Alabama Town Cancels Contract with Private Probation Company

(HRW) – Gina Harper is a Gardendale, Alabama resident who pled guilty to driving on a revoked driver’s license. When she couldn’t pay the US$715 in court costs, she was placed on probation with Private Probation Services, and sentenced to 48 hours in jail. A few months later, Gina owed nearly $900- the court fees, plus monthly fees for PPS. Thanks to a recent court settlement, no one who comes before the Gardendale Municipal Court in the next year on misdemeanor charges will end up deeper in debt because of…

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Can Antifa Build an Effective Broad-Based Anti-Fascist Movement?

United States (WNV) – In March, Richard Spencer, a prominent white supremacist, cancelled his speaking engagements at U.S. universities, saying he was deterred by “antifa,” a loose international network of radical anti-fascist groups that aims to shut down far-right talks and rallies. For antifa members and supporters, Spencer’s capitulation was both vindication of their aggressive tactics and a sign of their success in opposing fascism. These confrontations between far-right activists and antifa groups — on the rise since the election of Donald Trump — are often presented as involving two opposing values: free…

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A ‘Huge Win’: EU Bees May Rest Easy as Dangerous Pesticide Outlawed

Europe (Sputnik) – On Friday, European regulators banned a widely-used class of pesticides called neonicotinoids, a move called a “huge win” and “groundbreaking” by campaigners. “The EU’s groundbreaking ban on bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides is a huge win for pollinators, people, and the planet,” said Tiffany Finck-Haynes, senior food futures campaigner for Friends of the Earth (FOE), Common Dreams reported. In addition, Lori Ann Burd, director of the European Center for Biological Diversity’s environmental health program, called the move a win for “science-based regulation of pesticides.” According to a recent statement by the European Union, the three types of neonicotinoid pesticides —…

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Why Pilgrims from India and Nepal Throng to See An Orchid That Blooms in April

Shrine dedicated to gardener sisters whom Salahesh used to meet at the Salahesh fulbari in Siraha district of eastern Nepal. Image by Sanjib Chaudhary. (GV) – An orchid that blooms around mid-April in a garden of historical and cultural significance in Siraha, eastern Nepal attracts hordes of pilgrims from both India and Nepal every year. The locals in the area of the garden, known as the Salahesh Fulbari, believe that the flower blooms on the very first day of the year, 1st of Baishakh (the first month in the Nepali Calendar). According…

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Death Toll in Chinese School Stabbing Climbs to 9

(Sputnik) – The Mizhi county government said on Weibo that two students had died of their wounds in hospital. It said initially that seven children were killed and 12 injured. The 28-year-old man, a former student, attacked schoolchildren on their way home. The suspect was promptly detained. He confessed he wanted to get revenge for having been bullied. Stabbings, including at schools, are not uncommon in China. Last February, a man stabbed a woman to death and injured 12 other people at a shopping mall in Beijing. Originally published by Sputnik Image Source: Daniel R. Blume, Flickr, Creative CommonsKnife Share this:

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Why Are Palestinians Protesting in Gaza?

(OW) – Once again, the Israeli military has turned its guns on Gaza — this time on unarmed protestors, in a series of shootings over the last few weeks. Gaza’s already under-resourced hospitals are straining to care for the 1,600 protesters who have been injured, on top of 40 killed. According to a group of United Nations experts, “there is no available evidence to suggest that the lives of heavily armed security forces were threatened” by the unarmed demonstrators they fired on. The violence is getting some coverage in the…

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Some women feel grief after an abortion, but there’s no evidence of serious mental health issues

(Conversation) – This week, the website Mamamia published, and then quickly removed, an article about the existence of “post-abortion syndrome” – a disorder apparently experienced by many women who have had an abortion. The article claimed this disorder has been concealed from the public and that the trauma of an induced abortion can be comparable to the experience of child sexual abuse or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) suffered by war veterans. Neither the term “post-abortion syndrome”, nor the claims about its characteristics, are supported by any national or international psychological…

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Rosalind Franklin still doesn’t get the recognition she deserves for her DNA discovery

(Conversation) – Visiting the Institut Curie in Paris recently got me thinking about the distinct lack of famous female Nobel Prize winners in science (Marie Curie excepted). The world rightly celebrated the incredible life and achievements of Stephen Hawking when he died last month. Yet the recent 60th anniversary of another brilliant scientist who also didn’t win a Nobel Prize but who happened to be a woman passed pretty much unnoticed. Rosalind Franklin died on April 16th 1958 at the tender age of 37, but packed at least two lifetime’s…

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UN High Commissioner Calls on World Bank to ‘Marry’ Rights and Development

(HRW) – Last week the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein reminded a room of World Bank economists that human rights are “also your job,” and called on the institution to “marry human rights and economics.” That call, at a World Bank event to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, echoes criticism by Human Rights Watch and numerous other civil society organizations that the World Bank needs to do a better job of making human rights central to its mission…

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Canary in the Coal Pond

United States (ProPublica) – In tests conducted in late 2017, one in three coal-fired power plants nationwide detected “statistically significant” amounts of contaminants, including harmful chemicals like arsenic, in the groundwater around their facilities. This information, which utility companies had to post on their websites in March, became public for the first time under an Obama-era environmental rule regulating coal ash, the waste generated from burning coal. Mixed with water and stored in ponds and landfills at nearly 300 facilities across the country, coal ash has been found to contain carcinogens…

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