Society

Catastrophic Effects of Climate Change
2018-11-25 02:46:14 UTC
(Reuters) - Climate change will cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century, hitting everything from health to infrastructure, according to a government report issued on Friday that the White House called inaccurate. The congressionally mandated report, written with the help of more than a dozen U.S. government agencies and departments, outlined the projected impact of global warming on every corner of American society in a dire warning that is at odds with the Trump administration’s pro-fossil-fuels agenda. “With continued growth in emissions at historic rates, annual losses in some economic secto...
Hateful U.S. Politics Target Minorities and Immigrants
2018-11-02 17:57:53 UTC
Last week, several top Democrats were targeted by pipe bombs, two black Americans were killed in what appeared to be a racially-motivated murder, and a terror attack against Jewish Americans in their place of worship that left 11 people dead. Are American growing more violent? Are they regressing into something akin to what we saw in the 1960s, an era marked by assassinations, civil unrest, and political chaos? Has the cocktail of guns, polarization, and alienation made mass shootings a permanent feature of American life? Read the responses of seven experts below: <blockquote><hr class='grey-line'><h4>Joanne Freeman, author of <a ...
A "MAGA" Terrorist Identified As Mail Bomb Suspect
2018-10-26 21:17:34 UTC
The 56-year-old Cesar Sayoc, the suspected mad bomber who sent possible explosive devices to Democrat leaders attended repeated campaign rallies for Donald Trump and embraced a range of virulent right-wing fringe causes. He’s a true believer in Trump, according to his Facebook Page. The Brooklyn born suspect was arrested at an auto parts store in the nearby city of Plantation. Court records show Sayoc has a history of arrests for theft, illegal possession of steroids and a 2002 charge of making a bomb threat. When he filed for bankruptcy in 2012, he recently lived with his mother. <blockquote><img alt="A_%22maga%22_terrorist_id...
FBI investigating 10 suspicious packages
2018-10-25 19:15:53 UTC
WASHINGTON (AP) — The mail-bomb scare widened Thursday as law enforcement officials seized three more suspicious packages — two addressed to former Vice President Joe Biden and one to actor Robert De Niro — and said they were similar to crude pipe bombs sent to former President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and CNN. None of the devices exploded, and no one was injured. But the packages, sent to prominent Democrats critical of President Donald Trump, heightened nationwide tensions and fears two weeks before major congressional midterm elections. <blockquote><img alt="Fbi_investigating_10_suspicious_packages" src="/system/images/22293/or...
Anti-Trump anger may sweep the US midterm elections
2018-10-24 17:22:40 UTC
(Reuters) - Republican U.S. senators hold growing leads in key races in Texas and Nevada, a Reuters opinion poll showed, dampening Democratic hopes of taking a majority in that chamber in next month’s congressional elections. Eden Stramer, 23, a North Dakota Democrat, says the possibility of abortions becoming illegal again leaves her fuming. And Pattie Blair, 74, a Democratic voter in Phoenix, says anger washes over her every time she sees Trump on television. “It’s the most negative, blackest place to find yourself,” Blair said. “It’s like being in a bucket you can’t get yourself out of – a hand keeps pushing you back in every t...
Migrant caravan: Trump deliberately lying to American people
2018-10-24 01:02:20 UTC
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Mike Pence misstated federal statistics Tuesday when trying to help President Donald Trump make the case that terrorists are among thousands of migrants moving through Mexico toward the U.S. border. Trump himself acknowledged he’s got no proof terrorists are in the mix. A look at their remarks: PENCE: “In the last fiscal year, we apprehended more than 10 terrorists or suspected terrorists per day at our southern border from countries that are referred to in the lexicon as other than Mexico. That means from the Middle East region.” — remarks at a Washington Post event.</p><bl...
US: Deported migrant parents can lose custody of their kids
2018-10-09 17:44:47 UTC
Araceli Ramos sheds a tear as she describes her battle to be reunited with her 5-year-old daughter. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) AP — As the deportees were led off the plane onto the steamy San Salvador tarmac, an anguished Araceli Ramos Bonilla burst into tears, her face contorted with pain: “They want to steal my daughter!” It had been 10 weeks since Ramos had last held her 2-year-old, Alexa. Ten weeks since she was arrested crossing the border into Texas and U.S. immigration authorities seized her daughter and told her she would never see the girl again. What followed — one foster family’s initially successful attempt to wi...
UNHCR: 4 million refugee children can't go to school
2018-09-23 22:16:47 UTC
Four million refugee children around the world are excluded from education, according to a United Nations report. A solution should be to allow refugees to attend regular schools, the UNHCR has demanded. With more and more children forced to leave their homes, the number of refugees out of education has topped four million, according to the UN's Refugee Agency (UNHCR). The figure represents more than half of all school-age refugees around the world, according to the report named "Turn the Tide: Refugee Education in Crisis." <blockquote><h2>Key takeaways from the report</h2><blockquote><I> • There are now 7.4 million school-age refu...
Migraine is misunderstood by those who don't suffer symptoms
2018-09-19 05:10:47 UTC
Migraine is a debilitating neurological disease that is often misunderstood by those who do not suffer symptoms, according to the Migraine Impact Report, a new survey recently released by Eli Lilly and Company and conducted by Nielsen. The report showed that respondents without the disease underestimate the pain and duration of a typical migraine. Ninety one percent of respondents with migraine further agreed that those who do not experience migraine pain do not have a complete understanding of the severity of the disease. <blockquote><img alt="Migraine_is_misunderstood_by_those_who_do_not_suffer_symptoms" src="/system/images/22229...
US government proposes new rules to detain migrant children
2018-09-06 16:10:36 UTC
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration said on Thursday that it plans to withdraw from a federal court agreement that strictly limits the conditions under which authorities can detain migrant children, and proposed new rules that it said would enable it to detain minors during their immigration proceedings. The administration is targeting the Flores Settlement Agreement, a 1997 federal consent decree that places significant curbs on how long and in what conditions the government can detain migrant children as it seeks to dissuade migrants from crossing the U.S. southern border. Immigrants and their advocates are expected to ...
Motorway bridge collapse in Italian city of Genoa
2018-08-14 16:09:17 UTC
ROME (Reuters) - At least 22 people were killed when a motorway bridge collapsed in torrential rains on Tuesday morning over buildings in the northern Italian port city of Genoa, and the deputy transport minister said the death toll would rise. An 80-meter section of the bridge, including one set of the supports that tower above it, crashed down in the rain onto the roof of a factory and other buildings, crushing at least one truck and plunging huge slabs of concrete into the river below. “It’s not acceptable that such an important bridge... was not built to avoid this kind of collapse,” Deputy Transport Minister Edoardo Rixi said on...
Trump’s ‘unmitigated crap’ on California wildfires
2018-08-07 21:23:33 UTC
U.S. President Donald Trump has weighed in on the California wildfires. But it wasn’t to express condolences for the victims or to praise the incredible bravery of firefighters — it was to try to score political points. And he did so by badly twisting the science of how wildfires work. In a now-deleted tweet, Trump blamed “bad environmental laws” for “diverting” water into the Pacific Ocean. Scientists mock Trump’s tweet on wildfires as ‘comedically ill-informed’ and ‘unmitigated crap.’ His climate denial is "a crime against the planet" warns climatologist. <blockquote><img alt="Trump_has_said_that_climate_change_is_a_hoax_%e...
Judge: Trump Administration Must Fully Restore DACA Program
2018-08-04 04:31:18 UTC
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday ruled that the Trump administration must fully restore a program that protects from deportation some young immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children, including accepting new applications for the program. U.S. District Judge John Bates in Washington, D.C., said he would stay Friday’s order, however, until August 23 to give the administration time to decide whether to appeal. Bates first issued a ruling in April ordering the federal government to continue the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, including taking applications. He stayed that...
Americans fleecing their savings and piling up debt
2018-07-23 17:42:08 UTC
REUTERS — Despite roaring job growth and consumer spending, the U.S. economy is bolstered in large part by the poorer half of Americans fleecing their savings and piling up debt. A Reuters analysis of U.S. household data shows that the bottom 60 percent of income-earners have accounted for most of the rise in spending over the past two years even as the their finances worsened - a break with a decades-old trend where the top 40 percent had primarily fueled consumption growth. With borrowing costs on the rise, inflation picking up and the effects of President Donald Trump’s tax cuts set to wear off, a negative shock - a further rise i...
FREDERICK DOUGLASS: This Fourth of July is yours, not mine
2018-07-04 18:39:22 UTC
Frederick Douglass, once a slave, became a brilliant and powerful leader of the anti-slavery movement. In 1852, he was asked to speak in celebration of the Fourth of July. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. On July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, he gave one of his most famous speeches, “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro.” He was addressing the Rochester Ladies Antislavery Society. <blockquote> This is actor James Earl Jones reading the speech during a performance of historian Howard Zinn’s acclaimed book, “Voices of a People’s History of the United States.” <I>James Ea...
California Democrat plays audio of children crying in detention center
2018-06-23 06:04:50 UTC
Washington — Temporarily presiding over the U.S. House on Friday, U.S. Rep. Karen Handel, R-Roswell, found herself injected into the debate over family separation when U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu, a California Democrat, refused to turn off a ProPublica recording of children crying in a detention center. Lieu began his six-minute speech of an administration policy that President Donald Trump reversed on Thursday with a religious-oriented condemnation. Two minutes into his time, he reached into his jacket and apparently turned on a recording device. Handel, taking her turn as the designated Republican overseeing actions in the chamber, immediat...
Nikki Haley dismisses report on extreme poverty in America
2018-06-21 22:19:42 UTC
WASHINGTON — In a letter to U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) following his call for the Trump administration to uphold international human rights treaty obligations and present Congress with a plan to alleviate poverty, United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley dismissed a non-partisan U.N. report on extreme poverty in America as “politically motivated” and “misleading.” “It is patently ridiculous for the United Nations to examine poverty in America,” Haley wrote to Sanders on Thursday. “The Special Rapporteur wasted the UN’s time and resources, deflecting attention from the world’s worst human rights abusers and focusing instead on the we...
UN: Poverty in America dramatically inclining under Trump
2018-06-02 19:08:30 UTC
UN: The United States remains the most unequal society in the developed world. GENEVA (Reuters) - Poverty in the United States is extensive and deepening under the Trump administration whose policies seem aimed at removing the safety net from millions of poor people, while rewarding the rich, a U.N. human rights investigator has found. Philip Alston, U.N. special rapporteur on extreme poverty, called on U.S. authorities to provide solid social protection and address underlying problems, rather than “punishing and imprisoning the poor”. While welfare benefits and access to health insurance are being slashed, President Donald Tr...
US TV show 'Roseanne' canceled after star's racist tweets
2018-05-29 22:29:20 UTC
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co’s ABC network on Tuesday swiftly canceled the popular U.S. television comedy “Roseanne” after star Roseanne Barr incited outrage by comparing a black former Obama administration official to an ape in remarks on Twitter. The show, a revival of the 1990s hit “Roseanne,” was ABC’s most widely watched primetime show for the TV season that ended last week. President Donald Trump has cited its huge viewership as evidence his supporters, who include Barr, want shows that speak to their concerns. “Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided ...
Tesla in 'Autopilot' mode crashes into parked police vehicle
2018-05-29 21:53:47 UTC
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The driver of a Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) vehicle crashed into an unoccupied, parked police vehicle in Laguna Beach, California, on Tuesday and the driver told investigators the Tesla was in “Autopilot” mode at the time, a police spokesman said. The driver suffered minor injuries, Laguna Beach Sergeant Jim Cota said. Asked about Tuesday’s crash, Tesla said, “When using Autopilot, drivers are continuously reminded of their responsibility to keep their hands on the wheel and maintain control of the vehicle at all times. Tesla has always been clear that Autopilot doesn’t make the car impervious to all accidents.” <hr><I>...
France hails ‘heroic’ immigrant who scaled building to rescue dangling child
2018-05-28 06:11:36 UTC
A video of a dramatic rescue of a small child in Paris has gone viral on social media, with people calling the rescuer a real Spider-Man. President Emmanuel Macron is to thank the young migrant for his bravery. <blockquote>Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has praised the heroic actions of an immigrant from Mali after he climbed the side of a four-story building to save a child dangling from a ledge. "Congratulations to Mamoudou Gassama for his act of bravery that saved the life of a child," said Hidalgo, adding that the city would support Gassama's dream of settling permanently in France. Hidalgo spoke to Gassama personally by phone to thank ...
Trump's barbaric immigration policy: A moral abomination and a national shame
2018-05-27 08:06:47 UTC
The Trump administration is forcibly taking migrant children from their parents and placing them in separate detention centers, to “deter” illegal immigration. On Saturday morning, President Donald Trump claimed it is all Democrats fault. Amid growing outrage over his administration's policy of separating migrant families crossing the U.S. border, Trump pretended that it wasn't his problem, and suggested the blame should lie with Democrats. <blockquote><a href="http://www.global-gathering.com/pictures/22101"><img alt="Immigration_trump" src="/system/images/22102/original/Immigration_Trump.jpg?1527403436" /></a> “Put pressure on ...
Rise of alt-right in Trump's America
2018-05-27 00:22:24 UTC
Discrimination against black Americans, Jews and immigrants, and more recently gays and lesbians shows the rise of the alt-right movement in the US and how it has blatantly reemerged since the 2016 presidential election. Today, nearly 200 headstones were vandalized with swastikas at the Sunset Hill Cemetery in Glen Carbon, Illinois. Homes in a subdivision in neighboring Edwardsville, Illinois, were also vandalized with swastikas. Glen Carbon is located about 20 miles northeast of St. Louis. The headstones were spray-painted sometime between midnight and 7 a.m. Saturday morning. The vandalism is being considered as institutional...
Victory for women: Ireland ends abortion ban
2018-05-26 17:40:06 UTC
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland has voted by a landslide to liberalize its highly restrictive abortion laws in a referendum that its prime minister called the culmination of a “quiet revolution” in what was one of Europe’s most socially conservative countries. Voters in the once deeply Catholic nation were estimated to have backed the change by more than two-to-one, according to two exit polls released on Friday evening, and the government plans to bring in legislation by the end of the year. “It’s incredible. For all the years and years and years we’ve been trying to look after women and not been able to look after women, this means ever...
Police targeted a black activist who was stabbed by white supremacist
2018-05-25 19:51:16 UTC
Cedric O’Bannon, an independent journalist who was documenting a white supremacist rally in Sacramento, felt a sudden sharp pain on his side as he was filming the neo-Nazi violence against counter-protesters with his GoPro camera. But the pain soon became overwhelming. He lifted up his blood-soaked shirt and realized that one of the men carrying a pole with a blade on the end of it had stabbed him in the stomach, puncturing him nearly two inches deep. He limped his way to an ambulance. <blockquote><img alt="White_supremacist_rally_in_sacramento" src="/system/images/14845/original/white_supremacist_rally_in_Sacramento.jpg?1527276764" />...