A report released today by Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) concludes American firearms are arming Mexico’s brutal drug trafficking organizations at an alarming rate.According to the report, issued with data sourced by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives (ATF), the vast majority of weapons traced by [...]

Speaking at a Democratic Party event, Senator Bernie Sanders talks about social security and the myths of social security’s tax burden on Americans. He has some fighting words for Republicans who want to cut or eliminate the Social Security program.

Weekly roundups are posted once in a while, and feature a select list of noteworthy news, readings, videos, and other media from news sites and the blogosphere, from the previous week.   Conflict and Violence MJ Rosenburg, Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at the Media Matters Action Network posted a piercing analysis of a recent AIPAC [...]

According to the latest report released by the International Organization of Migration, more than 1.28 million people have been uprooted as a result of the recent violence in Libya. Of this figure, about one million are Libyan nationals and about a quarter million are third country nationals, many of whom were guest workers. Of the [...]

This Thursday, the United Egg Producers and the United States Humane Society signed an agreement giving chickens more living space. The proposed legislation would: mandate a replacement of conventional cages (currently used by more than 90 percent of the egg industry) with new housing systems that provide each hen nearly double the amount of space [...]

Three dedicated women in the West Bank are hoping to break the Guinness World Record for the biggest straw tray ever constructed in history. The project, which the women have been working on for over two years, was begun by Rose Hamad, a resident of a small village near the city of Ramallah. The straw [...]

The status of Palestinian political prisoners in Israel has long been regarded as one of the central factors in the negotiation of a peace agreement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As of 2010 over 7,000 Palestinian prisoners are incarcerated in Israeli prisons, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. The most famous of these is [...]

On Tuesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa P. Jackson announced the organization’s plan to award $6.2 million in workforce development and job training grants to 21 communities across the nation. Organizations eligible for the grants include state environmental agencies, government and community-based groups. The funds, used to train job-seekers in the green industry, [...]

Bangkok, Thailand’s capital city, is rapidly sinking. To make matters worse, sea levels around the country are rising rapidly. Rather than constructing levees or dams, S+PBA bothered to ask — Why not use nature’s existing resources to prevent natural disasters that are affecting not only Thailand’s biggest cities but its most vulnerable populations? The company’s [...]

Trying to stay cool? Syrians have been using these earthen houses for that exact purpose since 3,700 BC. Made from mud, straw, dirt, and stones, the beehive-like dwellings are lean, green, and super-cool to look at. Beehive houses, built throughout the rural farming communities of Syria’s hottest deserts, are also found in it’s largest urban [...]