LONDON — Formula One drivers were arriving on Thursday for the Bahrain Grand Prix, which is to go ahead on schedule this weekend after the organizers rejected calls from human rights activists to cancel it.

The controversy over whether the small Arabian Gulf kingdom should host the international event is on the way to becoming an annual fixture of the sporting calendar since the 2011 race was scrapped because of a crackdown on street protests.

Since then, …

Read more

We have far more oil, coal and gas than we can safely burn. For all the millions of words written about climate change, the challenge really comes down to this: fuel is enormously useful, massively valuable and hugely important geopolitically, but tackling global warming means leaving most of it in the ground – by choice. Although we often hear more about green technology, consumption levels or population growth, leaving fuel in the ground is the …

Read more

High-ranking federal employees will not be required to disclose financial information online, after President Obama signed an amendment to a bill that was meant to put an end to insider trading among members of Congress and government staffers.

The provisions to the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act were quietly approved by both chambers of Congress at the end of last week before being passed onto the president’s desk. The bill had previously been delayed …

Read more

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) on Friday said he had no problem with creationism being taught in public schools.

During an interview with NBC host Hoda Kotb, Jindal said students should be taught “the best science” in public schools, but implied that teaching creationism would not interfere with that.

“We have what’s called the Science Education Act that says that if a teacher wants to supplement those materials, if the school board is okay with that, if …

Read more

SACRAMENTO — A bill regulating water use by oil producers cleared its first legislative test Monday night.

Authored by Assemblymember Mark Stone, D-Scotts Valley, the bill would require companies to disclose the source and amounts of water used in production, including fracking. It also demands they get approval from state water regulators on how the water would be disposed.

“Fracking potentially exposes Californians’ water supply to toxic chemicals. Currently, there’s little governmental oversight to ensure that our …

Read more

America is not broke, despite what advocates for austerity would have us believe.

This is a very wealthy country.

Unfortunately, transfers of that wealth are not taxed in the same way as the work of American nurses, carpenters, bus drivers and shop clerks. As a result, the federal government struggles to balance budgets, and a yawning gap, between a super-rich 1 percent and the great mass of everybody else, keeps growing.

Congressman Keith Ellison, D-Minnesota, wants to do …

Read more

Gavin Polone, a major Hollywood producer, is calling for an end to state film incentive programs. His reasons for doing so will seem familiar to Film Works supporters, because we’ve made some of the same points on several occasions on our blog (see here, here and here for some examples). And while the argument Polone makes is virtually identical to ours, there is a critical difference because of where the message is coming …

Read more

Dublin, Ireland

Ireland, a famously conservative country with a government dominated by the center-right, has taken a step toward legalizing same-sex marriage, following several other Catholic nations into what some say is belated equality – and others claim is murky legal and moral territory.

Ireland’s Constitutional Convention, a body set up by the government to propose wide-ranging changes to Ireland’s Constitution, voted Sunday, with 79 percent in favor of extending marriage rights to same sex couples.

Ireland’s minister …

Read more

HAVANA, Cuba, April 13 (acn) Seventy one British parliamentarians have written John Kerry, Secretary of State of the United States, urging him to grant entry visas to two Cuban women, Adriana Perez and Olga Salanueva, so they can visit their respective husbands serving sentences in that country.

Gerardo Hernandez, incarcerated in the USP Victorville, and Rene Gonzalez, now under supervised release in Florida after serving his sentence, are two of the five Cubans that were unfairly …

Read more

NAIROBI, Kenya — Tens of thousands of Maasai people in northern Tanzania, under a new government plan, face eviction from their homes and a ban from the land their cattle have grazed for generations.

Tanzania says it will designate as a “wildlife corridor” a 600-square-mile patch of land next to the popular tourist attractions of the Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Conservation Area.

The designation bans pastoralist Maasai herders — known for their red tartan-print blankets and …

Read more