When the Exxon Mobil Pegasus pipeline ruptured under the small town of Mayflower, Arkansas, it spilled hundreds of thousands of gallons of diluted bitumen — crude, tar sands oil that had been diluted with a chemical cocktail to make it flow through the pipe more easily — and exposed nearby residents to toxic chemicals in the air.

Sam Eifling at The Arkansas Times has an excellent report on health problems members of that community are now …

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The results of Bolivia’s most recent census are raising questions due to a dramatic fall in the percentage of Bolivians who self-identify as part of an indigenous group. The growing Andean nation’s 2001 census showed that 62 percent, or 3.14 million, of the population over 15 years old identified as part of an indigenous group, while according to new data that figure has fallen to roughly 40 percent, or 2.8 million.

President Evo Morales said the …

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The White House announced that 2,000 Syrian refugees will be permitted to permanently resettle in America as conditions continue to worsen in the war-torn country.

According to the UN’s latest statistics, the two and a half year conflict has killed over 100,000 and will have displaced about 3.5 million by the end of 2013.

While the new program will only take a very small portion of Syrian refugees, it marks an important shift in policy.

Typically, the United …

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With fracking operations to extract fossil fuels off the California coast stepping up, lawmakers in that state are demanding to know why the federal government is approving such operations without following legally required environmental reviews.

Last week, a group of California lawmakers demanded a federal investigation into the use of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” technology, off the coast of California.

In 2012, Truthout reported that a company called Venoco had quietly used fracking techniques in early 2010 …

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One day early in the summer of 2012, two men in crisp business attire were talking about plastic debit cards at the Manhattan office of a financial services company. The men were interested in negotiating a deal to launch a debit card line. They assured the company that they would have a cooperative bank to go along with the cards eventually.

The two men were not, however, financial industry insiders trying to make a buck. Despite …

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Some may be heralding the National Institutes of Health’s agreement with Henrietta Lacks’ family as a historic breakthrough for patient consent regarding scientific research, but troubling questions linger.

Ever since Rebecca Skloot published her critically-acclaimed bestseller The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks in 2010, Lacks’ story has been at the forefront of the medical community, especially as it relates to ethical questions. Oprah Winfrey is even set to make a HBO film out of it.

Lacks, a …

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – A former New York lawyer convicted of helping a jailed Egyptian militant cleric smuggle messages out of prison lost her bid on Friday to be released from prison because she is suffering from terminal cancer.

Lynne Stewart, 73, is three years into a 10-year prison sentence after being convicted of aiding her client, blind cleric Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was convicted in 1995 of conspiring to attack the United Nations and other …

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WASHINGTON (AP) – Attorney General Eric Holder is calling for major changes to the nation’s criminal justice system that would scale back the use of harsh prison sentences for certain drug-related crimes, divert people convicted of low-level offenses to drug treatment and community service programs and expand a prison program to allow for release of some elderly, non-violent offenders. In remarks prepared for delivery Monday to the American Bar Association in San Francisco, Holder said …

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Saudi Arabia, a major supporter of opposition forces in Syria, has increased crackdown on its own dissenters, with 30,000 activists reportedly in jail. In an exclusive interview to RT a Saudi prince defector explained what the monarchy fears most.

“Saudi Arabia has stepped up arrests and trials of peaceful dissidents, and responded with force to demonstrations by citizens,” Human Rights Watch begins the country’s profile on its website.

Political parties are banned in Saudi Arabia and …

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A federal judge ruled that the New York City Police Department’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy, which has been criticized as racial profiling, violates individuals’ constitutional rights – a significant judicial rebuke for what the mayor and police commissioner have defended as a life-saving, crime-fighting tool.

Instead of ordering an end to the practice, however, U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin appointed an independent monitor to oversee changes to the policy.

Peter L. Zimroth, a onetime city lawyer and …

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