Skip to main content

Viking Women Travelled Too, Genetic Study Reveals

Daniel Zadik The Conversation
Until recently, [some] specimens have been un-sequenceable due to DNA contamination from the modern people who have handled them. Today’s techniques make it possible to differentiate modern from ancient DNA sequences, which opens up the prospect of returning to the many museum specimens in collections worldwide to see what further answers they might hold.

When Chicago Tortured

Noah Berlatsky / People's Law Office The Atlantic, People's Law Office
The Second City is still grappling with a long history of police brutality.

The Unfinished Civil War

Bill Fletcher Jr. Jacobin
Instead of progressives sounding the bugle of retreat, exactly the opposite is necessary. The elements of the progressive movement that already exist in the South must be supported.

The War to Start All Wars

It was George H.W. Bush’s invasion of that small, poor country 25 years ago that inaugurated the age of preemptive unilateralism, using “democracy” and “freedom” as both justifications for war and a branding opportunity.

Obama labor board comes down hard on McDonald’s

Brian Mahoney Politico
In a significant victory for fast-food demonstrators, the Obama administration filed 13 legal complaints on Friday against McDonald’s USA, LLC, alleging 78 instances in which it violated federal labor law by punishing workers for taking part in fast-food protests.

Jonathan Schell Dies at 70; Author and Anti-nuclear Activist

Times Staff and Wire Reports Los Angeles Times
With unrelenting rage and idealism, Schell focused on the consequences of violence in essays and books that conveyed a hatred of war rooted in part in his firsthand observations of American military operations in Vietnam.

A Bottom Up View of Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers

Steve Early CounterPunch
Neuburger’s volunteer assignments as an inside organizer in UFW recruitment campaigns, combined with his “shop floor” experience with many different employers, gave him a perspective on the union that’s rare for a gringo. Where he could, he played a very different role than the many college-educated activists who acquired UFW “membership” by virtue of their boycott activity the country or appointed staff positions at union headquarters in La Paz.

The NCAA's "Student-Athlete" Charade Is Officially Crumbling

By Jordan Weissmann Slate
The broader point of Ohr’s ruling is that Northwestern’s scholarship football players really do work for pay. They are recruited largely for their football abilities; they spend an inordinate amount of time on their sport; they’re rewarded with valuable scholarships, which can be canceled; they’re subject to special rules other students aren’t; and their labor is clearly valuable to the school, which brings in millions of dollars in football-related profits.

Keystone XL: State Department Tells the Environment to Drop Dead

Systemic Disorder
So the pipeline would enable a major boost to tar-sands production — and global warming. It is not only the environmental impact that is misrepresented, however. Pipeline opponents believe that potential economic gains are greatly overstated by the U.S. government and TransCanada Corporation, the company behind the Keystone XL project.

New York Schools Most Segregated in the Nation

The Civil Rights Project / Proyecto Derechos Civiles
“In the 30 years I have been researching schools, New York State has consistently been one of the most segregated states in the nation--no Southern state comes close to New York,” commented CRP Co-Director Gary Orfield. “Decades of reforms ignoring this issue produced strategies that have not succeeded in making segregated schools equal."