May
06
2013
SAVAR, Bangladesh — The rescuers discovered her by a faint, distant sound. They had spent four days crawling through the wreckage of Rana Plaza, tons of concrete and steel pressing down, saving hundreds of people. Now only the dead remained. Except for a lone woman, a garment worker.
She was trapped behind a fallen pillar, in a suffocating crevice maybe two feet high. First, the rescuers could see only her fingertips pressing through a tiny …
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May
02
2013
Stephanie Stewart, an honors student at the Borough of Manhattan Community College on an academic scholarship, was due to deliver her son before the end of the spring semester in 2012. She needed some accommodations because she would not be able to attend every session of her women’s studies class. Stewart figured her professor would be understanding—it was a women’s studies class. But she wasn’t. The professor told Stewart that she wouldn’t be able to …
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May
02
2013
President Obama is considering Chicago mogul and longtime friend Penny Pritzker as his nominee for Commerce secretary. Here’s what you need to know about her:
1) She’s a longtime supporter of the president. Pritzker, 53, first met President Obama and his wife, Michelle, at a Chicago YMCA in the early 1990s while her children were playing basketball and Michelle Obama’s brother, Craig Robinson, was coaching. Since then, she has been an important supporter and has helped …
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May
02
2013
Being a journalist under the autocratic rule of Libyan dictator Moammar Qadhafi was an exercise in choice: between promoting state propaganda and spending time in jail. Now that NATO has toppled the regime, Libya is a little better at letting reporters practice their trade. But the press in Libya is by no means free.
That’s according to human rights watchdog Freedom House, which has just released its latest annual survey of press freedom around the world. …
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May
02
2013
April was a cruel month for black people in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. So was May, and the months that followed, culminating in the explosion of a bomb in an church that September that killed four girls. Fifty years ago today, on May 2, 1963, teen-agers and children, some as young as six, marched in Birmingham to protest segregation. Many were arrested for parading without a permit, but the marchers came back the next …
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May
02
2013
May 2, 2013 |
A Massachusetts high school student faces felony charges for allegedly posting on social media rap lyrics that police say amount to terrorist threats, the Valley Patriot reports.
“He posted a threat in the form of rap where he mentioned the White House, the Boston Marathon bombing, and said ‘everybody you will see what I am going to do, kill people,” said Joe Solomon, who is police chief of Methuen, a …
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May
02
2013
Just over a week ago, my Twitter feed started getting bombarded with links to the latest — and quite possibly the scummiest — Planet Money/This American Life propaganda piece on NPR for the financial industry, disguised as highbrow progressive journalism.
The piece was called “Unfit For Work: The Startling Rise of Disability in America” and it essentially argued — using wildly flawed research and straight-up lies — that our Social Security program is burdened …
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May
02
2013
May 2, 2013 | High school officials suspended 33 students for participating in a “ twerking” video, inciting backlash from students and parents who say the school overreacted. Seniors in question may also be barred from attending prom or walking at graduation.
Students from a media class at Scripps Ranch High School shot and starred in the video, just under a minute long, and posted it to YouTube. The short film shows groups of …
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May
02
2013
Last December, Care Net—the nation’s largest network of evangelical Christian crisis pregnancy centers—featured a birth announcement of sorts on the website of its 10-year-old Urban Initiative. Under the headline, “Plans Underway for Care Net’s Newest Center in Kansas City, Mo.!” a block of upbeat text described how a predominantly white, suburban nonprofit called Rachel House had “made contact” with “various African American pastors and community leaders,” who helped them “plant” a “pregnancy resource center” in …
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May
02
2013
(Reuters) – Tens of thousands of National Rifle Association members gather in Houston this weekend for the first time since the Senate rejected a plan last month to expand background checks for gun buyers, but officials say attendees will not sit back to celebrate victory.
“We view it as an opening battle in what will be a multi-year war,” said Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the NRA, which lobbied against the proposal. “We’re definitely not resting …
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