeding certain predetermined levels. US citizens would receive monthly rebate checks from 60 percent of the revenue from the tax. The rest of …

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Conservative billionaires used a secretive funding route to channel nearly $120 million to more than 100 groups casting doubt about the science behind climate change, the Guardian has learned.

The funds, doled out between 2002 and 2010, helped build a vast network of think tanks and activist groups working to a single purpose: to redefine climate change from neutral scientific fact to a highly polarizing “wedge issue” for hardcore conservatives.

The millions were routed through two trusts, …

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Across the globe today women are dancing, striking, and in other ways “rising” to call attention to the plight of violence against women and girls across the many cultures of the planet.

Long celebrated as Valentine’s Day in many cultures and leveraged for the last fifteen years by women’s rights activists in the “V-Day movement,” today’s actions are a culmination of the “One Billion Rising” campaign spearheaded by author, playwright and activist Eve Ensler and champions …

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A new battle has flared inside the Republican Party in recent days as supporters of more-liberal immigration laws wage a behind-the-scenes campaign to discredit the influential advocacy groups that have long powered the GOP’s hard-line stance on the issue.

The campaign, largely waged in closed-door meetings with lawmakers and privately circulated documents, is another sign of how seriously many establishment Republicans are pursuing an immigration overhaul in the wake of last year’s elections, in which the …

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Recently, the New York Times ran an entire, stand-alone, special section entitled “Wealth.” The section focused on how the rich can become richer; through smart investment strategies, retirement savings and avoiding looming tax increases (for the wealthy). That the Times will devote an entire section to the topic of wealth, while significantly under-reporting poverty-related issues, is extremely disappointing, if not surprising.

Clearly, the Times finds it more important, and newsworthy, to run stories on 401K investment …

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Hong Kong (CNN) — The number of Tibetans in China who have set themselves on fire to protest Beijing’s rule has reached 100, according to Tibetan advocacy groups.

Lobsang Namgyal, a 37-year-old former monk, set himself on fire earlier this month in Aba prefecture, known in Tibetan as Ngaba, an ethnically Tibetan area of the Chinese province of Sichuan, according to Free Tibet, a London-based advocacy group.

“This grim milestone should be a source of shame to …

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(Reuters) – Bahraini security forces killed a teenager and injured dozens more protesters on Thursday, an opposition website said, during clashes on the second anniversary of an uprising to demand democratic reforms in the U.S.-allied Gulf Arab state.

Several hundred demonstrators, mostly youths from largely Shi’ite villages, blocked roads around the capital Manama and hurled stones and fire bombs at police, who responded with birdshot and tear gas, witnesses said.

Security forces confirmed they had fired warning …

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You can add Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., to the list of Republicans who oppose an increase in the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9.00 an hour.

In an interview on the Daily Rundown Thursday, Rep. Blackburn told Chuck Todd she was against the President’s proposal to up the minimum wage.

“I think that basically what the President is saying is ‘we want individuals to make more.’ I’m not for raising the minimum wage and …

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At various times I have ranted about the 14th Amendment. The history of the 14th Amendment had to do with whether or not the Union was going to pay its bills and whether they were going to pay the bills of the Confederacy. There was a big debate. But, nonetheless, its part of our Constitution now: “The validity of the public debt of the United …

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Indigenous women in western Canada are the victims of discrimination and abuse by Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers, says Human Rights Watch.

It interviewed 50 women for the report, entitled Those Who Take Us Away, which claims aggressive policing, neglect and allegations of sexual abuse by some RCMP members.

Activists say it has created a climate of fear among First Nation women.

The RCMP said it took the allegations in the report very seriously.

The women interviewed for …

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