May
28
2013
HOUSTON — As a partner and chief diversity officer at Thompson & Knight, Pauline Higgins was not afraid to press the issue of hiring minorities at the 126-year-old Texas law firm. But when she left in 2008, she was replaced by an associate with less influence.
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T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times
Pauline Higgins was a partner who served as the chief diversity officer at a 126-year-old law firm in Texas. When she …
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May
28
2013
A New York Times Op-Ed from Eyal Press Monday highlighted a little-known but important government memo, which threatens the rights of whistleblowers. In line with this administration’s unprecedented crackdown on government employees who blow the whistle, Eyal notes that the document, issued by the Obama administration in January, “instructs the director of national intelligence and the Office of Personnel Management to establish standards that would give federal agencies the power to fire employees, without appeal, …
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May
28
2013
While the activities of the Agriculture Department don’t always garner a lot of attention, a highly questionable decision it recently made to help wealthy speculators could, over time, cost anyone who buys food. But while the decision — a big win for high-frequency traders at the expense of farmers, food companies, and the public — is consequential, its effects have hardly been reported.
First, some history is in order. In 1905, a government statistician was caught …
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May
28
2013
WE like the idea that food can be the answer to our ills, that if we eat nutritious foods we won’t need medicine or supplements. We have valued this notion for a long, long time. The Greek physician Hippocrates proclaimed nearly 2,500 years ago: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” Today, medical experts concur. If we heap our plates with fresh fruits and vegetables, they tell us, we will come …
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May
25
2013
Chicago-based commodities trader Prime International Trading named the companies in a suit on Wednesday, accusing them of misreporting trades for the Brent oil benchmark.
It is seeking civil damages, arguing that it would have its conducted trades based on the inaccurate prices.
The EC is investigating whether the companies colluded to distort the benchmark of oil and other products by reporting distorted prices to agency Platts for more than a decade.
The Brent benchmark is used as …
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May
25
2013
The March Against Monsanto will see hundreds of thousands in 40 countries unite to challenge biotechnology corporations and protest against genetically modified foods, which despite bans in some countries due to health hazards remain legal in many others.
Click here for the full story. …
May
24
2013
The American Federation of Musicians are not letting up on Marvel and Disney for scoring their films overseas while getting tax breaks at home. This time the union was in Cleveland close to where filming for Captain America: The Winter Soldier was occurring. About 35 AFM members took to the city’s downtown streets on Thursday to protest the score for the star spangled sequel being outsourced to the UK while Marvel/Disney receive a nearly $10 …
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May
24
2013
Julian Assange already hates this movie. That six-word review may be all that his die-hard supporters need to know about We Steal Secrets, Alex Gibney’s exhaustive and exhausting new documentary on the rise and fall of WikiLeaks. Apparently without having seeing the film, which hits theaters tomorrow and will be available on demand on June 7, Assange has condemned it as a hatchet job, starting with its name. “An unethical and biased title in the …
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May
24
2013
BERLIN — Rows of gaptoothed human skulls and formaldehyde-soaked brains stock the Museum of Medical History here, where the popular exhibition “Beneath the Skin” can be so grim that visitors will occasionally swoon to the cold stone floor.
For more than a century, the museum has exhibited assorted limbs, bones, tubercular lungs and fetuses, all in the name of science and enlightenment. Yet lately the curators are re-evaluating the principles that govern their displays as …
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May
24
2013
Tens of thousands of people worldwide were pushed out of slum dwellings last year to make way for shopping malls and office blocks, according to Amnesty International. Nigeria witnessed especially brutal clearances.
The bulldozers came to the settlement just before midday, when most people were busy at work. Resident Jim Tom George was there to see over 20,000 people forcibly evicted from their homes in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
“They blocked the entry points to our settlement …
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