Science educators have recognized that teaching science as a large compendium of facts, without reference to the scientific process and theories that bind them together, simply leads to uninterested and uninformed students. So it’s a bit mind-boggling to discover that an Ohio state legislator is attempting to block educators from teaching anything about the scientific process. And…
Last night someone shouted. Last night someone moved a traffic cone. Last night someone stood in the street. Someone threw a bottle, threw a rock. Last night someone threw their hands in the air. Today, people are waking to closed schools and a state of emergency. They are waking to military troops and military vehicles. Some walk through streets…
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine says that Crawford was shot while carrying a toy gun that fires BB pellets. Crawford had picked the gun up off the sporting goods shelf where Walmart displays it. The gun is manufactured by Crosman and is classified as a “variable pump air rifle.” Police said that Crawford was waving…
Three civil liberties organizations raised First Amendment concerns with Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon’s imposition of a curfew in Ferguson to quell ongoing clashes between law enforcement and civilians over the slaying of an unarmed black teenager on Aug. 9 by a police officer. Amid another night of unrest on Sunday, the American Civil Liberties Union,…
That May, a local aluminum plant brought in black workers to replace striking white ones. Soon, crowds of whites gathered downtown, at first protesting the migration, then beating blacks and destroying property. On July 1, a group of white men drove through a black neighborhood, firing a gun out their car window. (The perpetrators were…
An acid spill from a large copper mine in northern Mexico is keeping 88 schools closed starting Monday due to uncertainty over the safety of drinking water. The 12-day-old spill, which sent 10 million gallons (40,000 cubic meters) of toxic wastewater into portions of the Bacanuchi and Sonora rivers, may keep schools closed for over…
“This is a very serious outbreak,” Pam Barrett, director of the tuberculosis control, told the Associated Press. “We think we’re at the end of it. The Department of Corrections is a hotbed of TB because of the living arrangements.” In June, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Center filed a…
Brown was the fourth black unarmed black man to be killed by police in the last month. Blacks are imprisoned for drug offenses at ten times the rate of whites despite breaking drug laws at similar rates, according to the ACLU. Black motorists are far more likely to be stopped than white motorists even though…
Attorney General Eric Holder will brief President Barack Obama on the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, on Monday afternoon after perhaps the most violent night of demonstrations since the fatal shooting of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown. The president, who arrived at the White House early Monday morning for a scheduled break in his family vacation in…
On Thursday, July 10, I entered the Hebrew word for “Arabs”, ARAVIM, into Twitter and searched for uses of the word over the previous few hours. What I found was young Israelis proclaiming their desire for all Arabs to die and in some cases be tortured to death. by David Sheen @davidsheen CLICK> Terrifying Tweets of…
Retired Israeli Major General Giora Eiland wrote in an op-ed that there is no such thing as an innocent civilian in Gaza. Late Monday, the former head of the National Security Council published an article on Ynet News arguing that the citizens of Gaza were as responsible for the recent violence as Hamas. He…
U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson today ruled an Alabama law requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals is unconstitutional, saying that it poses an undue burden on women’s right to abortion.Abortion providers sued to block the law, passed in 2013, saying it would force three of Alabama’s five abortion clinics to close.The…
Ayman Mohyeldin, the NBC News correspondent who personally witnessed yesterday’s killing by Israel of four Palestinian boys on a Gazan beach and who has received widespread praise for his brave and innovative coverage of the conflict, has been told by NBC executives to leave Gaza immediately. According to an NBC source upset at his treatment,…
It seems quite evident that Texas is the canary in the coal mine for the United States when it comes to right-wing/libertarian regulatory ideals. Lax power plant pollution rules in the east have been disturbing enough. In this report, Rachel Maddow explains that not only does the State of Texas not have ANY fire codes,…
The Swedish furniture giant Ikea is raising the minimum wage in all of its U.S. stores, and it’s doing so in a way that may raise the bar for American retailers. The famous seller of ready-to-assemble home goods will base the wage floor for each of its stores on the MIT Living Wage Calculator, which…
The U.N. Refugee Agency reported Friday that the number of refugees, asylum-seekers, and internally displaced people worldwide has exceeded 50 million for the first time since World War II. “We are seeing here the immense costs of not ending wars, of failing to resolve or prevent conflict,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres….
The United States Patent and Trademark Office has canceled the Washington Redskins trademark registration, calling the football team’s name “disparaging to Native Americans. ”The landmark case, which appeared before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, was filed on behalf of five Native Americans. It was the second time such a case was filed. “This victory…
Chris Hayes highlights the mental disconnect on the right driven by ignorance, mental illness, egoism, and Obama Derangement Syndrome. We’ve seen this behavior for years(say one thing and do another), but the release of Bowe Bergdahl has created a new frenzy of schizophrenia.
How is it that a serviceman we know nothing about (Bergdahl) is being denigrated and questioned while someone we know a bit about and wish we didn’t (Roger) has his videos and words celebrated throughout all channels of the media. If it bleeds it leads? There’s something wrong when a society comes to a…
The thing about the confederate flag is that it is a secessionist battle flag. Without a doubt, the flag represents warfare, and at worst adherence to principles of racial supremacy. There are an infinite number of ways to celebrate history and heritage without the free and public flying of this flag. -SJ…