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‘All I could do was sit there and hold her’

Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

oklahoman.com - By Nolan Clay, Andrew Knittle - May. 23 (News Report) - Huddled together in a bathtub, Laurinda Vargyas held her baby girl and 4-year-old girl tight as the tornado began shaking apart their south Oklahoma City home Monday.

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Oklahoma Senators Jim Inhofe, Tom Coburn, Face Difficult Options On Disaster Relief

Tue, 21 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Christina Wilkie - May. 21 (News Analysis) - Sens. Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn, both Republicans, are fiscal hawks who have repeatedly voted against funding disaster aid for other parts of the country. They also have opposed increased funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which administers federal disaster relief. Late last year, Inhofe and Coburn both backed a plan to slash disaster relief to victims of Hurricane Sandy. In a December press release, Coburn complained that the Sandy Relief bill contained "wasteful spending," and identified a series of items he objected to, including "$12.9 billion for future disaster mitigation activities and studies."

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The 4 Big Ways That Insatiable Corporate Hunger for Profits Has Devastated American Life -- and the World Along with It

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Paul Buchheit - May. 19 (Special Report) - In this dream world of global capitalism, young people are going from zero income on the farm to a few dollars a day on a 12-hour factory shift, and as a result, based on the World Bank's poverty threshold of $1.25 per day, they're no longer "in poverty." So the media piles on praise for free markets. The Economist proclaimed that "poverty is declining everywhere." The Washington Post gushed that "a billion people have been lifted from poverty through free-market competition."

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Honey Bee Die-Off Caused By Multiple Factors Including Pesticides

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

billmoyers.com - By Therisa Riley - May. 19 (News) - A federal study released today attributes the massive die-off in American honey bee colonies to a combination of factors, including pesticides, poor diet, parasites and a lack of genetic diversity. Nearly a third of honey bee colonies in the United States have been wiped out since 2006. The estimated value of crops lost if bees were no longer able to pollinate fruits and vegetables is around $15 billion.

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Climate Tipping Point? Concentration of Carbon Dioxide Tops 400 ppm For First Time in Human History

Mon, 13 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - May. 13 (News Report) - The 400 ppm threshold has been an important marker in U.N. climate change negotiations, widely recognized as a dangerous level that could drastically worsen human-caused global warming. We speak to leading climate scientist Michael Mann, distinguished professor of meteorology at Penn State University and author of the recent book, "The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines." Mann warns, "We have to go several million years back in time to find a point in Earth’s history where CO2 was as high as it is now.

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Is Climate Change Fueling a Deadly Disease in California and Other Parched States?

Mon, 13 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Tara Lohan - May. 13 (News Report) - If you haven’t heard of valley fever, you’re not alone. Although cases in states like California are rising, public awareness is low and misdiagnoses from doctors are sadly high. The AP reported an 850 percent spike in cases across the country from 1998 to 2011, with California and Arizona being the worst states.

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This Crater in Siberia Reveals the Future of a Globally Warmed Planet

Fri, 10 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Damian Carrington - May. 10 (News Report) - This story originally appeared in The Guardian . The future of a globally warmed world has been revealed in a remote meteorite crater in Siberia, where lake sediments recorded the strikingly balmy climate of the Arctic during the last period when greenhouse gas levels were as high as today. Unchecked burning of fossil fuels has driven carbon dioxide to levels not seen for 3 million years when, the sediments show, temperatures were 46 degrees higher than today, lush forests covered the tundra and sea levels were up to 40 meters higher than today. "It's like deja vu," said Prof Julie Brigham-Grette, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who led the new research analyzing a core of sediment to see what temperatures in the region were between 3.6 and 2.2 million years ago. "We have seen these warm periods before. Many people now agree this is where we are heading." Continue Reading ...

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Why Are These Turtles Turning Female?

Tue, 07 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Nick Visser - May. 07 (News Analysis) - If you're a male painted turtle, global warming might sound great at first: A new study suggests it will mean more females to mate with and fewer male rivals to fend off. But, as usual with climate change, every silver lining has a cloud. In this case, too many females could render the species incapable of reproducing by century's end.

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Palisades Nuclear Power Plant Shut Down After Water Leaks Into Lake Michigan

Mon, 06 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - May. 06 (News) - Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in southwestern Michigan was taken offline Sunday after operators discovered a leak from a water tank. Although the tank has leaked twice in less than a year, officials say there is no immediate risk. "There is no impact on

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America Is One Bad Winter Away From A Food Disaster

Mon, 06 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Todd Woody - May. 06 (News Report) - Forget the plight of the polar bear for a moment and consider the coming collapse of the $30 billion honey bee economy in the US. Since 2006 honey bees responsible for pollinating more than 100 crops—from apples to zucchini—have been dying by the tens of millions.

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Do visas for skilled foreigners shut out U.S. tech workers?

Sun, 05 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

seattletimes.com - By Kyung M. Song, Janet I. Tu - May. 05 (Special Report) - Though he was then in his late 50s, Erickson figured the drumbeat of complaints from Microsoft and other tech companies about a dearth of good applicants promised an easy career switch. Nine months past his graduation, however, Erickson has yet to find full-time work. “When I saw my (philosophy) career was going to be over, I retrained myself,” Erickson, now 60, said. “What good is that if I’m not actually going to get a job?”

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Reinhart, Rogoff Backing Furiously Away From Austerity Movement

Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Mark Gongloff - May. 02 (News Report) - Under steady attack after their seminal research was found to be riddled with errors, Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff are making a show of backing away from the austerity that their research encouraged. They claim that their views on austerity have never changed, but the record tells a different story. They're still trying to have it both ways -- advocating for government belt-tightening while trying to avoid being seen as political.

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ExxonMobil’s tar-sands pipeline leaks again

Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Grist - By John Upton - May. 02 (News Report) - The very same pipeline that blackened Mayflower has leaked oil into a yard and killed plants in Doniphan, Mo., some 170 miles northeast of Mayflower.

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Mind-boggling infographic shows why sharks should be way more scared of you

Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Grist - By Jess Zimmerman - May. 02 (Special Report) - (see the graphic)

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Monsanto's Roundup Linked to Parkinson's, Infertility and Cancers

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Carey Gillam - Apr. 28 (News Report) - The peer-reviewed report, published last week in the scientific journal Entropy, said evidence indicates that residues of "glyphosate," the chief ingredient in Roundup weed killer, which is sprayed over millions of acres of crops, has been found in food.

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Zimbabwe lures investors to solve drought

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

aljazeera.com - Apr. 27 (News Report) - With Zimbabwe facing a water crisis, people in some parts of the capital Harare have gone for months without access to clean water. Now the government is trying to attract private investors to help fix the problem.

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Why Your Supermarket Only Sells Five Kinds of Apples

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Rowan Jacobsen - Apr. 26 (Special Report) - Every fall at Maine's Common Ground Country Fair, the Lollapalooza of sustainable agriculture, John Bunker sets out a display of eccentric apples. Last September, once again, they covered every possible size, shape, and color in the wide world of appleness. There was a gnarled little yellow thing called a Westfield Seek-No-Further; a purplish plum impostor called a Black Oxford; a massive, red-streaked Wolf River; and one of Thomas Jefferson's go-to fruits, the Esopus Spitzenburg. Bunker is known in Maine as "The Apple Whisperer," or simply "The Apple Guy," and, after laboring for years in semi-obscurity, he has never been in more demand.

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Roundup, An Herbicide, Could Be Linked To Parkinson's, Cancer And Other Health Issues, Study Shows

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - Apr. 25 (News) - residues enhance the damaging effects of other food-borne chemical residues and toxins in the environment to disrupt normal body functions and induce disease, according to the report, authored by Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Anthony Samsel, a retired science consultant from Arthur D. Little, Inc. Samsel is a former private environmental government contractor as well as a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body," the study says.

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Twitter Causes A Flash Crash, Highlighting Market's Structural Problems

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Mark Gongloff - Apr. 23 (News) - You could say that this is a sign that high-frequency trading -- and the flash crashes that come with it -- aren't really such bad things. But these events are steadily chipping away at investor confidence in the markets. And the next crash might not be so easily shaken off. "It'll happen again," Saluzzi said. "It's a matter of when."

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Resource Shock: How Resource Scarcity and Climate Change Could Produce a Global Explosion

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Michael T. Klare - Apr. 22 (Special Report) - Two nightmare scenarios -- a global scarcity of vital resources and the onset of extreme climate change -- are already beginning to converge and in the coming decades are likely to produce a tidal wave of unrest, rebellion, competition, and conflict.

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Are Happy Gut Bacteria Key to Weight Loss?

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Moises Velasquez-Manoff - Apr. 22 (Special Report) - A few years before Super Size Me hit theaters in 2004, Dr. Paresh Dandona , a diabetes specialist in Buffalo, New York, set out to measure the body's response to McDonald's —specifically breakfast. Over several mornings, he fed nine normal-weight volunteers an egg sandwich with cheese and ham, a sausage muffin sandwich, and two hash brown patties.

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Sandra Steingraber, Others Get 15 Days in Jail for Civil Disobedience Against Gas Co.

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Common Dreams - By Jon Queally - Apr. 19 (News Report) - Three upstate New York community members-cum-activists, charged with criminal trespass for blockading a gas company installation last month, were sentenced to 15 days in jail on Wednesday by a local judge in an upstate courthouse. Among those sentenced was university biology professor and author Sandra Steingraber, who delivered an impassioned statement ahead of the sentencing explaining why she was compelled to civil disobedience and why she would refuse to pay the fine levied by the judge.

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While West, Texas, Burned, Its Famous Czech Bakery Kept the Kolaches Coming

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Dana Liebelson, Jaeah Lee, Tasneem Raja - Apr. 19 (News Report) - There's a Czech bakery, deli, and gas station combo in tiny West, Texas that's world-famous for serving up fruit kolaches and hot chubbies to locals and tourists driving on I-35 between Dallas and Austin, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for the last 29 years. Last night was no exception. In the wake of the massive explosion and fire that rocked a fertilizer plant just three miles down the road, Czech Stop kept its doors open—and the kolaches coming—almost without interruption. "I rushed up there after it happened because one of my employees said the ceiling was falling in," says Barbara Schissler, president of the Czech Stop empire, who"s worked there since it opened in 1983. "One of our freelance carpenters recommended that we close the doors, but when I showed up, I saw only the ceiling tiles were buckling, so I reopened.

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Paul Ryan's Austerity Agenda Relies on Bad Math, Coding Errors and a 'Significant Mistake'

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By John Nichols - Apr. 18 (News Analysis) - The paper the House Budget Committee chairman has used as the intellectual and statistical underpinning for his austerity agenda has been significantly discredited by the revelation that essential data was excluded from the study, leading "to serious errors that inaccurately represent the relationship between public debt and growth." The Harvard professors who produced the paper—which Ryan cited as recently as last month—have acknowledged their mathematical error. Now, the question is whether Ryan and

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Obama’s Numbers (Quarterly Update)

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson - Apr. 17 (Fact Check) - Reviewing some key statistical measures of Barack Obama's presidency so far, we find: The economy has added more jobs since Obama took office than it did in his predecessor's entire eight years in office. Despite the improved economy, the number of people receiving food-stamp assistance has continued to grow, and now more people have been added to the food-stamp rolls ... More >>

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