Author: From the Wire
Iowa caucuses did one thing right: Require paper ballots
“…Amid everything they did wrong, the Iowa Democratic Party did one thing right: It required that votes be counted on paper, and then tallied electronically. To those of us who study cybersecurity carefully, that’s crucial.” …
America’s rich refugee crisis
By Jim Hightower The prospect of a 2 percent tax on wealth over $50 million has rich Americans considering expatriating. This is a make or break year for many migrants seeking to improve their families’ financial…
Learning from King’s last campaign
Before he died, Martin Luther King, Jr. joined a campaign to unify working people of all races. Today, nothing could be more powerful. Before he died, Martin Luther King, Jr. joined a campaign to unify working…
3 ways HUD is using regulatory attacks to dismantle fair housing protections
More than 50 years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act (FHA), the ultimate goal of the law—to eliminate all forms of housing discrimination and end residential segregation—is still far from reach. By Areeba Haider…
Modern tomatoes are very different from their wild ancestors – and these researchers found missing links in their evolution
The tomato’s path from wild plant to household staple is much more complex than researchers have long thought. For many years, scientists believed that humans domesticated the tomato in two major phases. Tomatoes’ ancestors looked very…
5 things you should know about the earth’s warming ocean
Climate change has caused record-breaking ocean temperatures, and that means more dangerous storms, trouble for coral reefs and big changes for our marine ecosystems. Oceans & Clean Water January 29, 2020 – by Tara Lohan The Revelator…
Unmasking the secret landlords buying up America
By Aaron Glantz / December 17, 2019 America’s cities are being bought up, bit by bit, by anonymous shell companies using piles of cash. Modest single-family homes, owned for generations by families, now are held by…
Greta Thunberg needs no defense: why we must keep Climate Striking
by Massimo Paciotto Biggers , Jeff Biggers Common Dreams While President Trump dismissed Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and scientists as “perennial prophets of doom” at the World World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, climate strikers in drought-stricken…
Rich and clueless? Buy a $500,000 armored car
By Jim Hightower If you’ve got more money than you can spend, you can spend your extra wealth on… guarding your extra wealth. “Imagine being Mark Zuckerberg, whose social media monopoly, Facebook, put another $27.3 billion…
Why California is banning chlorpyrifos, a widely-used pesticide: 5 questions answered
Gina Solomon, University of California, San Francisco Editor’s note: California, the top U.S. food-producing state, is ending use of chlorpyrifos, a pesticide associated with neurodevelopmental problems and impaired brain function in children. Gina Solomon, a principal…
In Historic Shift, Second Largest physicians group in US has new prescription: It’s Medicare for All
“Major changes are needed,” declares the 159,000-member American College of Physicians, “to a system that costs too much, leaves too many behind, and delivers too little.” by Jon Queally, staff writer, The fight for Medicare for…
Getting poorer while working harder: The ‘cliff effect’
Susan R. Crandall, University of Massachusetts Boston Forty percent of all working-age Americans sometimes struggle to pay their monthly bills. There is no place in the country where a family supported by one minimum-wage worker with…
‘He gave away the game’: doctors condemn Trump threat to slash Medicare funding
“We’ve long suspected he would try to gut Medicare in a second term.” by Jake Johnson, staff writer An advocacy group composed of doctors and medical professionals on Wednesday joined the chorus denouncing President Donald Trump…
‘Biggest Loss of Clean Water Protection the country has ever seen’: Trump guts safeguards for US streams and wetlands
“This all-out assault on basic safeguards will send our country back to the days when corporate polluters could dump whatever sludge or slime they wished into the streams and wetlands that often connect to the water…
‘Act as if you loved your children above all else’: Greta Thunberg demands Davos elite immediately halt all fossil fuel investments
“I’ve been warned that telling people to panic about the climate crisis is a very dangerous thing to do, but don’t worry—it’s fine—I’ve done this before and I can assure you: it doesn’t lead to anything.”…
Supreme Court DACA decision isn’t just about Dreamers — it’s about whether the White House has to tell the truth
Morgan Marietta, University of Massachusetts Lowell The fate of 700,000 people facing deportation may hang on a new question facing the U.S. Supreme Court: Is the White House legally obligated to tell the whole truth when…
The refinery disaster
Toxic refinery leaks imperiled Philadelphia residents. By Corbin Hiar / E&E News and Lisa Riordan Seville / NBC News This story is part of Toxic Zones, a series about communities near refineries co-produced with E&E News…
Turning gray and into the red: The true cost of growing old in America
Are you economically ready for old age? Shutterstock Jan Mutchler, University of Massachusetts Boston The U.S. population is aging at such a rate that within a few years, older Americans will outnumber the country’s children for…
‘We were right’
They experienced the war in Afghanistan on the ground. Here’s what they had to say. Jay O’Brien, 41, Army infantryman, Kandahar province, 2013. By Kanyakrit Vongkiatkajorn, Alex Horton, Meryl Kornfield, Jenn Abelson and Ted Muldoon Published…
How one Utah community fought the fracking industry — and won
Kanab, a small Utah town that’s home to the famous Best Friends Animal Society, took an unconventional path to face down a frac sand mine that threatened the region’s aquifer. By Tara Lohan, The Revelator A…
Pendley acting BLM chief on green ‘radicals’ and the ‘war on the West’
By Timothy Cama, Environment & Energy Greenwire Report Environmentalists are “extremists” or “radicals.” Bureaucrats often lie or cheat to accomplish their goals. The government is carrying out a “war” on the western United States. Native American…
Your blood type may influence your vulnerability to norovirus, the winter vomiting virus
By Patricia L. Foster, The Conversation January 10, 2020 In the last few months, schools all over the country have closed because of outbreaks of norovirus. Also known as stomach flu, norovirus infections cause watery diarrhea,…
Screen time: Conclusions about the effects of digital media are often incomplete, irrelevant or wrong
Humans are barraged by digital media 24/7. Is it a problem? Bruce Rolff/Shutterstock.com Byron Reeves, Stanford University; Nilam Ram, Pennsylvania State University, and Thomas N. Robinson, Stanford University There’s a lot of talk about digital media….
For Native Americans, US-Mexico border is an ‘imaginary line’
By Christina Leza, Colorado College March 19, 2019 Immigration restrictions were making life difficult for Native Americans who live along – and across – the U.S.-Mexico border even before President Donald Trump declared a national emergency…
