Shakur was herself wounded by police shots during the Jersey Turnpike shootout and one of her militant comrades was killed. Despite the case's verdict, many of Shakur's supporters -- and commentators rightly skeptical of the criminal justice's system treatment of black liberation activists at the time -- question Shakur's murder conviction. Deserving of further questioning: Why, after 40 years, is Shakur (whose chosen name means "she who struggles") worthy of a $2 million bounty and a spot among the FBI's most wanted?

Continue Reading...

Now, nonprofit environmental law organization Earthjustice is targeting the town for another instance of racial discrimination: its sewage treatment.

According to Earthjustice.org, "White residents of Rochelle live on the south side of the city’s railroad track. African-Americans live on the other side." The city maintains pipes in the predominantly white neighborhood, but not the African-American side. "As a result," writes Earthjustice, "untreated sewage backs up and overflows into the streets and the yards of residents on the north side of the tracks."

“Sewage overflows my pipes and flows under my house. It’s time somebody did something about it. They [the white community] live comfortably and I want to live comfortably, too,” said Rochelle resident Rufus Howard.

Howard is one of nine Rochelle residents represented by Earthjustice, who will file a lawsuit under the Clean Water Act if the city does not resolve the issue in 60 days.

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

According to a report published by nonprofit online newspaper the Washington Free Beacon, the hacker, possibly using stolen username and password credentials, accessed the National Inventory of Dams (NID) and siezed information not normally available to the public.

The NID database contains comprehensive information about 79,000 dams throughout the US, including the estimated number of deaths there would be if a given dam failed.

“The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is aware that access to the National Inventory of Dams (NID), to include sensitive fields of information not generally available to the public, was given to an unauthorized individual in January 2013 who was subsequently determined to not to have proper level of access for the information,” Army Corps of Engineers spokesperson Pete Pierce told the Washington Free Beacon.

Continue Reading...

Both the camp at Guantánamo Bay (where 166 detainees have been held, some for up to 11 years without charge or trial) and lethal drone strikes, which have been shown to regularly kill civilians and target individuals based simply on "signature" behaviors, stretch constitutional and international law to their very limits. Arguably, both counterterror efforts are abrogations of the spirit of international law, even if by the (aggressively massaged) letter of the law the Justice Department is able to legally justify the maintenance of the Cuban camp and the drone killing program. As has long been the case in U.S. history, both the Bush and Obama administrations have grounded the use of extraordinary powers (such as indefinite detention and drone strikes) in appeals to a state of war. Via the Guardian:

Continue Reading...

A call that there had been a "discharge of firearms" came into police at 1:35 p.m., John Cannon, the spokesman said. The shots were fired near the ticket counter in Terminal B at Bush Intercontinental Airport, he said. One person has been taken to an area hospital with life threatening injuries.

Dale Howard, of Tomball, was at the baggage handling area of the airport waiting for his sister to arrive on an incoming flight when he heard two shots fired from the floor above. A few seconds later, he said he heard three more shots.

"People were screaming. I knew exactly what it was - gunfire," Howard said.

Police from an adjacent station rushed in, and Howard said he directed them to the floor above.

Parts of the terminal remained blocked off as police investigated the shooting. The airport announced on its Twitter feed that the terminal had been closed and passengers would be redirected to other terminals.

Continue Reading...

[embedtweet id="330035094347722752"]

The tweet is a blunt method of getting the point across. It comes after an even more sharply worded retraction of a Kurtz column that claimed newly out-of-the-closet NBA athlete Jason Collins never mentioned his fiancée in his Sports Illustrated confessional essay. (Collins did mention the fiancée.) Kurtz went on to attempt to clarify his misreading in a manner that only muddied the waters, claiming Collins "downplayed" his past relationships with women and had misled readers about his relationship -- something fairly beyond the scope of the Collins article, and untrue besides.

[embedtweet id="329704758665412609"]

Continue Reading...

Under a new bill, investigators would be able to hack into computers, install spyware, read emails and destroy files.

They could also break into servers located abroad, if they were being used to block services.

Critics say the proposed measures are unnecessary and could set a dangerous precedent for people living under oppressive governments.

Use of the powers would be subject to the approval of a judge, the government stresses.

The bill would also make it a crime for a suspect to refuse to decipher encrypted files during a police investigation.

Continue Reading...

The 44-year-old Kenneth Bae is at least the sixth American detained in North Korea since 2009. The others eventually were deported or released without serving out their terms, some after trips to Pyongyang by prominent Americans, including former presidents.

Analysts say Bae's sentencing could be an effort by Pyongyang to win diplomatic concessions in the ongoing standoff over its nuclear program.

State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said Thursday the U.S. was still seeking to learn the facts of the case. He said the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang, which handles consular matters there for the U.S., did not attend Tuesday's trial.

Continue Reading...

If the measure is signed by Gov. Martin O'Malley, it will make Maryland the 18th state in the nation to do away with the death penalty.

A repeal bill won final passage from the House of Delegates on Friday. It already had been approved by the Senate.

The House advanced the legislation this week after delegates rejected nearly 20 amendments, mostly from Republicans, aimed at keeping capital punishment for the most heinous crimes.

If passed, life without the possibility of parole would be the most severe sentence in the state.

Supporters of repeal argue that the death penalty is costly, error-prone, racially biased and a poor deterrent of crime. But opponents say it is a necessary tool to punish lawbreakers who commit the most egregious crimes.

Maryland has five men on death row. The measure would not apply to them retroactively, but the legislation makes clear that the governor can commute their sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Continue Reading...

On Thursday in the Daily Beast, writer Jonathan Rauch called Flake's "deal-breaker" misguided -- and a GOP "suicide mission" (emphasis mine):

Continue Reading...

1. Auto-renewal scams

Continue Reading...

Now, a new generation of downwinders is getting sick as an emerging industry pushes the next wonder technology -- in this case, high-volume hydraulic fracturing. Whether they live in Texas, Colorado, or Pennsylvania, their symptoms are the same: rashes, nosebleeds, severe headaches, difficulty breathing, joint pain, intestinal illnesses, memory loss, and more. “In my opinion,” says Yuri Gorby of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, “what we see unfolding is a serious health crisis, one that is just beginning.”

Continue Reading...

Time has the details, but the top line is:

When given a choice, 61 percent of Americans say they are more concerned about the government enacting new anti-terrorism policies that restrict civil liberties, compared to 31 percent who say they are more concerned about the government failing to enact strong new anti-terrorism policies.

Only 32 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. government can prevent all major attacks, down from an average of 40 percent in 2011 and 41 percent in 2006. And by contrast with polls taken in the wake of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing, when only 23 percent of voters polled showed reluctance to give up civil liberties to protect terrorism, 49 percent said they were not willing to give up such rights, as opposed to 40 percent who were.

Continue Reading...

Alan Chambers of Exodus International is trying to sanitize his organization's reputation by softening its rhetoric about "curing" gay people, and wants to see others in the movement do the same. Chambers recently invited writer and gay rights activist Jeremy Hooper to join a listserv of 70 socially conservative activists in an effort to expose the violent rhetoric circulating among others in the anti-LGBT equality movement.

As reported by Hooper and ThinkProgress, Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute didn't react well to Hooper's presence on the list:

Continue Reading...

Authorities said the boy had fatally shot his 2-year-old sister, Caroline, in the chest.

In rural southern Kentucky, far removed from the national debate over gun control, where some children get their first guns even before they start first grade, the accident stunned the community.

Kristian's rifle was kept in a corner of the mobile home, and the family didn't realize a bullet had been left in it, Cumberland County Coroner Gary White said.

"Down in Kentucky where we're from, you know, guns are passed down from generation to generation," White said. "You start at a young age with guns for hunting and everything."

What is more unusual than a child having a gun, he said, is "that a kid would get shot with it."

In this case, the rifle was made by a company that sells guns specifically for children — "My first rifle" is the slogan — in colors ranging from plain brown to hot pink to royal blue to multi-color swirls.

Continue Reading...

Obama was to fly to Mexico City on Thursday to meet with President Enrique Pena Nieto, eager to promote Mexico's economic success and the neighboring country's place as the second largest export market for U.S. goods and services. Mexicans will be hanging on the president's words, but Obama also has in mind an important audience back in the United States.

Though the role played by Latino voters in last year's U.S. presidential election gets much credit for the current momentum for changing immigration laws and providing a path to citizenship for 11 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally, another reason for the change in attitudes is that stronger border protections and the recession have been disincentives to cross into the U.S. As a result, illegal immigration has declined.

Continue Reading...

In addition to the 433 confirmed dead, police report that 149 people are still missing in what has become the worst disaster for Bangladesh's $20 billion-a-year garment industry.

Maj. Gen. Chowdhury Hassan Suhrawardy, the commander of the area's army garrison supervising the rescue work, dismissed reports that up to 1,000 people were missing and accusations from some relatives that authorities are hiding the bodies to keep the death toll low.

"Don't listen to such rumors," he told reporters.

A mass Muslim funeral was held Wednesday for 34 victims whose bodies were too battered or decomposed to be identified. Cemetery workers have dug several long rows of graves where scores more unidentified bodies are expected to be buried in the coming days.

Suhrawardy said Thursday that 20 bodies were recovered overnight, bringing the death toll to 430. Several more bodies were recovered throughout the day. Rescue workers believe more bodies are buried on the building's ground level, and were using cranes and cutting machines to clear tons of rubble.

Continue Reading...

While Mayor Bloomberg has been mayor, the NYPD has carried out over 5 million stop-and-frisks. Analysis by the ACLU of official police data found that over 86 percent of the stops were of black or Latino individuals. The analysis of police data also revealed that 88 percent of the stops did not result in an arrest or summons (and of course an even smaller proportion ever lead to a prosecution, or conviction). The number of innocent people stopped alone serves as ample riposte to Kelly's suggestion that any demographic is "understopped."

Continue Reading...

The Obama administration's decision to appeal comes despite a recommendation from the Food and Drug Administration to lift age restrictions and other scientific research saying the drug is safe and effective for all ages.

As the New York Times reports:

The appeal reaffirms an election-year decision by Mr. Obama’s administration to block the drug’s maker from selling it without a prescription or consideration of age, and puts the White House back into the politically charged issue of access to emergency contraception...

By appealing the judge’s ruling, Mr. Obama’s Justice Department is essentially renewing the objections that [secretary of health and human services Kathleen Sebelius] — backed by the president — had more than a year ago. In recent weeks, conservative groups had urged the Justice Department to appeal the judge’s ruling so that the contraception would not be available to very young girls.

On Wednesday, a Justice Department official said the appeal would concentrate on the two areas where the department believes the judge overstepped his legal authority. The official also said the White House had not been involved in the decision of whether to appeal Judge Korman’s ruling.

Reproductive rights advocates have criticized the administration's position on emergency contraception as overtly political and having little to do with science or women's health.

“Age barriers to emergency contraception are not supported by science, and they should be eliminated,” Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement on Wednesday.

Continue Reading...