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Oilfield Wastewater Used to Grow Food in California May Contain Toxins

Maureen Nandini Mitra Earth Island Journal
Did you know that some of the fruits and veggies out on supermarket shelves are grown using wastewater from oil and gas operations? For the past several years, many drought-stricken farms in California’s Central Valley, which produces 40 percent of the nation’s fruits and vegetables, have been increasingly irrigating their crops with wastewater. Chemicals present include 16 the state classifies as carcinogens or reproductive toxicants, says EWG report.

Another human food trend impacts pet food: pseudoscience

Debbie Phillips-Donaldson Pet Food Industry
Pseudoscience is perpetuated by self-declared experts with no scientific background or understanding of food science, or even scientists with credentials but who conduct poor, unscientifically sound research and spread unreliable, false or even debunked results. The trend has hit the pet food industry.

Seizing Freedom: David Roediger with Peter St. Clair

David Roediger with Peter St. Clair Brooklyn Rail
The North won the Civil War, but the South won the Reconstruction. The victorious Northern armies preserved the Union and the slaves were emancipated but the Confederates won the historical interpretation of those events by perpetrating the myths that became the accepted story over the next one hundred years.

The Accident-prone Oil Industry Is a Chronic Threat to the Gulf Coast's Environmental Health

Sue Sturgis Facing South
When we talk about the problem of oil industry accidents, we tend to focus on dramatic events like the deadly 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon explosion off the coast of Louisiana, or the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil tanker crash in Alaska's Prince William Sound. But the industry is far more accident-prone than such relatively rare high-profile disasters suggest.

Young Adolescents as Likely to Die From Suicide as From Traffic Accidents

Sabrina Tavernise The New York Times
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that in 2014, the most recent year for which data is available, the suicide rate for children ages 10 to 14 had caught up to their death rate for traffic accidents. The number is an extreme data point in an accumulating body of evidence that young adolescents are suffering from a range of health problems associated with the country’s rapidly changing culture.

Measuring Global Inequality

Michael D. Yates Monthly Review
The response to growing economic inequality must start with mass resistance within every country and maximum solidarity among all workers and peasants, in rich and poor countries alike. The details of such struggles have to be worked out in each place. The key is solidarity among all workers and peasants, within and between the states of the world.

Early Voting Ends in North Carolina

Joe Gamm / Tierney Sneed Greensboro News and Record / Talking Points Memo
Guilford County, like North Carolina as a whole, set an all-time record for the number of ballots cast during early voting despite GOP efforts for suppress voter turnout.