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HARTMANN: What is the great divergence?

NOAH: The great divergence is an increase in income inequality that began in 1979 and continues to this day. Some people think that growing income inequality is the way of capitalism, but in fact, from the early 1930s through the late 1970s, incomes in the United States either grew more equal or remained stable in relation to one another. I’m …

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WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to hear testimony Monday afternoon arguing that the H-1B visa program, which covers highly skilled temporary foreign workers, often in high-tech fields, discriminates against women.

Karen Panetta, the vice president for communications and public awareness for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in the United States of America, will testify that “the vast majority of H-1B workers are men,” according to her prepared remarks.

Ms. Panetta’s testimony …

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‘It seems to be that every big trading disaster happens in London,” U.S. congresswoman Carolyn Maloney observed last June. “And I would like to know why.” The disasters she was referring to were the ones that bankrupted Lehman Brothers and nearly bankrupted some other American firms, such as A.I.G. and MF Global, as well as causing JPMorgan Chase’s $6 billion loss at the hands of the trader popularly known as “the London Whale”—all of these …

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The United Nations is hosting talks in New York today as more than 150 countries discuss a global arms treaty designed to lessen the illicit gun trade, especially as it intersects with international conflict zones.

The NRA’s Wayne LaPierre lashes out at gun control efforts during his CPAC speech last week. (Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP) The National Rifle Association, however, is using the opportunity to once again prove that their primary mission is not the altruistic …

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Ten years ago this week, the U.S. invaded Iraq, citing intelligence that turned out to be bogus. I had to work on some of it — and I also had to work on keeping the really, really terrible versions of it out of our analysis.

Specifically, I was a CIA analyst working in the Counterterrorism Center in the overburdened days after 9/11. As analysts, we spend most of our time identifying burgeoning issues based on communications …

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Al Jazeera’s English and Arabic websites are reported to have been blocked in Ethiopia, raising fresh fears that the government is continuing its efforts to silence the media.

Though the authorities in Addis Ababa have refused to comment on the reported censorship, Google Analytics data accessed by Al Jazeera shows that traffic from Ethiopia to the English website had plummeted from 50,000 hits in July 2012 to just 114 in September.

Traffic data revealed a similar drop …

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Despite a long history of reported human rights abuses at Guantanamo prison, which both the UN and US President Barack Obama denounced as torture, the prison’s Director of Public Affairs Captain Robert Durand has denied any wrongdoing.

“We will continue to carry out our mission to provide a safe and humane environment,” he said.

Earlier this month, Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) denied the existence of an ongoing hunger strike at the facility. Durand called …

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Contamination from Depleted Uranium (DU) munitions and other military-related pollution is suspected of causing a sharp rises in congenital birth defects, cancer cases, and other illnesses throughout much of Iraq.

Many prominent doctors and scientists contend that DU contamination is also connected to the recent emergence of diseases that were not previously seen in Iraq, such as new illnesses in the kidney, lungs, and liver, as well as total immune system collapse. DU contamination may also …

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CNN broke the news on Sunday of a guilty verdict in a rape case in Steubenville, Ohio by lamenting that the “promising” lives of the rapists had been ruined, but spent very little time focusing on how the 16-year-old victim would have to live with what was done to her.

Judge Thomas Lipps announced on Sunday that Trent Mays, 17, and Ma’lik Richmond, 16, would be given a maximum sentence after being found guilty of …

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WASHINGTON — It is not the happiest of birthdays for the landmark Supreme Court decision that, a half-century ago, guaranteed a lawyer for criminal defendants who are too poor to afford one.

A unanimous high court issued its decision in Gideon v. Wainwright on March 18, 1963, declaring that states have an obligation to provide defendants with “the guiding hand of counsel” to ensure a fair trial for the accused.

But in many states today, taxpayer-funded public …

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