The Raw Story

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

Monday, 2 February 2015

Devout police supporter has change of heart after being arrested by NYPD on bogus charge

© The Free Thought Project New York, NY - A common meme amongst those in the police accountability movement is that it is only a matter of time before an entirely innocent person crosses paths with the wrong cop and gets a hefty dose of .All too often we hear the ridiculous statement from the apologist crowd saying, "If you don't break the law, you have nothing to worry about."However, that statement couldn't be further from the truth.Former NSA...

Newton's journal reveals seeds of plant biology

© Syndics of the Cambridge University LibrarySandwiched between the headings 'Philosophy' and 'Attraction Electricall & Filtration' is half a page of text on plant function. Sir Isaac Newton's interest in botany extended well beyond the fabled apple falling from a tree - he also appears to have understood how water moves from roots to leaves over 200 years before botanists did.Newton, who lived from 1643-1727, is known for his observations on...

New Saudi King orders $29 billion 'handouts', tells people: "You deserve more"

Because nothing says "we really do fear social unrest... and please stick with the new king" like Saudi Arabia spewing a massive $29.3 billion spending program that include lavish payments of two months bonus salary to all Saudi state employees and a series of subsidies. As reports, King Salman bin Abdulaziz has issued a number of decrees because - as he wrote on Twitter ( ) "Dear Citizens, you deserve more," adding "do not forget to include me...

Is it Socialism or just failure? It's money over people!

© Harris & Ewing CollectionHouse-Capitol tunnel, Washington, DC Feb 3 1939. It's all still about Greece, and that makes sense, if nothing else Syriza is a breath if not a tornado of fresh air. But those too pass. The question at the end remains: did anything really change? It's quite possible, don't get me wrong, but Tsipras and Vanoufakis are busy looking out for the people who voted for them, not the rest of the Europe, or the world for that...

China announces new "Silk Road" initiative through Russia and India

© Reuters/Wu Hong China is ready to develop economic cooperation with Russia and India as part of the "One Belt and One Road" strategy, the building of a new Silk Road, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced on Monday."We call for mutual benefits over a zero-sum game, over confrontation. China created the 'One Belt and One Road' initiative. We want to continue the tradition of the Silk Road and give it with a new meaning in a new century," he...

DNA clock predicts speed of aging

Scientists have identified a biological clock that provides vital clues about how long a person is likely to live.Researchers studied chemical changes to DNA that take place over a lifetime, and can help them predict an individual's age. By comparing individuals' actual ages with their predicted biological clock age, scientists saw a pattern emerging.People whose biological age was greater than their true age were more likely to die sooner than...

Apocalypse now and forever

As a political psychoanalyst I find the Super-bowl halftime show the best concise index of how psychotic American culture is becoming from year to year, and the 2015 version signaled a complete break from reality, a nightmare of twerking robots in a hall of mirrors, as if America had utterly surrendered its tattered soul to some rogue motherboard pulsing deep within Dr. Evil's subterranean palace of sin. Hence it is the perfect analog for understanding...

Williamsburg, Brooklin storage fire still burning, may have destroyed sensitive docs

More than 70 firefighters were still working to extinguish a blaze on the Williamsburg waterfront Monday after a storage facility caught on fire over the weekend, potentially burning sensitive documents ranging from court records to financial information, officials said. The CitiStorage facility at 5 N. 11th Street was still smoldering Monday, more than two full days after the fire broke at the building, which was filled with paper documents, FDNY...

Mother with learning disability facing forced sterilization

Authorities say the woman has physical health problems which could put her life in danger if she became pregnant again A mother-of-six with learning disabilities could be sterilised after health authority and social services bosses asked a judge for permission to force entry into her home, restrain her and take her to hospital.The woman, who is in her 30s, has had her children removed from her care and authorities say she has physical health problems...

Boston sets 7-day snowfall record

If it's any consolation, we're part of a history-making period in Boston weather. As of 1 p.m. Monday, Boston set a new record for snowiest seven-day period in the city's history with 34.2 inches. The old record of 31.2 inches was set 19 years ago in January, 1996.Snowfall totals to the north of the Massachusetts Turnpike may reach 15 to 18 inches, with up to 20 inches in some areas. Schools in Boston were closed for Tuesday. "The safety of our...

Hawaiian ahi tuna showing rising levels of mercury concentration

© AFP Photo Mercury concentrations in Hawaiian yellowfin tuna are increasing at a rate of 3.8 percent or more per year, according to a new University of Michigan-led study that suggests rising atmospheric levels of the toxin are to blame.Mercury is a potent toxin that can accumulate to high concentrations in fish, posing a health risk to people who eat large, predatory marine fish such as swordfish and tuna. In the open ocean, the principal source...

San Francisco received no measurable rain in January, setting city record

© Brant Ward, For the first time in recorded weather history, San Francisco received no measurable rain in January.The city's streets stayed dry, and the month ended on Saturday with sunshine and the temperature hitting 70 degrees.The rest of the Bay Area was also dry. Meteorology consultant Jan Null tells the San Francisco Chronicle that other cities, including San Jose, saw at most two one-hundredths of an inch of rain. The Bay Area is still above...

Stalingrad veterans' open letter to Merkel: Fascism is here again

Every Museum desires to do educational outreach, and the Museum-Panorama of the Battle of Stalingrad is no exception. (Visit its site here) On January 22, it hosted a Round Table discussion with actual survivors of the historic battle. These old soldiers, still resident in the Volgograd region, Maxim Matveyevich Zagorulko, Alexander Kolotushkin, Maria V. Sokolov, Mikhail Tereshchenko, Eugene F. Rogov, and Alexander Yakovlevich Sirotenko, in their...

100,000 anti-Kiev forces to join fight in east Ukraine

© AFPAlexander Zakharchenko, the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. The leader of the pro-Russia forces in eastern Ukraine has announced that their side is to be reinforced by 100,000 more fighters by spring."In 10 days, we will begin a general mobilization," Alexander Zakharchenko said, according to the semi-official Donetsk News Agency, adding, "We plan to mobilize up to 100,000 people."On January 20, Ukraine conducted the...

Pepper-sprayed teacher: Efforts to curb police brutality 'met with more force'

Jesse Hagopian, a high school history teacher who was pepper-sprayed by a police officer in an unprovoked attack, says that what happened to him is reflective of the police brutality that is rampant across the United States.Hagopian - an activist promoting black causes in the Seattle area - was pepper-sprayed by a police officer after speaking at a Black Lives Matter rally on Martin Luther King Day. He was walking away from the gathering, on a...

Dominique Strauss-Kahn's pimping trial starts

© Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP/Getty Images Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, will go on trial in Lille on Monday accused of pimping, in a case that threatens to expose the double life of the politician once tipped to be the next president of France.The court is expected to hear how, while in Washington holding the most senior economic job in the world, Strauss-Kahn had group sex with prostitutes brought to him...

Groundhog Punxsutawney Phil 'forecasts' 6 more weeks of winter

© AP Photo/Gene J. PuskarGroundhog Club handler Ron Ploucha, left, holds Punxsutawney Phil, the weather prognosticating groundhog, during the 129th celebration of Groundhog Day on Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa., Monday, Feb. 2, 2015. The handlers of Pennsylvania's most famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, said Monday the furry rodent has forecast six more weeks of winter.Members of the top hat-wearing Inner Circle announced the "prediction"...

The Guardian exposes itself as pro-war propaganda outfit

"Sometimes only guns can stop guns" - are you volunteering, Tim? Since the beginning of time, television pundits and other serious thinkers have beckoned the young to die or lose limbs in pointless, illegal wars.Just in the last 15 years alone, our groomed foreign policy experts and think tank fellows have made compelling cases for armed humanitarian interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and about a half dozen other defenseless nations...

U.S. passports near elimination?

© twitter.comTo be joined at the hip creating "North Americans." A Soros-funded group arguing to replace the U.S. passport with a North American passport appears ready to take up the mantle of championing the concept of a European Union-style regional government to supersede the sovereignty of the United States, Mexico and Canada, fulfilling the dream of the late American University professor Robert Pastor.The future of the U.S. lies in North America,...

BEST OF THE WEB: Turkey's fingerprints in the Western war against China and Russia

While the world's attention has been fixed on France in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo killings, the subsequent manhunt, and the political fallout from the incident, a number of important news items have quietly been pushed off the front pages of the world's major newspapers, and out of the lead segments of television news programs all over the globe. In Nigeria, Boko Haram reemerges with a vengeance, committing one of the worst atrocities in the...
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)