Jun
24
2013
It’s a cold snowy afternoon in mid-March and I really need to leave the warmth of my office at Vassar College. There’s a stack of student papers at home and research on Zora Neale Hurston waiting for me in the Special Collections and Rare Books section of the library. Like a lot of young people, I’m easily distracted by Facebook, and freezing March days make that distraction more palpable. Today, a ProPublica piece has gone …
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Jun
24
2013
The 2003 U.S.-led war on Iraq left countless devastating legacies, most of which are well known and relatively well recorded. The infinite death and destruction and rise in sectarianism and insecurity are all issues discussed regularly in the press. The impact of the war on the health of Iraqis, however, is something that could not be measured with such immediacy and, as such, has been almost entirely neglected by the mainstream media.
Despite the lack of …
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Jun
24
2013
Given the chance to shoot down affirmative action, the Supreme Court, in a 7 to 1 decision, chose not to (PDF). But it did say that a lower court decision that had approved the University of Texas’ affirmative action program needed to be revisited, with the justices in the majority noting that this appeals court had not applied a stringent enough rule when reviewing the UT program. In short, the court said: affirmative action is …
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Jun
24
2013
Sepp Blatter, the all-powerful don of FIFA; Dilma Rousseff, the president of Brazil; and Pelé, the legendary soccer star; are three extremely different people. But they all share the same perspective about the demonstrations rocking every major city in Brazil: Don’t even think about blaming the World Cup.
As Dilma said in her nationally televised address, “Brazil, the only country to have participated in every World Cup and a five-time world champion, has always been very …
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Jun
24
2013
Protest organisers rely on social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter to get supporters out onto the streets, but some suspect they are being sabotaged.
Al Jazeera’s Andy Gallacher reports from Salvador.
Click here for the full story. …
Jun
24
2013
Egypt’s army has cautioned that it will intervene next weekend if mass rallies against the president descend into violence, in one of its strongest warnings since it handed over to civilian government a year ago. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the defence minister, said he would not allow “attack on the will of the people” and called for political reconciliation in the week before mass rallies against President Mohamed Morsi next Sunday.
“There is a state of division …
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Jun
24
2013
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has sent a Texas case on race-based college admissions back to a lower court for another look.
The court’s 7-1 decision Monday leaves unsettled many of the basic questions about the continued use of race as a factor in college admissions.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said a federal appeals court needs to subject the University of Texas admission plan to the highest level of judicial scrutiny.
The compromise ruling …
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Jun
24
2013
BANGKOK, Thailand — Their condition recalls dark tales from the 18th century: underfed men lorded over by seafaring captains who pay them nothing and maim the disobedient.
Yet these forced labor abuses play out on Thai-owned fishing trawlers each day. And the victims — typically destitute men from Myanmar or Cambodia lured by coyotes full of false promises — continue to wash ashore with accounts of torture and casual homicide.
For years, US officials have urged Thailand, …
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Jun
21
2013
GMOs are kind of a sticky wicket. In a super-oversimplified nutshell, some people say they’re bad (unless you’re a huge corporation getting rich off them). Others are quick to counter, “OMG how else are we going to feed the world?! Shut the eff up already and grow the robot-food!” I’ll make no pretense of neutrality. Robot food for everyone! (KIDDING. Shudder.)
So those of us in the skeptical-of-GMOs camp may be happy to hear Chipotle is …
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Jun
21
2013
Calls for the doctors who force-feed hunger-striking prisoners at Guantánamo Bay to refuse to perform the practice on ethical grounds have got nowhere, a spokesman for the prison said on Thursday.
No doctors, nurses or corpsman had balked at feeding the prisoners or even voiced a concern about the military’s policy of using what’s known as enteral feeding to prevent any of the hunger strikers starving to death, said Navy Captain Robert Durand.
“They signed up to …
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