Why is America a nation of growing inequality? The yawning economic and cultural gap between the well-to-do and the working class—now wider than at almost any point in our history—has academics and pundits searching for explanations. Now, a new Harvard study provides an illuminating—and “horrifying”—insight into what’s going on. The affluent and the working classes, the study found, are raising […]
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Suddenly everyone wants to be low-caste, said Badri Narayan. It used to be considered an extreme disadvantage to be in one of India’s oppressed castes or indigenous tribes. But decades of affirmative action and quota systems have changed all that. Now, many lower-middle castes are agitating to be reclassified as “more backward,” in effect “struggling to move down the ladder […]
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Yanshi, China Dead dogs, pigs: Another sudden mass animal die-off has left many Chinese worried about their own health. Scores of pigs and dogs dropped dead overnight in Dongtun village, apparently from poisonous gas emitted from a chemical plant. “All the dogs in the village had basically died off,” one resident said. “Those that hadn’t died were in their last […]
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On the mountainous outskirts of Shenzhen, a fast-growing mega-city in China, the largest waste-to-energy plant in the world is on the horizon. You can bet that this disk-shaped trash-burning plant isn’t going to do any wonders for China’s notoriously bad air quality. It’s projected to burn 5,500 tons of trash per day — one-third of the waste Shenzhen produces. But the alternative […]
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A vicious racist ideology is taking hold in Myanmar, said Burmese blogger Maung Zarni. A “neo-Nazi Buddhist movement” known as 969, led by “fascist monks,” is trying to drive the Ro-hingya Muslims out of the country. Nobody is stopping these fundamentalists—not the military, and certainly not opposition leader and human-rights advocate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been photographed wining […]
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Could obesity be treated as a form of drug addiction? A new study suggests that some overweight people may be addicted to eating in the same way that, say, a cocaine addict craves another hit of his favorite drug. Researchers at Yale University gave a small group of young women questionnaires to determine their levels of food addiction. Then they […]
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A fixation on plastic surgery is slaughtering Koreans, said the Chosun Ilbo. “There is presumably no other nation where plastic specialists place advertisements on the sides of buses,” with before and after after the photos enticing individuals to extend their eyes or narrow their noses. Again and again, the genuine “after” photograph would portray a casket. Simply a week ago, […]
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Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei has accused Lego of ‘censorship and discrimination’ after it refused to let him to use its bricks in a new exhibition. The artist also suggested the Danish toymaker was worried about offending Beijing as it looks to expand in China and build a new manufacturing plant there. Lego had refused a bulk order for bricks […]
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Nazi Lair: Teyu Cuare Park, Argentina Nazi lair found: Argentine researchers have discovered what appears to be a Nazi hideout deep in the jungle. The Nazis built shelters in remote areas around the world for their top leaders to retreat to in the event of defeat, and last week the ruins of three stone houses, containing five German coins minted […]
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Anti-Semitism is sweeping Hungary, said Colin Freeman. It’s so bad that the World Jewish Congress held its annual conference in Budapest to express solidarity with beleaguered Hungarian Jews. The Jobbik party, which is openly anti-Roma and anti-Semitic, is now the third-largest party in parliament, and its rise has coincided with a sharp uptick in anti-Semitic attacks and incidents. Jewish leaders […]
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