A Period Is Questioned in the Declaration of Independence

NEW YORK TIMES: …The error, according to Danielle Allen, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., concerns a period that appears right after the phrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the transcript, but almost certainly not, she maintains, on the badly faded parchment original… The period creates the […]

LETTER: “RACE: Are we so different?”

There’s a fascinating special exhibition at the North Museum on College Avenue in Lancaster entitled “RACE: Are we so different?”. It explores the science, history and everyday experiences of race and racism in the US and will be on through the last weekend in September.

To Hold Senate, Democrats Rely on Single Women

NEW YORK TIMES: The decline of marriage over the last generation has helped create an emerging voting bloc of unmarried women that is profoundly reshaping the American electorate to the advantage, recent elections suggest, of the Democratic Party. What is far from clear is whether Democrats will benefit in the midterm contests this fall. With […]

Christie vetoes gun magazine reduction bill

USA TODAY: …Christie was being pressured by both sides. The bill was closely watched by Second Amendment advocates suspicious of Christie as a presidential contender as a blue-state Republican. Parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Connecticut visited his office Wednesday to deliver online petitions with more than 55,000 signatures […]

Japan Announces a Military Shift to Thwart China

NEW YORK TIMES: Japan’s prime minister announced a reinterpretation of the country’s pacifist Constitution on Tuesday, freeing its military for the first time in over 60 years to play a more assertive role in the increasingly tense region. The decision by the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will permit Japan to use its large […]

Corbett still trails Wolf big, poll finds

PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE: …Nearly half of Republicans — 49 percent — say [Gov. Tom] Corbett is doing an “excellent” or “good” job, up from 38 percent in January, according to the Franklin & Marshall College poll. Fifty-three percent say he deserves to be re-elected. But [Tom] Wolf, a York businessman and former state revenue secretary, holds […]

FTC: T-Mobile knowingly added bogus charges to bills

USA TODAY: The Federal Trade Commission accused wireless carrier T-Mobile of adding bogus charges totaling “hundreds of millions of dollars” on customers’ accounts without their consent. At least as far back as 2009 until at least December 2013, the carrier placed unauthorized charges for third-party services on customers’ mobile phone bills, a practice called “cramming,” […]

Moody’s cuts Puerto Rico deeper into junk

FINANCIAL TIMES: A move by Puerto Rico to allow some public companies to restructure their debts has rattled the $4tn US municipal debt market, sparking a credit downgrade by a leading rating agency. Alejandro Garcia Padilla, the island’s governor, signed a bill at the weekend that allows some of its largest utilities, such as the […]

European court upholds French ban on face veils

ALJAZEERA: The plaintiff said she does not hide her face at all times but occasionally does in order to feel at peace with her faith, her culture and convictions. She stressed in her complaint that no one, including her husband, forced her to conceal her face, essentially rebutting one of the chief arguments lodged by […]