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Ahead of an expected vote, Federal Reserve officials are lobbying lawmakers against an amendment proposed by Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders calling for an audit of the central bank. The Huffington Post news website recently obtained the documents that were distributed to Senators from an anonymous source within the Fed. The disclosure reveals a central bank strategy of …

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The British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is now flowing at five times the previous estimate with a rate of at least 25,000 barrels per day. The environmental catastrophe is currently on pace to eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in just a few weeks. Residents of Gulf coastal communities are already …

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The Death of Bobby Sands

Back in the day on May 5th, 1981, Provisional Irish Republican Army militant Bobby Sands died in prison. Serving time for being arrested on a gun possession charge, the hunger striker had refused food for sixty-six days in protest of British authorities before dying. Sands, in solidarity with other prisoners, was opposed to …

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The Cabinet of German Chancellor Angela Merkel approved legislation yesterday that would give Greece eleven billion dollars as part of a larger European Union bailout. The aid, which still requires passage in parliament, was mandated after the International Monetary Fund and EU member governments agreed on Sunday to make $145 billion dollars in loans to the country over the course …

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Yesterday we heard part 1 of my interview with science writer Rebecca Skloot about her best selling book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Today, we’ll hear part 2. Henrietta Lacks was a poor African American woman living in Maryland, who died of aggressive cervical cancer on October 4th 1951. She was only 31 years old and left …

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While the Black Panther Party is most often associated with the likes of Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, one name – Richard Aoki, is known to few people outside Oakland, California. Richard Aoki, a founding member of the Black Panther Party was an American of Japanese descent and a personal friend of Huey Newton. After having spent the early …

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40th Anniversary of Kent State Shootings

Back in the day on May 4th, 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on Vietnam War protesters on the campus of Kent State University. The volley of sixty-seven bullets in thirteen seconds forty years ago claimed the lives of four students that day and injured nine others. The National Guard had been called …

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Spurred by the passage of the anti-immigrant law, SB1070 in Arizona, and by the lack of federal comprehensive immigration reform, hundreds of thousands of people turned out for May Day marches all over the nation this weekend. Rallies took place in major cities from New York to San Francisco. Los Angeles played host to the largest assembly of …

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On October 4th 1951, a 31 year old poor Black woman named Henrietta Lacks died of aggressive cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore Maryland. What neither she nor her family knew was that before her death, a sample of her cancer cells were taken and studied by scientists who discovered that unlike other cell samples, …

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U.S., NATO, and Afghan forces are gathering on the outskirts of Kandahar in Southern Afghanistan to prepare for the latest offensive in President Obama’s “surge” strategy. The troops plan to secure areas around Kandahar, which has recently witnessed a sudden increase in insurgent attacks. General David Petraeus has argued that if NATO’s counterinsurgency strikes work, they will …

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