1

Valerie Strauss – A primer on the damaging movement to privatize public schools

When, about 30 years ago, corporate interests began their highly organized, well-funded effort to privatize public education, you wouldn’t have read or heard about it. They didn’t want to trigger the debate that such a radical change in an important institution warranted. If, like most pundits and politicians, you’ve supported that campaign, it’s likely you’ve been snookered. Here’s a quick …

1

Andrew Griffin – Too Much Trump? Brilliant Filter Rids the Entire Web of the Donald

Donald Trump can be entirely banned from the internet [3] using a Chrome extension. The software analyses websites for the use of his name and stops access to any website that contains it. Its creator says that the tool hasn’t just been created to filter out the often incendiary pronouncements of the presidential candidate [4] — but in the hope of broadening the debate, …

1

Social networks as important as exercise and diet across the span of our lives

The more social ties people have at an early age, the better their health is at the beginnings and ends of their lives, a new study suggests. Researchers say the study is the first to definitively link social relationships with concrete measures of physical well-being such as abdominal obesity, inflammation, and high blood pressure, all of which are associated with …

1

A National ID Card Is Coming Soon — and You Will Need It to Fly and Drive

On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security released updated information regarding the national identification card known as the REAL ID. Beginning January 22, 2018, all airline passengers will need identification cards that are in compliance with the more secure features required by the REAL ID Act of 2005. The REAL ID Act was passed in response to the 9/11 attacks, as …

Deena Zaidi – The Rise of Shadow Banks and the Repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act

Prior to the 2008 financial crisis, the Federal Reserve had an important role – to solely act as a “lender of last resort” to traditional commercial banks. But during the crisis, the financial support was extended to many non-banking firms like money market mutual funds, the commercial paper market, mortgage-backed securities market and the tri-party repo market. Besides the extensive …

1

David Lindorff – What’s Behind the Fed’s Decision to Raise Interest Rates in a Struggling Economy?

Much has been written and broadcast over the past few weeks in the financial media and the business pages of general-interest newspapers debating the wisdom of the decision in December by Fed Chair Janet Yellen and the Federal Reserve Board to raise interest rates for the first time in almost a decade. On one side of this debate are people …

1

Major Drug Distributors Flooded West Virginia with Millions of Pain Pills

One of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical drug wholesalers is under fire from West Virginia’s attorney general, Patrick Morrisey. On Friday, Morrisey announced a lawsuit against San Francisco-based McKesson Corporation alleging the company violated state consumer protection laws and the Uniform Controlled Substances Act by flooding West Virginia with tens of millions of prescription pills. McKesson allegedly failed to detect, report, …

1

Aaron R. Hanlon – Ayn Rand will destroy the GOP: Paul Ryan, gun control and the brazen, cynical politics of self-interest

Republican legislators and candidates responding to President Obama’s recent executive measures on gun control have openly and willfully distorted the president’s stated policies and ambitions. Thus, when Paul Ryan says “the president has never respected the right to safe and legal gun ownership,” it’s not because his listening and reading comprehension are so poor that he took the following words …

1

Estrogen protects women against the flu, study finds

The female sex hormone estrogen has anti-viral effects against the influenza A virus, commonly known as the flu, a new study in American Journal of Physiology—Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology reports. A virus infects and causes sickness by entering a cell and making copies of itself inside the host cell. When released from infected cells, the virus can spread through …

1

Michael T. Klare – The Oil Pricequake Political Turmoil in a Time of Low Energy Prices

As 2015 drew to a close, many in the global energy industry were praying that the price of oil would bounce back from the abyss, restoring the petroleum-centric world of the past half-century.  All evidence, however, points to a continuing depression in oil prices in 2016 — one that may, in fact, stretch into the 2020s and beyond.  Given the …