Archive for the 'Collapse' Category
Recovery: Retirement Unlikely for Many Blue-Collar Americans
January 1st, 2014Via: AP: Tom Edwards grew up in a family that’s been cutting trees and hauling timber in the Pacific Northwest for more than a century. The Spanaway, Wash., resident says he has worked as a logger since he was a kid — it’s just what an able-bodied youngster was expected to do. Now, at 53, […]
One-Third of Americans Reject the Idea of Evolution
December 30th, 2013I tell people in New Zealand about the Creation Museum and they don’t believe that the place exists. They think I’m making it up. Via: Reuters: One-third of Americans reject the idea of evolution and Republicans have grown more skeptical about it, according to a poll released on Monday. Sixty percent of Americans say that […]
Japan’s Homeless Recruited for Murky Fukushima Clean-Up
December 30th, 2013Via: Reuters: Seiji Sasa hits the train station in this northern Japanese city before dawn most mornings to prowl for homeless men. He isn’t a social worker. He’s a recruiter. The men in Sendai Station are potential laborers that Sasa can dispatch to contractors in Japan’s nuclear disaster zone for a bounty of $100 a […]
Recovery: One Million U.S. Jobless to Lose Financial Aid
December 28th, 2013Via: BBC: More than a million Americans will lose their unemployment benefits after an emergency federal programme expires on Saturday. Lawmakers failed to agree on an extension of the scheme before the US Congress began its winter recess. Former President George W Bush introduced the assistance plan in 2008 at the start of the recession. […]
Recovery: New York City Homeless Shelters Fill as Rent Aid Disappears
December 28th, 2013Via: Wall Street Journal: New York City homeless shelters—swelling with record-high populations not seen since the Great Depression—are increasingly being sought out by people who participated in a now-defunct rent-subsidy program designed to reduce homelessness, according to a report to be released Saturday. The author of the report, the Coalition for the Homeless, a nonprofit […]
‘We Are Creating Walmarts of Higher Education’
December 27th, 2013Via: The Atlantic: Universities in South Dakota, Nebraska, and other states have cut the number of credits students need to graduate. A proposal in Florida would let online courses forgo the usual higher-education accreditation process. A California legislator introduced a measure that would have substituted online courses for some of the brick-and-mortar kind at public […]
Majority of Scientific Data Lost Due Within 20 Years
December 21st, 2013Via: Nature World News: The vast majority of scientific data are evaporating, never to be heard from again. The reason, based an analysis published in the journal Current Biology, is almost boring – old email addresses and obsolete storage devices are making off with hard-earned research, according to Tim Vines, a visiting scholar at the […]
Woman Faced Illegal Body Cavity Search, Observed Bowel Movement — Billed $5000
December 19th, 2013Via: CBS: Federal agents wrongfully strip-searched a New Mexico woman at the El Paso border crossing, then took her to a hospital where she was forced to undergo illegal body cavity probes in an attempt to find drugs, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in El Paso […]
Michigan Prison Guards ‘Did Nothing’ to Stop Adult Prisoners from Raping Juveniles
December 16th, 2013Via: Russia Today: Michigan prison officials needlessly housed juvenile inmates with adult convicts, where the guards then ignored allegations that the young inmates were sexually abused and essentially used as currency inside the facility, according to a new lawsuit. Brought forth by seven unnamed juvenile prisoners, the case hinges on the idea that the Michigan […]
Chinese Pilots Must Learn to Land in Thick Smog
December 12th, 2013Via: Guardian: Chinese authorities have told pilots who fly to Beijing they must be qualified to land their aircraft in the low visibility bought about by smog – the latest missive related to the capital’s heavy air pollution, which the government this week lauded as a beneficial shield against missile attacks. From 1 January pilots […]
