BBC: Police in Bangladesh have charged the owner of the Rana Plaza complex with murder over the building’s collapse in 2013, killing more than 1,100 people. Sohel Rana and more than a dozen government officials are among 42 people charged with murder. They are accused of ignoring warnings not to allow workers into the building […]
The Patriot Act Just Made Rand Paul GOP Enemy No. 1
DAILY BEAST COLUMN: …For a major Republican presidential candidate, Paul has certainly alienated a lot of Republicans—especially hawks who believe in strong surveillance authorities for the intelligence community. Or, you might think, Paul has carved out a unique segment in the GOP field. At midnight on Monday, three major surveillance provisions contained within the Patriot […]
Republican split threatens extension of Export-Import Bank
President Franklin Roosevelt formed the bank 80 years ago. Recently the threat of extinction is deemed more possible because it requires Congress to do what it has become best at – taking no action.
A Choice for Recovering Addicts: Relapse or Homelessness
NEW YORK TIMES: … The homes, often decrepit and infested with vermin, overflow with bunk beds and people. Exits are blocked and fire escapes nonexistent. The homes are considered illegal because they violate building codes on overcrowding. Many have become drug dens, where people seem almost as likely to die of overdoses as they are […]
Extraction tax still likely despite posturing, noise
Wolf went from political unknown to Democratic frontrunner to governor-elect by campaigning on a pledge to tax drillers and spend the money on schools…
O’Malley’s long-shot bid gets complicated start
POLITICO: Martin O’Malley’s presidential bid has always been a long-shot, but the odds looked even longer Saturday as he officially kicked off his campaign from Federal Hill Park. The run-up to his launch here could hardly have been worse, complicated in recent weeks by unrest in the city where he served as mayor and the […]
Aided by the Sea, Israel Overcomes an Old Foe: Drought
A major national effort to desalinate Mediterranean seawater and to recycle wastewater has provided the country with enough water for all its needs, even during severe droughts. More than 50 percent of the water for Israeli households, agriculture and industry is now artificially produced…
Senate Commitee Clears Way for Medical Marijuana for Veterans
“While we won five votes in a row on the House floor last year, this is the first time we’ve ever won a vote on a positive marijuana reform measure in the Senate,” said Tom Angell, director of Marijuana Majority. “And with polls showing that a growing majority of voters supports ending prohibition, it’s safe to say it won’t be the last”
Pentagon Chief Blasts Beijing’s South China Sea Moves
NEWSMAX: China’s land reclamation in the South China Sea is out of step with international rules, and turning underwater land into airfields won’t expand its sovereignty, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told an international security conference Saturday, stepping up America’s condemnation of the communist giant as Beijing officials sat in the audience. Carter told the room […]
California’s Snowpack Is Now Zero Percent of Normal
SLATE: At least some measurable snowpack in the Sierra mountains usually lasts all summer. But this year, its early demise means that runoff from the mountains—which usually makes up the bulk of surface water for farms and cities during the long summer dry season—will be essentially non-existent. To be clear: there’s still a bit of […]
US economy contracts in first quarter
FINANCIAL TIMES: The US economy contracted in the first three months of this year, according to a second official estimate released on Friday. The commerce department said the economy shrank 0.7 per cent on an annualised basis in the first quarter. That is much weaker than the 0.2 per cent growth the first estimate showed. […]
Bernie Sanders’s Message Resonates With a Certain Age Group: His Own
NEW YORK TIMES: …At a campaign rally in Vermont on Tuesday and at three events in New Hampshire, including a town hall-style gathering in Portsmouth that drew roughly 600 people, older voters made up a sizable minority of the crowds. Their visibility has been striking because Mr. Sanders’s unabashedly progressive message, calling for a “political […]
Judge issues an order disqualifying the entire Orange County District Attorney’s Office
SLATE: Prosecutorial and police misconduct are often dismissed as just a few bad apples doing a few bad apple-ish things. But what happens when it’s entrenched and systemic and goes unchecked for years? That looks to be the case in Orange County, California, where the situation got so completely out of hand this spring that […]
How to break free from monogamy without destroying marriage
WASHINGTON POST COLUMN: That’s not wrong, says Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist and one of the world’s leading relationship researchers. In the caveman days, humans teamed up in non-exclusive pairs to protect their children. Later, as people learned to plant crops and settle in one place, marriage became a way for men to guarantee kids, […]