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US immigration - Quartz
The immigration bill that aims to solve America’s unauthorized immigration problem and clogged visa system is almost through the Senate. The only thing left to do is hand out jobs and cash to the contractors who will secure the US-Mexican border with round-the-clock high-tech surveillance. Today the bill overcame its first procedural hurdle: a vote to bring it up for debate, which passed 82-15. That comfortable margin suggests the bill, after amendments, should muster the 60 votes it’ll need in the Senate to proceed to the consideration of the more skeptical House of Representatives.
Manuel Pedraza / AFP - Getty Images file View of the Hotel Caribe in Cartagena, Colombia, where a prostitution scandal involving U.S. Secret Service agents erupted in April 2012. By Lisa Myers and Mike BrunkerNBC News Two U.S.
EXCLUSIVE: DEA agents arranged prostitute for Secret Service agent
America's Real Criminal Element: Lead
Illustration: Gérard DuBois When Rudy Giuliani ran for mayor of New York City in 1993, he campaigned on a platform of bringing down crime and making the city safe again. It was a comfortable position for a former federal prosecutor with a tough-guy image, but it was more than mere posturing. Since 1960, rape rates had nearly quadrupled, murder had quintupled, and robbery had grown fourteenfold.
The Right to Know, the Responsibility to Protect: State Actions Are Inadequate to Ensure Effective Disclosure of the Chemicals Used in Natural Gas Fracking
Do you know how many natural gas wells are operating in your state or near the watershed that supplies your drinking water? You should. Most of those wells rely on a process known as hydraulic fracturing (or natural gas fracking) that employs toxic chemicals to crack open shale beds and release methane gas. Both the chemicals used in fracking and the methane gas released pose a risk to local water supplies and the health of those who live nearby. Click image to enlarge Source: Al Granberg/ProPublicaTo My Old Master
In August of 1865, a Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, wrote to his former slave, Jourdon Anderson, and requested that he come back to work on his farm. Jourdon — who, since being emancipated , had moved to Ohio, found paid work, and was now supporting his family — responded spectacularly by way of the letter seen below (a letter which, according to newspapers at the time , he dictated). Rather than quote the numerous highlights in this letter, I'll simply leave you to enjoy it.
What happened to the former slave that wrote his old master?
You know that letter from former slave Jourdon Anderson to his old master that's been going around? First of all, it's good and you should read it. As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. David Galbraith poked around a bit and found a record of Anderson still living in Ohio at the time of the 1900 census as "Jordan Anderson". Here's the relevant bit of the census form:
FDA staffers sue agency over surveillance of personal e-mail
The Food and Drug Administration secretly monitored the personal e-mail of a group of its own scientists and doctors after they warned Congress that the agency was approving medical devices that they believed posed unacceptable risks to patients, government documents show. The surveillance — detailed in e-mails and memos unearthed by six of the scientists and doctors, who filed a lawsuit against the FDA in U.S. District Court in Washington last week — took place over two years as the plaintiffs accessed their personal Gmail accounts from government computers. (FDA) - The startup screen on FDA computers warns employees, “you have no reasonable expectation of privacy,” including any communication accessed or sent from the machine. This specific message has appeared since at least December 2010.U.S. District Court Rules Iran Behind 9/11 Attacks
U.S. District Court Rules Iran Behind 9/11 Attacks PR Newswire NEW YORK, December 23, 2011 NEW YORK, December 23, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- A federal district court in Manhattan yesterday entered a historic ruling that reveals new facts about Iran's support of al Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks. U.S. District Judge George B.
U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency Expands War on Drugs
Several news outlets briefly reported the episode, mentioning that a Honduran official said the United States had provided support. But none of the reports included a striking detail: that support consisted of an elite detachment of military-trained D.E.A. special agents who joined in the shootout, according to a person familiar with the episode. The D.E.A. now has five commando-style squads it has been quietly deploying for the past several years to Western Hemisphere nations — including , Honduras, the Dominican Republic, and Belize — that are battling drug cartels, according to documents and interviews with law enforcement officials. The program — called FAST, for Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Team — was created during the to investigate -linked drug traffickers in Afghanistan. Beginning in 2008 and continuing under , it has expanded far beyond the war zone.US culture, religion, etc.
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