The Raw Story

A non-profit news blog, focused on providing independent journalism.

Sunday, 26 October 2014

The truth behind America's most famous gay-hate murder

© Steve Liss/The LIFE Images Collection/GettyA basket of flowers hangs from the fence where Matthew Shepard was left tied and beaten Matthew Shepard's horrific death at the hands of redneck homophobes shocked America and changed its laws. Now a different truth is emerging, but does it matter?The horrific killing of Matthew Shepard in 1998 is widely seen as one of the worst anti-gay hate crimes in American history. Matthew was beaten by two assailants,...

Painkillers do more harm than good, especially for headaches and back pain

In the 1940s, opioid-based narcotics like opium and heroin were popular drugs of abuse, which lead to strict controls being put into place to curb their use. Regulations existed to control who could prescribe opioids and at what doses; breaches to the regulations could lead to a loss of your medical license or criminal prosecution.Many physicians feared the repercussions, and thus may have under-prescribed such medications, even in cases where...

Elon Musk says 'With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon'

© ReutersFILE 2014: Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, says artificial intelligence probably the biggest threat to human existence. Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and founder of SpaceX, said Friday that artificial intelligence is probably the biggest threat to humans.Musk, who addressed MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics department's Centennial Symposium for about an hour, mulled international oversight to "make sure we don't do something very...

US: Returning Ebola healthcare workers made to feel like criminals, prisoners

© Via MySpaceKaci Hickox (center) An American nurse published a scathing account of her treatment after being put in isolation in the United States following a stint caring for Ebola patients in West Africa, saying she was made to feel like "a criminal."Kaci Hickox was the first person to enter mandatory 21-day quarantine for medical staff returning to parts of the United States who may have had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa, the epicenter...

Incumbent Dilma Rousseff reelected as president of Brazil

© Reuters/Edison VaraBrazil's President and Workers' Party (PT) presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff. Brazil's leftist president Dilma Rousseff has been re-elected for another term with over 51 percent of the vote in a tight presidential run-off on Sunday.Rousseff, who has been in power since 2011, has been re-elected for a second term, winning 51.6 percent of the vote according to the official tally. With over 99 percent of the ballots counted,...

Brazil's Dilma Rousseff wins re-election campaign

Brazil's President and Workers' Party (PT) presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff gestures to photographers after voting in the runoff election in Porto Alegre October 26, 2014. Brazil's leftist President Dilma Rousseff narrowly won re-election on Sunday after convincing voters that her party's strong record of reducing poverty over the last 12 years was more important than a recent economic slump.After one of the closest, most divisive campaigns...

French ambassador says 'Poker Player' Putin bluffed and won

© DesconocidoVladimir Putin Vladimir Putin has outmaneuvered his opponents and humiliated Ukraine by continuing to back pro-Russian separatists and flouting a cease-fire, making it crucial that sanctions on Russia remain firm, France's ambassador to the U.S. said. © UN Photo/Paulo FilgueirasAmbassador Gérard Araud The Russian president "has won because we were not ready to die for Ukraine, while apparently he was," Ambassador Gerard Araud said yesterday...

The Scariest Number Revealed Today: $1.114 Trillion In Eurozone Bad Debt

As we previously reported, the ECB's latest stress test was once again patently flawed from the start. Why? Because as we noted earlier, in its most draconian, "adverse" scenario, the ECB simply refused to contemplate the possibility of deflation. And here's why. Buried deep in the report, on page 75 of 178, is the following revelation which contains in it the scariest number presented to the public today.Due to the fact that on average banks' internal...

Surprise! Valerie Jarrett helped cover up Fast and Furious

Sometimes those who follow politics closely erroneously assume that everyone else follows it closely as well. But for those of you who don’t, here’s a brief explanation of Fast and Furious:It’s not just a movie series, it’s the name of an operation where the Obama administration illegally gave thousands of weapons, including military grade guns, to Mexican criminals, supposedly in an attempt to track criminal activity in Mexico. However, not only...

Medical experts: The medical establishment was wrong about fat

© Unknown For more than half a century, the conventional wisdom among nutritionists and public health officials was that fat is dietary enemy number one - the leading cause of obesity and heart disease.It appears the wisdom was off.And not just off. Almost entirely backward.According to a new study from the National Institutes of Health, a diet that reduces carbohydrates in favor of fat - including the saturated fat in meat and butter - improves...

House-sized Asteroid to Give Earth a Very Close Shave Monday

© Unknown Get ready for a very close encounter as a house-sized asteroid 2014 UF56 will pass between the Earth and the Moon on Monday. The 15 meter wide space rock will miss our planet at a distance of about 160,000 km (0.4 lunar distances) at 9:12 p.m. UTC. The asteroid was discovered Saturday and despite passing so close to Earth, few if any of us will see the flyby with our eyes in a telescope. At brightest, 2014 UF56 will only reach magnitude...

Sex, chocolate... new language? Same pleasure for human brain, scientists say

© Reuters/Christian Hartmann Learning new words stimulates the same brain center as such long-proven means of deriving pleasure, as having sex, gambling or eating chocolate, a new study says.A team of Spanish and German researchers at Barcelona's Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute and Otto von Guericke University has found that successful learning of the meanings of new words activates a core reward center in the adult brain. They have recently...

So much for experts: Europe's food experts fooled by pranksters into confusing McDonald's with organic food

© Still from YouTube video/lifehunterstv Dutch pranksters have fooled food experts and consumers and proved that even foodies can't tell McDonald's from real, organic food when offered some on a plate. The comments from misled 'experts' are hysterical.Lifehunters, as the guys call themselves, posted a video of them visiting one of the most popular annual food expos in Europe, in the city of Houten, to serve their from their that servesone of the...

Silicon Valley company EFI paid Indian employees $1.21/hr, posted $200 million revenue for 3rd quarter

© Michael Kovac / Getty Images for Vanity Fair / AFP While many Americans fight for the government to increase the minimum wage across the country, one Silicon Valley company has now been penalized for paying some foreign employees dramatically lower wages.The fine was handed down by the US Department of Labor after it discovered that Electronics for Imaging (EFI) flew eight employees in from its office in Bangalore, India, and paid them the equivalent...

BEST OF THE WEB: Key quotes from Putin's Valdai speech in Sochi - His strongest yet against the Western Empire

E-mails sent to Sott.net become the property of Quantum Future Group, Inc and may be published without notice.Reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views of the volunteers, editors, and directors of SOTT.net or the Quantum Future Group.Remember, we need your help to collect information on what is going on in your part of the world! Send your article suggestions to: Some icons appearing on this site were created by: Afterglow, Aha-Soft,...

Paul Craig Roberts: Vladimir Putin is the leader of the moral world

© Presidential Press and Information Office Dear Friends,Vladimir Putin's remarks at the 11th meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club are worth more than a link in my latest column. These are the remarks of a humanitarian political leader, the like of which the world has not seen in my lifetime. Compare Putin to the corrupt war criminal in the White House or to his puppets in office in Germany, UK, France, Japan, Canada, Australia, and...
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)