THE UNITED STATES has the highest incarceration rate in the world. In fact, according to the most recent data, the U.S., while having only 4.5% of the world’s population, holds 21 percent of the world’s prisoners. The last few years have shown a slight decrease in incarceration rates, but law enforcement policies continue to both target racial minorities and to […]
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Why are most mass shootings perpetrated by white males? asked Charlotte Childress and Harriet Childress. In the debate over why America suffers so many killing sprees, race and gender are “the elephant in the room.” At Newtown, Aurora, Tucson, Columbine— “month after month, year after year”—it is seething white men and teenagers who use guns to massacre scores of strangers. […]
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The House of Representatives doesn’t represent America as it really is today, said Timothy Egan. The Republican-controlled House governs a “fantasy nation created in talk-radio land,” where black and gay people don’t exist, women remain subservient, and all gun-safety legislation is a step toward tyranny. Thanks to strategic redrawing of districts, Republicans managed to maintain a 33-seat advantage in the […]
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There is a deafening and horrific silence in the USA about the problem of gun control, Piers Morgan told the Today program, responding to US radio host Alex Jones’ defence of guns. “The product of this demented attitude is you have the worst gun crime of any of the advanced countries in the world,” said the British journalist. Mr Morgan […]
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Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have found that antibiotic resistance has risen to dangerous levels. If drastic action is not taken soon it will become a bigger killer than cancer by the year 2050. The report shows that at least 2 million people in the US are infected each year with germs that are resistant […]
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There is an opioid epidemic in the US which has contributed to the deaths of Americans. Approximately 1.5% of Americans have died from opioid overdoses which is more than the 1% of Americans who died in the Vietnam War. In the late 1990’s pharmaceutical companies assured medical institutions that opioids would not become addictive. So, with this information the medical […]
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The US Navy is developing a supergun that can destroy a target at about 100 miles away with a bullet that can go eight times the speed of sound when fired. It would destroy with pinpoint accuracy the target that it is going towards in a matter of minutes. If everything goes as planned it can be the most powerful […]
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Internment Camps in the United States Miyuki is old enough to have been a child during World War II. Indeed, some of her students are that old as well but they are eager to learn and listen to her carefully. She is a teacher of floral arrangements in the Japanese style of Ikenobo but her face always seems sadder […]
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Drone warfare is now coming to your own backyard, said Glenn Greenwald. Local police have begun using unmanned Predator drones like those used in Afghanistan and Pakistan to conduct surveillance of criminal suspects right here in the U.S. This chilling step toward “a Surveillance State”—without the public’s knowledge or consent— was revealed last week by the Los Angeles Times, which […]
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“Being American is bad for your health,” said Robert Samuelson. That’s the sobering conclusion of an exhaustive new report comparing our health with that of people in 16 other advanced countries. We rank at or near the bottom, from life expectancy at birth to frequency of death before age 50, and it’s only partly the fault of our health-care system. […]
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