The Raw Story

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

Tuesday, 19 May 2015

Aboriginal legends reveal ancient secrets to science

© BBC Meteor streaks across the sky against a field of star.      Scientists are beginning to tap into a wellspring of knowledge buried in the ancient stories of Australia's Aboriginal peoples. But the loss of indigenous languages could mean it is too late to learn from them. The Luritja people, native to the remote deserts of central Australia, once told stories about a fire devil coming down from the Sun, crashing into Earth...

Pregnant bystander: Officer punched me in stomach, called me "black bitch"

© Unkown Nicola Robinson      An eight months pregnant Chicago woman says an unidentified city police officer punched her in the stomach after she laughed at him for letting a suspect get away. Nicola Robinson said she was standing outside with neighbors on Friday evening when three officers ran past in pursuit of a suspected drug dealer. After the officers failed to catch the suspect, the group laughed at the officers, the...

Sham cancer charities bilked US donors for $187 mil, spent money on luxury

© Reuters/Gary Cameron      Government regulators have cracked down on four cancer charities, accusing the Cancer Fund of America, Cancer Support Services, the Children's Cancer Fund of America, and the Breast Cancer Society of cheating donors out of $187 million. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), all 50 states, and the District of Columbia claim that the four foundations fraudulently told donors their money would help cancer...

Militarization is more than tanks and rifles: It's a cultural disease, acclimating the citizenry to life in a police state

"If we're training cops as soldiers, giving them equipment like soldiers, dressing them up as soldiers, when are they going to pick up the mentality of soldiers? If you look at the police department, their creed is to protect and to serve. A soldier's mission is to engage his enemy in close combat and kill him. Do we want police officers to have that mentality? Of course not."— Arthur Rizer, former civilian police officer and member of the military. ©...

Cancer charities bilked donors for $187 mil, spent it on luxury for charity operators, their families and friends

Government regulators have cracked down on four cancer charities, accusing the Cancer Fund of America, Cancer Support Services, the Children's Cancer Fund of America, and the Breast Cancer Society of cheating donors out of $187 million. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), all 50 states, and the District of Columbia claim that the four foundations fraudulently told donors their money would help cancer patients. Instead, money from the donations...

MysteryX-37B space plane poised for Wednesday launch

A mini military space plane is poised for liftoff Wednesday on another long orbital test flight. But as usual, the Air Force isn't saying much about the unmanned mission. This will be the fourth flight of an X-37B space plane, a secretive, experimental program run by the Air Force. The three previous missions also began with rocket launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The mystery test vehicle -- essentially a technology test bed --...

USGS: Magnitude 6.0 earthquake hits Northwest of Tonga

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World debt to GDP ratio: 286 percent

© theeconomiccollapseblog.com      Did you know that there is more than $28,000 of debt for every man, woman and child on the entire planet? And since close to 3 billion of those people survive on less than 2 dollars a day, your share of that debt is going to be much larger than that. If we took everything that the global economy produced this year and everything that the global economy produced next year and used it to pay...

'Ag-gag' law targeting undercover workers adopted in North Carolina

© Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images/AFP      Senators in North Carolina passed a bill penalizing all video and audio recording in restricted workplace areas. Critics say it unfairly targets whistleblowers. Previously passed by the House, the bill is now headed to the governor for signature. The state Senate passed House Bill 405, titled the "Property Protection Act," by a vote of 32-13 on Monday night. The bill would allow business...

Iron in the brain boosts Alzheimer's risk

© old person/iStockphoto      High levels of iron in the brain indicates you are more likely to develop Alzheimer's, say researchers. The findings, published in in , suggest it might be possible to arrest the disease using drugs that remove iron from the brain. "We think that iron is contributing to the disease progression of Alzheimer's disease," says neuroscientist Dr Scott Ayton from the University of Melbourne. "This is...

Giant craters found in Swiss Lake

© ETH Zurich The "Crazy crater" is 525 feet (160 meters) wide.      Four giant craters were found by accident in the muddy floor of one of Switzerland's largest lakes, a new study reports. Researchers surveying Lake Neuchâtel for evidence of past earthquakes spotted the craters near the lake's northwestern shore near the Jura Mountains. The biggest crater is 525 feet (160 meters) wide and almost 100 feet (30 m) deep. The pits...

Swiss aid convoy delivers 300 tonnes of chemicals to clean Donetsk water

© Sputnik/ Mikhail Voskresenskiy      The water treatment chemicals - mainly aluminium sulphate — will provide 3.5 million people on both sides of the contact line with clean drinking water, according to Swiss authorities. The convoy is allegedly the largest to have crossed the line of contact between Kiev-led forces and Donetsk militia since an armed conflict broke out in eastern Ukraine in April 2014. "A 15-truck convoy organized...

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.7 - Pacific-Antarctic Ridge

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, AntialiasFactory, artdesigner.lv, Artura, DailyOverview, Dellustrations, Everaldo, GraphicsFuel,...

From sugar to Monsanto

     Today's occupation of Hawaii by the Agrochemical Oligopoly Hawai'i's year-round growing season is purportedly the main reason that the global agrochemical-seed industry has located itself in the islands. Monsanto, Dow, DuPont, Syngenta and BASF claim that they operate in Hawai'i solely because of its "natural resource competitive advantage," and that their "contributions ... are at no cost to the State." It is certainly...

Beemageddon: White House reveals national strategy to tackle honeybee decline

© Reuters / Dominic Ebenbichler      The dwindling number of honeybees in the US has been a constant worry for farmers in recent years - and now the White House is buzzing into action. On Tuesday, the Obama administration unveiled a new strategy aimed at protecting honeybees' habitat. The National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators will seek to manage the way forests are burned by wildfires and...

The IMF leaks Greece

© Reuters      Whenever secret or confidential information or documents are leaked to the press, the first question should always be who leaked it and why. That's often more important than the contents of what has been leaked. And since there's been a lot of hullabaloo about a leaked document the past two days, here's a closer look. Spoiler alert: the document(s) don't reveal much of anything new, despite the hullabaloo. On...
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