Jun
19
2013
We’re still waiting for the FBI to finish its internal investigation into exactly what happened in an Orlando apartment last month, when an FBI agent shot and killed Ibragim Todashev, a Chechan man who knew Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Since the shooting, unnamed officials have painted a number of different pictures of the scene in the room in the moments before the agent opened fire. Among them, that Todashev was unarmed, that he was …
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Jun
19
2013
The European Commission has fined a group of drug manufacturers, including Denmark’s Lundbeck, Germany’s Merck, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Arrow Group and Zoetis Products, for colluding to keep a generic drug off the market.
Officials for the commission, the European Union’s anti-trust regulator, claim that the companies agreed not to introduce generic versions of Lundbeck’s antidepressant citalopram when its basic patent expired in return for tens of millions of euros of “substantial payments and other inducements from Lundbeck.”
“It …
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Jun
19
2013
Brazil is hosting the World Cup next year, as well as the Olympics in 2016—which means that the state is invested in evicting residents to make room for tourists, and divesting from education, transportation, and healthcare. And that means social activists, and students especially, are taking to the streets to demonstrate in the biggest protests the nation has seen in two decades.
The protests originally coincided with anticipated bus fare hikes. But although nearly a dozen …
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Jun
19
2013
Pollutants in the air are known to affect brain development, but the first national study of in utero exposure and autism rates raises new concerns.
Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) say that early-life exposure to pollution, including diesel particulates, mercury and lead, could contribute to a higher risk of autism disorders.
They came to that conclusion after analyzing data from a nationwide sample of 116,430 nurses participating in the Nurses’ Health Study II, …
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Jun
19
2013
Well, at least Paula Deen is an honest racist. The cooking show host is currently embroiled in a million dollar lawsuit over racist behavior at her Savannah restaurant. Deen and her brother Bubba allegedly threw around the N-word and told racist and sexist jokes which, so far, she doesn’t deny. But then she said something about wanting to hire black cater waiters to act as slaves at a Southern wedding.
Click here for the …
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Jun
18
2013
Summer brings an annual invasion, in nearly every line of work, of shiny new interns. They’re eager to fill out résumés and make contacts. That’s what they get instead of money—and so they save their employers about $600 million every year, according to Ross Perlin in his book Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy. That’s why the free intern bonanza continues despite plenty of complaints that it …
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Jun
18
2013
The ACLU, together with the NYCLU and CUNY’s CLEAR Project, filed a lawsuit today challenging the New York Police Department’s unconstitutional policy and practice of targeting entire Muslim communities for discriminatory and suspicionless surveillance. The NYPD’s vast religious profiling program has cast an unjustified badge of suspicion and stigma on hundreds of thousands of innocent New Yorkers, based on nothing more than their religious faith and practice. We represent civic and religious leaders, two mosques, …
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Jun
18
2013
WASHINGTON, DC, June 17, 2013 – The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the prisoners at the East Mississippi Correctional Facility (EMCF), alleging shocking human rights violations against mentally ill and special needs prisoners by the private, for-profit facility.
Intended to provide safe and humane treatment for the state’s seriously mentally ill prisoners, EMCF is described as dangerous, filthy, and “operating in …
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Jun
18
2013
On Tuesday, the House of Representatives will vote on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, a measure spearheaded by Reps. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) that would cut off legal access to abortion services at 20 weeks after fertilization. It represents the most restrictive abortion bill to come to a vote in either chamber over the past decade. Here’s what you need to know about this attack on women’s reproductive rights — and …
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Jun
18
2013
WASHINGTON — The Senate intelligence committee chairman on Thursday vowed an effort to limit the access of government contract workers, such as Edward Snowden, to highly classified information.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., made the promise after senators received a closed-door briefing about the National Security Agency’s massive domestic telephone surveillance programs, which Snowden divulged to the media.
Based on information supplied by Snowden, a British newspaper reported that one program involves cellphone records. The Guardian newspaper, …
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