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Special Report: Pentagon Thwarts Obama's Effort to Close Guantanamo

Charles Levinson and David Rohde Reuters
Since Obama took office in 2009, Pentagon officials have been throwing up bureaucratic obstacles to thwart the president's plan to close Guantanamo. Negotiating prisoner releases with the Pentagon was like "punching a pillow," said James Dobbins, the State Department special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2013 to 2014. Defense Department officials "would come to a meeting, they would not make a counter-argument," he said. "And then nothing would happen.

 How Can No One Be to Blame for Tamir Rice’s Death?

Dani McClain The Nation
 On Monday, the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office announced that Timothy Loehmann, the Cleveland police officer who killed Tamir Rice last year, would face no state criminal charges.

Cooking Behavior Close-Up

A. Elizabeth Sloan Food Technology
Although 44% of all consumers—and 84% of foodies—really enjoy cooking, easy-to-prepare foods are still the favorite for more than half (53%) of U.S. meal preparers.

Students Say Loyola University Chicago Admins Punishing Participants in On-Campus Worker Protest

BRANKO MARCETIC In These Times
In recent months, Loyola students and workers have been waging a campaign for campus workers to receive a living wage, and for the administration to roll back what student activists say is a draconian demonstration policy, which requires students to request and receive approval from the Office of the Dean of Students for any on-campus protest not being held on the campus’s Damen North Lawn three days prior.

Downton Abbey’s Final Season Points to More Equal World

Mary Pilon Bloomberg Businessweek
If the first five seasons of Downton Abbey—the British upstairs-downstairs soap opera that will have its sixth and final U.S. season premiere on Jan. 3—were about the structure of class divisions in English society, the last one is about those divisions crumbling.

UN Discovery of Secret Detention Centre Revives Nightmares

Amantha Perera IPS
The site is nothing new to those who were held there. In June this year the South Africa-based International Truth and Justice Project, Sri Lanka (ITJPSL) launched a 134-page report on on-going human rights violations and past cases in Sri Lanka. Many of those held were either members or were connected to the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).