Wake Up
The F.B.I. records show that as early as September 2011, an agent from a counterterrorism task force in New York notified officials of two landmarks in Lower Manhattan — Federal Hall and the Museum of American Finance — “that their building was identified as a point of interest for the Occupy Wall Street.”
For more on this story, visit: Occupy Movement Was Investigated by F.B.I. Counterterrorism Agents, Records Show – NYTimes.com.
More than month and a half after Superstorm Sandy, winter is setting in and many of the ten thousand residents of this Queens neighborhood still lack heat or electricity. Many have no hot water.
“In the Rockaways you already had a lack of healthcare,” said Jeremy Saunders with the community justice group Vocal-NY. “You already had half the population living below the poverty line. It’s a place where the city has pushed a lot of poor people living with AIDS. A lot of people who were formerly incarcerated. Its already where they have amassed a lot of marginalized people.”
Now, supported by Occupy Sandy volunteers, residents of the Rockaways are starting to fight back.
For more on this story, visit: Hurricane Sandy relief turns to protest / Waging Nonviolence – People-Powered News and Analysis.
“Homicide Victims Rarely Talk to Police,” and Other Horrible Headlines
From a friend, who got them from a friend, who got them from someone else, here’s a collection of newspaper headlines that don’t quite accomplish what the writer set out to accomplish. Anyone who has ever written or published anything can surely sympathize — and laugh. P.S.: Are any of them real?
For more on this story, visit: Freakonomics » “Homicide Victims Rarely Talk to Police,” and Other Horrible Headlines.
On a cold November night in Times Square, Officer Lawrence DePrimo was working a counterterrorism post when he encountered an older, barefooted homeless man. The officer disappeared for a moment, then returned with a new pair of boots, and knelt to help the man put them on.
Officer Lawrence DePrimo bought new boots for a homeless man he encountered in Times Square.
The act of kindness would have gone unnoticed and mostly forgotten, had it not been for a tourist from Arizona.
ADDIS ABABA, 20 November 2012 (IRIN) – For the past three years, the ChildFund Alliance, a coalition of development and protection NGOs, has surveyed thousands of children around the world about their experiences, aspirations and concerns.
Highlights of the third survey – of 6,204 children between 10 and 12 years old in 47 countries – were released on 20 November, revealing:
50 percent of respondents in developing countries, would, if made president, focus on better education to improve the lives of other children.
25 percent of respondents in developing countries would provide for basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter.
46 percent of the African children surveyed said they had experienced a drought.
10 percent of children in developed countries had experienced drought.
44 percent of children surveyed in Africa said they had experienced a bush or forest fire.
15 percent of African respondents said improving health care was a priority.
5 percent of children in developed countries said the same.
67 percent of children surveyed in Ghana said they would like to grow up to be doctors, nurses or dentists.
43 percent of children in developing countries said they would like to become professional athletes, artists or entertainers.
43 percent of children in Sierra Leone say death, illness and disease are their greatest fears.
For more on this story, visit: IRIN Global | In Brief: Children’s hopes and fears surveyed across the world | Global | Children.
For 18 years, the Fantasy of Lights has illuminated Lighthouse Point Park in New Haven. Over the years, it has become holiday tradition for thousands of families throughout the state of Connecticut. This dazzling light display will delight visitors young and old beginning Friday, November 16, 2012.
For more on this story, visit: Fantasy of Lights | Goodwill.
For the last 30 years, the Thames Flood Barrier, a high-tech barrier that is raised and lowered almost like the gates to a medieval castle, has been protecting the heart of London from the kind of catastrophic storm surge that hit New York last week.
Andy Batchelor helps keeps the vast concrete and steel structure in London operational — always with one eye on the weather. With his decades of experience, he could see the trouble headed New York’s way. Batchelor said, “I spend half my life looking at the weather and to see the three weather systems coming in to — what happened in New York, I was absolutely amazed to what on earth that was going to give.”
For more on this story, visit: Storm surge barriers: A lesson U.S. needs to learn from Europe? – CBS News.
Pollsters and pundits in the United States may be hedging their bets, but a bookie in Britain is paying out even before the presidential race is over. Paddy Power, Europe’s largest book-maker and one of the big “bet shop” chains in Britain where they’ll bet on anything has decided that President Obama has already won reelection, and is handing over cash to those who placed bets on him.
For more on this story, visit: U.K. bookie declares Obama victorious – CBS News.
I’m not sure when I realized that we were in the middle of a full-blown disaster. Maybe it was when I saw the outline of a National Guard soldier hanging off the side of a hummer on a blackened strip of Rockaway Boulevard. Perhaps it was when I received a panicky email from an assemblyman’s office saying that “ppl are starving in Broad Channel.” I’m sure the comparisons to Hurricane Katrina and September 11 helped speed the realization. All I know for sure is that by Thursday, when widespread gas shortages swept New York City and out-of-staters began offering to donate bio-diesel trucks, I understood that we were organizing in the midst of a crisis.
For more on this story, visit: After Sandy, communities mobilize a new kind of disaster relief / Waging Nonviolence – People-Powered News and Analysis.
With all the fake photos going around and all the unbelievable damage, it’s hard to decipher the real from the Photoshopped. But last night’s storm brought in incredible floods and massive power outages to the East Coast, which you can read all about in our live Sandy coverage. Some of the waters have subsided, but millions are still without power in the country. Thanks to Instagram, Twitter, and the Associated Press and Reuters photo services, we get an idea of how bad things got last night.
The East Village is underwater in this photo from last night.
For more on this story, visit: The Most Unbelievable but Real Pictures of Sandy’s Destruction – National – The Atlantic Wire.
Student outcry against recent changes in Wesleyan University’s need-blind admissions policy have reached a fever pitch after a group of roughly 50 protestors stormed the sidelines during the university’s homecoming football game on Saturday.
The debate surrounding the issue resulted in two alleged confrontations with President Michael Roth over the weekend both prior to and directly following the demonstration. One case involved a group of students and the other a reporter from liberal news program, Democracy Now!. Concerns over the need-blind policy spilled over into the annual Parents’ Assembly with Roth the following day.
For more on this story, visit: Students protest need-blind policy change – The Middletown Press : Serving Middletown, CT.
Five years after the housing market crumbled, government officials are still trying to assign blame for the problems that fueled the mortgage boom and bust.
On Wednesday, federal prosecutors in New York took aim at Bank of America. They accused it of carrying out a scheme, started by its Countrywide Financial unit, that defrauded government-backed mortgage agencies by churning out loans at a rapid pace without proper controls. In a civil suit, prosecutors seek to collect at least $1 billion in penalties from the bank as compensation for the behavior that they say forced taxpayers to guarantee billions in bad loans.
For more on this story, visit: U.S. Accuses Bank of America of a ‘Brazen’ Mortgage Fraud – NYTimes.com.
The prudes at Hearst Media Group, owner of the Connecticut Post, have banned “frack” as a replacement for its “vulgar cousin.” What’s next, “frig?” It’s also a legit word used in natural gas drilling. News of the frack ban has made its way to social media sites.
For more on this story, visit: What The Frack! Hearst Bans Word.
I thought this was an inspiring story about the survival of children and I particularly liked this quote:
Nutrition and health are inextricably linked: children are more prone to sickness and death if they are malnourished, and vice versa.
… Niger is a land-locked country that straddles the Sahara Desert and the savannah just to the south, known as the Sahel. For most Nigeriens, daily life presents many challenges and struggles. The country has been through three food emergencies in the past six years, and this in a country where the vast majority of its 16 million people work the land to make a living. In 2010, almost half the country’s population received some type of short-term economic support in the form of food distribution or cash transfer, and this year the same help is going to about one quarter of all Nigerians.
… But among all this hardship, Nigerien politicians and health professionals are making remarkable progress in child survival. Despite being ranked near the bottom of the UN Development Index, child mortality rates in Niger are in free-fall and dropping twice as fast as its bigger, wealthier neighbor Nigeria. Even with serious economic woes, child malnutrition rates are actually improving. This flies directly in the face of the conventional wisdom that suggests improvement in health indicators only follows economic growth.
… If Nigerien leaders and the numerous international and national nongovernmental actors are up to the task, who knows how fast this child survival epidemic can pick up speed.
Dr. Susan Shepherd is a pediatrician from Butte, Montana. She has worked for MSF for the last six years and coordinates work in nutrition. She has worked in Uganda, Chad, Niger, Kenya, South Sudan, Burkina Faso, and Ghana.
For more on this story, visit: Op-Eds & Articles: Op-Ed: How to Start a Child Survival Epidemic | Doctors Without Borders.
For more on this story, visit: Op-Eds & Articles: Op-Ed: How to Start a Child Survival Epidemic | Doctors Without Borders.
SANFORD – George Zimmerman’s murder trial in the death of Trayvon Martin was set for June 10 during a hearing in court this morning.
From the Daily Beast:
George Zimmerman’s trial for the second-degree murder of Trayvon Martin will begin on June 10, a Florida judge ruled on Wednesday morning. Attorneys in the case estimated it would last about three weeks. Zimmerman confessed to shooting and killing the 17-year-old in March, claiming he was using Florida’s controversial Stand Your Ground law to defend himself against the black teenager. The lack of immediate charges against Zimmerman—who is Hispanic—led to a national outcry both in support and against him, and authorities eventually charged Zimmerman, 29, with second-degree murder. His wife, Shellie Zimmerman, 25, has been charged with perjury.
For more on this story, visit: George Zimmerman court: George, Shellie Zimmerman attorneys back in court Wednesday – OrlandoSentinel.com.
Greenpeace has accused the US green IT labelling scheme EPEAT of “caving in” to pressure from leading manufacturers and approving a number of “ultra-thin” notebooks that will prove difficult to recycle.
EPEAT announced last week that it had undertaken a thorough review of five different “ultra-thin” notebooks from Apple, Lenovo, Samsung and Toshiba, including the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display, and concluded they could remain on the EPEAT registry.
For more on this story, visit: Greenpeace slams EPEAT after green label granted to Apple MacBook Pro – 15 Oct 2012 – News from BusinessGreen.
Today, October 15, is Blog Action Day, and the international community of bloggers is blogging about this year’s theme, The Power of We.
Are you going to contribute to this topic in honor of the multitudes who work together to make a difference in the world through whatever you do? What is it? Let us know!
Founded in 2007, Blog Action Day brings together bloggers from different countries, interests and languages to blog about one important global topic on the same day. Past topics have included water, climate change, poverty and food with thousands of blogs, big and small, taking part.
For more on this story, visit: blogactionday.org | Thousands of bloggers, blog for good, on one day..
New Study from Institute of Economics and Peace Released
“By defining a new industry as the ‘Violence Containment Industry,’ it is now possible to aggregate all expenditures related to the containment or consequences of violence. Our research indicates that when measured as a percentage of GDP this industry has expanded by 25% in the past ten years.”
– Steve Killelea, Executive Chairman of IEP
KEY FINDINGS:
“The study evidentiates that even small reductions in Violence Containment spending would result in a meaningful stimulation to the U.S. economy,” Steve Killelea.
The Institute of Economics and Peace (IEP) recently released a new study on the costs of violence containment in the United States. As you can see, the numbers are pretty devastating.
The study is the first systematic measure to account for all violence-related expenditure in the U.S. economy. It captures government, corporate, and individual expenditures regardless of whether it is related to international affairs, such as offshore military activities, or domestic spending, for instance, dealing with crime and its consequences.
There is one element we find particularly encouraging around this report from our friends at IEP — the articulation of a “violence containment industry.” This offers a powerful framing to help articulate this industry and the great challenge violence poses, as well as aids our collective cause to make the work of peacebuidling and violence prevention a priority. We know there are far more effective ways to deal with the scourge of violence.
For more on this story, visit: this dispatch from The Peace Alliance
“Amend-o-Matic” Will Visit Nearly 50 Cities to Gather Support for a Constitutional Amendment to Get Money Out of Politics
Today, Ben Cohen, co-founder of super-premium ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s, and organizers with the Move to Amend Coalition, launched a bold new campaign aiming to return government to the hands of the people. The “Amend-O-Matic” is part art spectacle, part money-stamping machine, part road-worthy vehicle, and will allow participants to insert dollar bills to be printed with slogans such as “Corporations are not people,” “Money is not speech;” and “Not to be used for bribing politicians.”
… Polling indicates that nearly 80% of Americans are in favor of getting money out of politics, with a majority supporting an amendment to establish that corporations are not entitled to Constitutional rights. The Citizens United decision allows corporate money to drown out the voice of the people with over $2 billion expected to be spent to influence the 2012 presidential election.
For more on this story, visit: Nationwide Money Stamping Tour Launched by Ben & Jerry’s Co-Founder, Move to Amend & Stamp Stampede Coalition | Common Dreams.
Doctors and government health officials should set limits, as they do for alcohol, on the amount of time children spend watching screens – and under-threes should be kept away from the television altogether, according to a paper in an influential medical journal.
For more on this story, visit: Ban under-threes from watching television, says study | Society | The Guardian.
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