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Member of the Congressional Black Caucus and Rev. Yearwood discuss the need to pass legislation that will help employ young people in summer job programs.
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By Aljazeera The US government has accepted offers of help from 12 countries and international organisations in dealing with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The assistance includes special oil skimming equipment, floating booms designed to contain the oil, as well as personnel, the US State Department said on Tuesday. Countries from which the US had accepted offers of help included Japan, Norway and Canada, while offers were also being considered from countries as diverse as China, Kenya and Vietnam. Overall US officials said 27 countries had offered assistance ranging from vessels and dispersant, to fire boom and technical personnel. Continue reading HERE
by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar for The Associated Press
The Obama administration is launching a special coverage program for uninsured Americans with medical problems this week, the most ambitious early investment of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.
But here's the catch: Premiums will be a stretch for many, even after government subsidies to bring rates close to what healthier groups of people are charged.
And $5 billion that Congress allocated to the program through 2013 could run out well before that.
Continue reading HERE
By Darren Goode and Ben Geman for The Hill
A much-hyped White House meeting Tuesday between President Barack Obama and a bipartisan group of senators produced no breakthrough as the political sands continue to run out on passing a climate bill this year.
But Democratic leaders may seek to keep the issue alive by using energy and oil spill legislation as the base for a Senate floor battle that would allow them to salvage climate provisions — possibly ones limited just to electric power plants.
“While it was a good conversation, when you’ve got that many members with that many different opinions, I think it’s fair to say that there was no consensus about what the path forward is,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the ranking member on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and one of nearly two dozen lawmakers to attend the meeting.
Continue reading HERE
The Atakapa Ishak tribe of coastal Louisiana has inhabited the region for time without number. In the 21st century they still maintain a lifestyle and culture that is inherited from their ancestors. Now, in the wake of the BP Oil Spill, they struggle to keep their identity and their way of life.
By Sharon Cohen for The Associated Press
For each boy, the new school offered an escape and a chance at a life that seemed beyond reach.
Krishaun Branch was getting D's, smoking reefer a lot, skipping school twice a week. His mother was too busy working to know what he was doing. He liked to hang out in the streets; having relatives in gangs was his armor.
When a young man came to tell his eighth-grade class about a new high school on Chicago's South Side, Krishaun wanted no part of it — until he heard students would have laptops. Suddenly, he was on board.
Marlon Marshall was nonchalant about everything, school included. His mother pressed him to go to college, but it seemed like a pipe dream. Sometimes she'd yell at him and his brothers for his bad grades. Once she just cried when she picked up their report cards
Marlon had heard, too, about the new school. Students would be accepted by lottery so his mediocre grades wouldn't disqualify him. He thought it was worth a shot.
Continue reading HERE
By Wendy McElroy for Gizmodo
In response to a flood of Facebook and YouTube videos that depict police abuse, a new trend in law enforcement is gaining popularity. In at least three states, it is now illegal to record any on-duty police officer.
Even if the encounter involves you and may be necessary to your defense, and even if the recording is on a public street where no expectation of privacy exists.
The legal justification for arresting the "shooter" rests on existing wiretapping or eavesdropping laws, with statutes against obstructing law enforcement sometimes cited. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland are among the 12 states in which all parties must consent for a recording to be legal unless, as with TV news crews, it is obvious to all that recording is underway. Since the police do not consent, the camera-wielder can be arrested. Most all-party-consent states also include an exception for recording in public places where "no expectation of privacy exists" (Illinois does not) but in practice this exception is not being recognized.
Continue reading HERE
For Reuters
U.S. President Barack Obama will meet with senators on Tuesday to push for passage this year of a bill to fight climate change and revamp energy policy, the White House said.
The meeting, to be held at 10:50 a.m. EDT at the White House, will involve 23 Democratic and Republican senators, including Democrat John Kerry and independent Senator Joe Lieberman, who authored the energy bill that is currently languishing in the Senate.
Republican Lindsey Graham, another architect of the bill who later pulled out, was not on the list provided by the White House of senators expected to attend.
Continue reading HERE
By CNN Staff
Police in Cyprus arrested Tuesday an 11th suspect in an alleged Russian spy ring in the United States.
Robert Christopher Metsos, 55, was arrested in Larnaca after an Interpol "red notice" was served on him, Cypriot police told CNN. He was traveling on a Canadian passport and was about to board a flight to Budapest, Hungary.
He has been released on bail pending further proceedings but is not allowed to leave the country, police said. Metsos faces extradition to the United States.
The U.S. Justice Department announced Monday that 10 people were arrested on charges of being Russian agents involved in a long-term mission in the United States.
Continue reading HERE
Written Mike Casey for Energy Boom
Trying to answer the troubling questions about how the BP Oil Disaster was allowed to happen keeps turning up the same catastrophic mixture of lies, mismanagement, corner cutting, and recklessness. It’s clear now that the oil companies know how to get oil from deep underwater, but have no idea how to prevent or stop a disaster with any reliability.
How could we have given companies with such inherently destructive practices access to priceless public property, when they had no ability to care for it? Who let them do this?
The Department of Energy’s Minerals Management Service (MMS), particularly under George Bush, was the center of this corrupt permissiveness. Inspectors on drugs, revolving door deals for staff, prostitutes, and chronic understaffing. The accounts are a like a horror show, almost as bad as the destruction to our Gulf that BP is inflicting.
As Rolling Stone Magazine reports, the deals birthed in those unholy alliances include oil executives giving MMS managers cash and gifts in exchange for pushing through risky offshore leases, turning a blind eye to suspect environmental reviews, and allowing oil execs to write their own inspection reports.
What almost looks Photoshopped, the oil slick appears grayish in the images and is changing due to weather, ocean currents and the use of toxic dispersing chemicals. And let's not forget how the estimates of the oil spill keep increasing. MODIS--aboard NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites--captures Earth's landmasses in near real time. Both satellites orbit the Earth from pole to pole, capturing most of the globe every day. MODIS-Terra captures the Earth during the morning where MODIS-Aqua captures the afternoon.
An Open Letter, A Call to Action to Our Hip-Hop Community: Put Us Women On That Line-Up & Stop the Disrespect!
June 28th, 2010
by admin
A BIG THANK YOU TO MY SISTER IN THE MOVEMENT – ROSA CLEMENTE WHO IS MY INSPIRATION TO WRITE THIS PIECE… I LOVE YOU SISTER!
Dear Hip-Hop Community
I come to you openly as a long-time Hip-Hop DJ, Hip-Hop Poet, Hip-Hop lover, fan and etc… I come to you as someone who appreciates all of you whole-heartedly, for all that you do for Hip-Hop, for all that you do for keeping Hip-Hop going, living and breathing. I come to you for giving so much to Hip-Hop, for providing all of us with such dope Hip-Hop beats, rhythm’s and dance. I come to you for all that we have been through with Hip-Hop. I come to you because I know Hip-Hop is a space for me to be honest, a space for me to challenge others and myself.
But I also come to you as a woman in Hip-Hop, a community organizer, a Hip-Hop feminist and activist who is tired; tired of the industry that can be so cold in leaving women out of the picture all of the time. And sadly, when we are in the picture, we’re often pictured in misogynistic, sexist videos and pictures. I am tired of seeing these images over and over again. I am also tired of not having enough alternatives of these sexist music. And even when there are these so-called “alternative” spaces, it’s just as sexist too. That’s right, I’m not just talking about “mainstream” Hip-Hop, I’m also talking about that “alternative” what has often been labeled “underground Hip-Hop”, “real Hip-Hop” too. However, let me be clear that I also say “industry” because it is not Hip-Hop culture that treats women this way. Sadly, it is our own people in this industry that is doing this to our women, and each other.
Continue reading HERE
By CNN Staff
CIA Director Leon Panetta said Sunday that the war in Afghanistan had "serious problems," but the U.S.-led mission was making progress.
"It's harder, it's slower than I think anyone anticipated," said Panetta, the nation's top intelligence officer, in a rare media interview with the ABC program "This Week."
He cited governance problems, drug trafficking and the Taliban insurgency -- all in a tribal society -- as the major challenges to the goal of "making sure al Qaeda never finds another safe haven from which to attack this country."
"Winning in Afghanistan is having a country that is stable enough to ensure that there is no safe haven for al Qaeda or for a militant Taliban that welcomes al Qaeda," Panetta said.
Continue reading HERE
Congress passed the Summer Jobs Bill which would provide 500,000 jobs to youth across America. However, Senate has failed to see the importance of this bills passage.
By Michael Kunzelman for The Associated Press
The Justice Department had asked U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman to delay his ruling until the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans can review it. Feldman rejected that request Thursday.
On Tuesday, he struck down the Interior Department's moratorium that halted approval of new permits for deepwater projects and suspended drilling on 33 exploratory wells. Feldman concluded the government simply assumed that because one deepwater rig went up in flames, others were dangerous too.
The moratorium was imposed after the offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20, killing 11 workers. Oil has been gushing from the blown-out well ever since.
Continue reading HERE
By Jennifer H. Cunningham for theGrio
For generations, residents in the predominantly African-American towns dotting the East Bank of the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish La., have made a living by fishing the waters surrounding them.
But many in these rural communities, which were almost destroyed by Hurricane Katrina nearly five years ago, fear their health, environment and livelihoods are in jeopardy thanks to the Gulf oil spill. It has sickened residents, threatened their traditional way of life, crippled the fishing industry there and left scores out of work.
"There's just so many uncertainties," said the Rev. Tyronne Edwards, a Plaquemines Parish native and the founder and executive director of the Zion Travelers Cooperative Center in Phoenix, La, a non-profit community advocacy organization that worked to rebuild the town following Hurricane Katrina. "Just the impact of all the uncertainty; not only can't the fishermen go to work, but there's uncertainty about how safe the water is and the air we breathe."
Continue reading HERE
Oil arrives on Pensacola Beach June 23, 2010; Gov. Charlie Crist inspects; Dennis Kelso of the Ocean Conservancy explains
By Don Babwin for The Associated Press
If the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Chicago's handgun ban, the city will likely do what Washington, D.C., did when its own ban was overturned two years ago: Put in place all sorts of regulations and restrictions to make it tougher to buy guns and easier for police to know who has them.
"We're not going to roll over," Chicago Mayor Richard Daley said.
Daley and city officials would not say specifically what plans they have in mind if the Supreme Court rules against the city next week. But what's obvious to pretty much everyone involved is that a ruling favorable to Chicago gun rights supporters will lead to a new round of legislation — and lawsuits.
"Just like they did in Washington, D.C., the city of Chicago is going to try to make it as difficult and discouraging as humanly possible to keep people from having guns in their homes for personal protection," said Dave Workman, spokesman for the Bellevue, Washington-based Second Amendment Foundation.
Continue reading HERE
By Mac McClelland for Mother Jones
Everyone knows by now that BP is still blocking press access to oil-spill sites even though they're not supposed to anymore. I've been blathering about it for weeks, and it's been all of three days since four contractors wouldn't let me through the Pointe Aux Chenes marina outside Montegut, Louisiana. And though as of June 16 the federal government was saying helicopters could fly reporters as low as 1,500 feet around spill sites, on June 17 I was on a helicopter that was prohibited from flying below 3,000 feet (and whose pilot flipped silent birds at the "military guys" coming over the radio and hassling him about being in the area at all). But a Louisiana sheriff's deputy* pulling over a video camera-wielding private citizen because the head of BP security wanted to ask him some questions is a whole other level of alarming.
Continue reading HERE
President Barack Obama ousted General Stanley McChrystal as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan on Wednesday, choosing the embattled general's direct boss — General David Petraeus — to take over the troubled nine-year-old war, a source told the Associated Press.
McChrystal was summoned to Washington from Kabul to explain scathing, mocking remarks about Administration officials, including Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, by him and his team in a magazine article. But the morning showdown with Obama in the Oval Office was not enough to save his job.
McChrystal offered his resignation and Obama accepted it, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the President's decision was not yet made public.
Continue reading HERE
As the oil cleanup along the Gulf Coast continues, PBS News Hour's Betty Ann Bowser reports on the health worries that are arising for coastal residents.
A summary of events Thursday, June 24, Day 65 of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that began with the April 20 explosion and fire on the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, owned by Transocean Ltd. and leased by BP PLC, which is in charge of cleanup and containment. The blast killed 11 workers. Since then, oil has been pouring into the Gulf from a blown-out undersea well.
CAP
A cap was back in place on BP's broken oil well after a deep-sea blunder forced crews to temporarily remove what has been the most effective method so far for containing some of the massive Gulf of Mexico spill. Engineers using remote-controlled submarines repositioned the cap late Wednesday after it had been off for much of the day. It had captured 700,000 gallons of oil in 24 hours before one of the robots bumped into it late in the morning. Bob Dudley, BP's new point man for the oil response, said crews had done the right thing to remove the cap because fluid seemed to be leaking and could have been a safety hazard.
GUSHER
While the cap was off, clouds of black oil gushed unchecked again at up to 104,000 gallons per hour, though a specialized ship at the surface managed to suck up and incinerate 438,000 gallons. The oil-burning ship is part of an armada floating at the site of the rogue well some 50 miles off the Louisiana coast and the scene below the surface is no less crowded. At least a dozen robotic submarines dangle from ships at the surface on mile-long cables called "umbilicals," with most of the undersea work taking place within a few hundred yards of the busted well.
OILED FLORIDA
In Florida, thick pools of oil washed up along miles of national park and Pensacola Beach shoreline Wednesday, as health advisories against swimming and fishing in the once-pristine waters were extended for 33 miles east from the Alabama line. "It's pretty ugly, there's no question about it," Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said. The oil reeked as it baked in the afternoon heat on a beach that looked as if it had been paved with a 6-foot-wide ribbon of asphalt. Park ranger Bobbie Visnovske said a family found an oily young dolphin beached in the sand in the Gulf Islands National Seashore on Wednesday. Wildlife officers carried it into shallow water to revive it. They later transported it to a rehabilitation center in Panama City, about 100 miles to the east.
MORATORIUM
The Obama administration seeks to resurrect a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling. The Justice Department filed court papers asking U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman to delay his ruling overturning the order to suspend drilling on 33 wells and stop approval of any new deepwater permits. Several companies, including Shell and Marathon Oil, said they would await the outcome of any appeals before they resume drilling. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he would issue a new order within the next few days. He said it may allow drilling in areas where reserves and risks are known and is likely to include criteria for when the ban would be lifted.
WORST-CASE ESTIMATE
The current worst-case estimate of what's spewing into the Gulf is about 2.5 million gallons a day. Anywhere from 67 million to 127 million gallons have spilled since the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig that killed 11 workers and blew out the well 5,000 feet underwater. BP PLC was leasing the rig from owner Transocean Ltd.
Initial claims for jobless benefits fell by the largest amount in two months last week, but remain above levels consistent with healthy job growth.
Despite the drop of 19,000, claims are at about the same level they were at the beginning of the year. The stubbornly high level of requests for jobless aid is a sign hiring remains weak even as the economy recovers.
The Labor Department said Thursday that new claims dropped to a seasonally adjusted 457,000. That's slightly below economists' forecasts of 460,000, according to Thomson Reuters.
First-time requests for unemployment insurance have been stuck at about 450,000 since the beginning of this year. New claims dropped steadily last year after reaching a peak of 651,000 in March 2009. Claims need to fall closer to 425,000 to signal sustained job growth, many economists say.
The four-week average dipped by 1,500 to 462,750, the first drop in six weeks.
Continue reading HERE
By Kate Mackenzie for Financial Times
The judge who granted an injunction against the six-month moratorium on deepwater US oil and gas drilling held shares in Transocean and other companies involved in offshore drilling.
A financial disclosure report published by JudicialWatch (’a conservative, non-partisan education foundation’) showed that Martin Feldman, the Louisiana federal judge who made the ruling, earned dividends from an investment in Transocean, which owned the Deepwater Horizon rig leased by BP.
The filing, which related to the calendar year 2008, also mentions holdings bought in other companies involved in offshore oil and gas drilling (though not deepwater Gulf of Mexico necessarily) such as Hercules Offshore and Parker Drilling. Several other energy companies are also listed. A holding in Halliburton, another company involved in the Deepwater Horizon operation, had been sold during the year. The judge also owned shares in many non-energy companies in the period covered.
Continue reading HERE
By Michele Kelemen for NPR
In the push to get supplies into Afghanistan, the Pentagon is inadvertently lining the pockets of warlords and other unsavory characters. That's the thrust of a new report by congressional investigators, who urged the Defense Department to do a better job of oversight.
The 79-page report, titled "Warlord, Inc," tracks more than $2 billion in contracts covering trucking and security for most of the supplies that reach U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
The report acknowledges that getting cargo to its destinations in Afghanistan is tricky. Still, the chairman of a House subcommittee on national security, Massachusetts Democrat John Tierney, says the findings are shocking.
"There was really no oversight, certainly insufficient oversight over about $2.16 billion worth of contracts," Tierney says. "And the result of that is that the money may well be fueling a corruption situation where our strategy relies on a government to be reliable and corruption be taken out of the equation."
Continue reading HERE
By Kim Severson for The New York Times
It's hard to imagine two places in New York State more different than the South Bronx and Schoharie County.
The South Bronx has 31,582 people per square mile. The county has 51.
Less than 2 percent of the people who live in the South Bronx are white. Schoharie County, about three hours straight north by car, is 95 percent white.
The South Bronx is home to four jails, two sewage plants and an untold number of subway rats. Schoharie County has 13,600 cows, 1,305 sheep, 291 hogs and several hundred farmers to tend those animals and grow vegetables and fruit.
Dennis Derryck, a 70-year-old mathematician and professor at the New School for Management and Urban Policy, has become the unlikely matchmaker between the two worlds.
Continue reading HERE
by Salima Koroma for Hip Hop DX
Veteran rapper Bun B revealed to XXL Magazine on Monday that he will be teaching a course at Rice University in Houston, Texas. The class is registered as a Hip Hop and religion course and will begin next spring. Bun B spoke on looking forward to office hours, keeping track of attendance, and of course the matter of students taking the class solely to slip their demos into his hands.
"If they're coming into the course specifically to give me a demo…that's a wrap on the first day," he said. Although he expressed that he was wary about that potential issue, he did share one idea that could act as an incentive for students who wish to take the class.
"My plan was to put a [demo] box on the desk, and the box is going to stay there and everybody stays there until the course is over. Nobody gets to listen to [any demos] until the course is over."
Bun B is not the first Hip Hop artist to help teach a college course. Dipset's Jim Jones recently guest-lectured a six-week "Music Business" course at Fordham University.
In addition to teaching the course at Rice, Bun B's third solo album Trill O.G. is scheduled to release on August 3.
By John M. Broder and Majorie Connelly for The New York Times
Overwhelmingly, Americans think the nation needs a fundamental overhaul of its energy policies, and most expect alternative forms to replace oil as a major source within 25 years. Yet a majority are unwilling to pay higher gasoline prices to help develop new fuel sources.
Those are among the findings of the latest nationwide New York Times/CBS News poll.
The poll, which examines the public’s reaction to the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, highlights some of the complex political challenges the Obama administration faces. For instance, despite intense news coverage and widespread public concern about the economic and ecological damage from the gulf disaster, most Americans remain far more concerned about jobs and the nation’s overall economy.
Continue reading HERE
By Marqui Mapp for theGrio
In one of the richest countries in the world, there are 23.5 million Americans, almost half of which are at or below the poverty line, who live in "food deserts". These are usually communities where there is limited or no access to foods necessary to maintain a healthy diet. Food deserts occur mostly in low-income urban or rural areas where it's either cheaper or easier to purchase a burger and fries combo than fresh produce.
While for some this may come as a surprise, this phenomenon has been around for decades. Just watch The Cosby Show's 1992 episode, "The Price is Wrong." In the episode, cousin Pam offers to drive a few elderly women to a cheaper and higher-quality supermarket in Brooklyn because their local grocer provided lower quality food at much higher prices.
Addressing this appalling trend has become incredibly important as the U.S. wages war against the obesity epidemic. It's an epidemic that now affects 73 percent of adults and 43 percent of children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And minority populations fare far worse. Specifically, African-Americans are 1.4 times as likely to be obese as their whites counterparts, reports the Office of Minority Health's website.
Continue reading HERE
BP memo: Company feared 100,000 barrels of oil could spill in Gulf of Mexico daily
June 22nd, 2010
by admin
Just when it seemed it couldn't get any worse.
A shocking internal BP memo shows that its engineers secretly fear that up to 100,000 barrels of oil a day could be spewing from its ruptured Gulf of Mexico well -- double the current estimates.
"Right from the beginning, BP was either lying or grossly incompetent," said a fuming Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who yesterday released the memo, which had been submitted to Congress before BP officials testified in early May.
"First they said it was only 1,000 barrels, then they said it was 5,000 barrels," Markey told NBC's "Meet the Press."
The internal document warns about the "worst-case" scenario -- a "rate [that] could be as high as 100,000 barrels a day" -- if BP engineers "incorrectly modeled" the flow of crude from the Mississippi Canyon No. 252 well, off the coast of Louisiana.
The shocking figure, equal to about 4.2 million gallons, is far higher that the government's current estimates of 35,000 to 60,000 barrels and a giant leap over the lowball 5,000 figure that BP has continued to cling to in the weeks since the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.
By Robert Barr for The Associated Press
BP shares fell sharply Monday after a public battle erupted between the oil company and one of its partners over who is responsible for the catastrophic failure of the Gulf of Mexico oil well.
Stock in BP, which said it has now spent $2 billion since April 20 trying to stop the oil gusher and to pay initial claims for damages on shore, fell 4 percent to 343 pence ($5.12) in London.
The company hit back at Anadarko Petroleum Corp., which has a 25 percent stake in the well, following Anadarko's statement on Friday accusing BP of gross negligence in operating the drilling rig.
Anadarko said the joint operating agreement makes BP responsible to co-owners for any damage due to gross negligence or willful misconduct.
In a statement on Monday to the London Stock Exchange, BP countered that all the partners shared in liability for damage resulting from exploration in Mississippi Canyon Block 252.
Continue reading HERE
by Davey D for AllHipHop.com
Whenever we talk about Hip-Hop and Politics it’s always done from the standpoint with us going to the ballot box as the ultimate goal. Don’t get me wrong, voting and participating in the electoral arena are important, but Hip-Hop is so much bigger and so is politics.
For many of us politics is more than us voting for a particular candidate or having a catchy slogan that everyone chants at a rally. At its core, politics is about Empowerment. It’s the social, economic and political control of our communities with voting and political education being among the important steps we take to reach that goal.
Hip-Hop is more than a "Hot 16," "fresh new gear" or "swagger devoid of substance." At the end of the day Hip-Hop like politics is also about Empowerment. It’s about giving voice to the voiceless and helping remove both ourselves and the community from a position of being maligned and irrelevant with respect to the larger society. Like voting, knowledge and understanding of self and our communities is critical.
It’s important for us to have a firm understanding about the political and social conditions that existed at the dawn of Hip-Hop’s birth in the early 70s. It’s important to note that our communities were under serious attack and the expressions associated with Hip-Hop was one way in which we responded and ultimately coped.
Continue reading HERE
Senate Could Double Job Creation in Two Bills by Improving Energy Efficiency Requirements
June 21st, 2010
by admin
by SolveClimate Staff
With a climate bill and an energy bill now on hold in the U.S. Senate, a new report gives Senators some food for thought: a game plan for how both bills can be tweaked to double their green jobs benefits and substantially lower household electric bills.
The key: better energy efficiency provisions, six of them to be precise.
The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) analyzed the energy savings and economic impacts of the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act (APA) and the Senate Energy Committee's American Clean Energy Leadership Act (ACELA). It then considered how the bills' benefits would grow if six new energy efficiency measures were thrown into the mix.
In a report announced on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, ACEEE said the enhancements would more than double the number of new jobs by 2030, from the 123,000 that would flow from the bills now to 364,000 jobs. By 2050, that figure would grow to over a half a million jobs.
Continue reading HERE
The head of BP, Tony Hayward, has faced a barrage of tough questions from members of the US congress over his company's handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Politicians accused the energy giant of cutting corners and ignoring warnings, paving the way for the worst oil spill in US history.
Tony Hayward said it was too early to know what caused the incident and offered an apology for what happened.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama's point man charting a new future for the oil-poisoned Gulf Coast will do the job part-
time. Some environmentalists said the job demands someone's full attention.
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who oversees 900,000 Navy and Marine personnel, is inheriting an amorphous second job as the Obama administration's leader of long-term environmental and economic planning. His task is no less than rebuilding a region still suffering after Hurricane Katrina and beset by decades of environmental problems.
Mabus won't resign from his Navy job. When President George W. Bush picked Donald Powell to lead the recovery after Hurricane Katrina, Powell resigned as head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
"The president talked to the governor about this, and they both agreed that he had the ability to do both," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday after Mabus met with Obama at the White House.
Rev. Yearwood responds to critics of escrow fund, and the fight for victims of BP's disaster
June 17th, 2010
by admin
Think Progress Interviews Rev. Yearwood as he takes on critics of escrow fund, and discusses the fight for victims of BP's disaster:
By JAY REEVES, JOHN FLESHER and TAMARA LUSH, Associated Press 
GULF SHORES, Ala. – Dolphins and sharks are showing up in surprisingly shallow water just off the Florida coast. Mullets, crabs, rays and small fish congregate by the thousands off an Alabama pier. Birds covered in oil are crawling deep into marshes, never to be seen again.
Marine scientists studying the effects of the BP disaster are seeing some strange — and troubling — phenomena.
Fish and other wildlife are fleeing the oil out in the Gulf and clustering in cleaner waters along the coast. But that is not the hopeful sign it might appear to be, researchers say.
BP CEO FACES CONGRESS ON #OILSPILL AND CLEANUP. Watch it live
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
After four hours behind closed doors, BP executives emerged from the White House promising to pay $20-billion dollars in compensation to victims of the Gulf coast oil disaster. The company's also cancelled dividend payments to shareholders for the rest of the year. But oil has been leaking for two months and BP's only able to contain less than half of what's gushing from the damaged well into the sea.
By BEN FELLER, Associated Press
WASHINGTON – BP will set aside $20 billion to pay the victims of the massive oil spill in the Gulf, senior administration officials said Wednesday, a move made under pressure by the White House as the company copes with causing the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.
The independent fund will be led by lawyer Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw payments to families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In his current role, Feinberg is known as Obama's "pay czar," setting salary limits for companies getting the most aid from a $700 billion government bailout fund.
On June 4, 2010 The Hip Hop Caucus and seven other prominent organizations took to the streets in the nation's capital today to express the public's outrage at BP's continued mismanagement of the ever-spreading environmental disaster it caused in the Gulf of Mexico.
Having just returned from his fourth trip to the Gulf Region, the President addressed the American people for the first time from the Oval Office. He focused on the government's ongoing all-out response to the immediate crisis, the steps being taken to make sure such a crisis does not happen again, and the longer term crisis of America’s reliance on fossil fuels.
By M.K. Asante for theGrio
[Ringing]
Yo.
Hip Hop?
What's up?
You're alive!
Can't stop, won't stop.
Thanks for letting me interview you, I know you're busy.
It's cool. I got to take advantage of this opportunity to represent myself.
You're breaking up a little. Can you hear me okay?
Yeah. I'm on a cordless house phone and I stepped out of range for a moment, but I'm back. The reception will be clear as long as I stay close to the base.
Continue reading HERE
By Jordan Flaherty for Huffington Post
As BP's deepwater well continues to discharge oil into the Gulf, the economic and public health effects are already being felt across coastal communities. But it's likely this is only the beginning. From the bayous of southern Louisiana to the city of New Orleans, many fear this disaster represents not only environmental devastation but also cultural extinction for peoples who have made their lives here for generations.
This is not the first time that Louisianans have lost their communities or their lives from the actions of corporations. The land loss caused by oil companies has already displaced many who lived by the coast, and the pollution from treatment plants has poisoned communities across the state - especially in "cancer alley," the corridor of industrial facilities along the Mississippi River south of Baton Rouge.
"The cultural losses as a consequence of the BP disaster are going to be astronomical," says Advocates for Environmental Human Rights (AEHR) co-director Nathalie Walker. "There is no other culture like Louisiana's coastal culture and we can only hope they wont be entirely erased." Walker and co-director Monique Harden have made it their mission to fight the environmental consequences of Louisiana's corporate polluters. They say this disaster represents an unparalleled catastrophe for the lives of people across the region, but they also see in it a continuation of an old pattern of oil and chemical corporations displacing people of color from their homes.
Continue reading HERE
By David A. Love for theGrio
This weekend one of hip-hop's hottest acts, Drake, lent his talent to protest offshore drilling. On Sunday, the 23-year-old rapper performed at the 'Stop The Offshore Drilling" rally at the 9:30 Club in Washington D.C.
In May, hip-hop veteran Talib Kweli released a single about another hot political topic. It's called 'Papers Please' -- and it voices his opposition to Arizona's new immigration law.
Hip-hop and politics have been together for a long time, and there are no signs the two will break apart soon. Although there were the naysayers who once dismissed hip-hop as a fad and predicted its untimely demise, this is an art form, a culture, and a political movement that is not going away.
Starting out as the CNN of the ghetto, and a medium to express the hopes and frustrations of a disenfranchised community, hip-hop went from knocking on the door of the mainstream to becoming the mainstream. And over the years, hip-hop evolved from hating the president--and vice versa--to dining with the president. Who would have imagined just a few years ago that the president would have hip-hop on his iPod, or even own an iPod for that matter?
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By Kristian Foden-Vencil for NPR
The term "conflict diamonds" may sound familiar — that is, diamonds mined in a war zone and often sold to buy weapons.
But how about "conflict minerals"? That is what activists are calling elements like gold, tin and tantalum, used in computers and cell phones. These minerals also come from mines in war-torn countries.
The Senate recently passed a bill blocking the import of conflict minerals, and the House is working on its own version. But some businesses think a legislative solution won't work.
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Hip-hop artist Drake is "going green" and bringing his fans with him.
"Everywhere you turn, you can see how pollution and poverty are hurting our neighborhoods," says Drake. "But we can change that. Going green is the solution."
Partnering with Green the Block, Drake traveled to 17 campuses in 12 states to entertain and, with the help of Green The Block, educate his fans about the benefits of going green – the jobs, health and wealth – created through this movement.
While Drake's highly anticipated album "Thank Me Later” doesn't arrive in stores until June 15th, check out this never-before-seen footage with the hip-hop star from his Away From Home tour!
As we continue to raise awareness about issues affecting our communities and our environment with the Stop Offshore Drilling! Mixtape, over 40 million gallons (and counting) of oil are destroying ecosystems and communities along the Gulf Coast!
For too long, oil companies have dictated our energy policy, and now we need to change course and begin a rapid shift to a clean energy economy. We need to pass strong climate legislation that will move us towards a clean energy future that will create jobs for our community and help protect our planet from further dirty energy disasters.
1. Download the Stop Offshore Drilling! Mixtape
2. Sign the petition to abandon offshore drilling and invest in clean energy alternatives that will create jobs for our communities.
By Jackie Calmes for The New York Times
President Obama will use his first Oval Office speech Tuesday night to outline a plan to legally compel BP to create an escrow account to compensate businesses and individuals for their losses from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, administration officials said on Sunday.
It would be part of a week of activities intended to convey presidential command of a crisis that continues to test both the government and the company.
Mr. Obama will press for the escrow account if BP does not establish one voluntarily. The board of the London-based company will discuss the idea and other spill-related issues — including a brewing controversy over a big dividend for shareholders coming due this summer — at an emergency session on Monday, company officials said.
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By Jim Abrams for The Associated Press
In a boost for the president on global warming, the Senate on Thursday rejected a challenge to Obama administration rules aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other big polluters.
The defeated resolution would have denied the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to move ahead with the rules, crafted under the federal Clean Air Act. With President Barack Obama's broader clean energy legislation struggling to gain a foothold in the Senate, the vote took on greater significance as a signal of where lawmakers stand on dealing with climate change.
"If ever there was a vote to find out whose side you are on, this is it," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee.
The vote was 53-47 to stop the Senate from moving forward on the Republican-led effort to restrain the EPA.
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By Dr. John D. Márquez for theGrio
On the evening of June 7, 2010, a 15-year-old Mexican citizen named Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereca was shot to death by a U.S. border patrol agent at the El Paso-Juarez port of entry. He was with a group of immigrants who had crossed into the U.S., and were caught doing so. They were allegedly throwing rocks at officers to avoid being arrested as they attempted to flee back into Mexico.
We do not know why Sergio crossed the border that evening. His age suggests that he might have just for thrills, to shop, or to recreate in the U.S. Perhaps he was even seeking some respite from the rampant gun violence that has plagued his hometown in recent years as a result of warring drug cartels. The officer who shot Sergio allegedly fired his weapon multiple times, with many - if not most - of those bullets piercing the body of the child victim.
Upon hearing the news of this case, I could not help but to reflect on another moment when a child of that age was slain by grown men in what I qualify as an act of state sanctioned racial violence. That moment was in 1955, when 14-year-old Emmett Till was beaten and shot to death by white vigilantes in Money, Mississippi for not obeying the physical and discursive borders erected to legitimate Jim Crow segregation in the south.
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By Roman Wolfe for AllHipHop
Organizers announced that rappers like Al Nuke, Trick Trick, Royce, Lodge Boyz, Seven The General, Big Herk, Stretch Money, DJ Fingers, DJ Detroit Streets of WJLB FM 98, will attend the Heal Detroit Rally.
The rappers plan to convene on 7 Mile Road on the Westside starting at Greenfield and on the Eastside starting at Van Dyke at 12:00 PM.
Performers will encourage students to stay in school and find non-violent ways to resolve conflicts.
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By CNN Staff
A video obtained by CNN raises questions about a U.S. Border Patrol agent's claim that he fatally shot a 14-year-old boy in Ciudad Juarez while he was surrounded by rock-throwing suspected illegal immigrants.
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By Anders Kelto for NPR
As Friday's kickoff to the 2010 World Cup approaches, some of South Africa's host cities are going to great lengths to clean up their images.
After all, the four-week, 32-team tournament is expected to draw more than 300,000 international soccer fans and the attention of a global television audience.
Just a few blocks from Cape Town's new Green Point soccer stadium is Sea Point, where high-rise hotels stand atop old stone walls at the ocean's edge. Families and tourists stroll through the area's grassy waterfront parks.
It is beautiful, and that's partly because of what visitors don't see: dozens of homeless people who normally live in the area.
Ahead of the matches, Cape Town police have been arresting homeless people who live there and, in some cases, relocating them to the outskirts of the city.
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By Edward Wyckoff Williams for theGrio
The results of a recent poll suggest that the majority of Americans believe the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is worse than the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, a category 5 storm which devastated the city of New Orleans and other cities along the Gulf in 2005.
I couldn't disagree more. And I believe if the American public was better informed of the facts, they would too. The truth of matter is 11 people lost their lives on April 20, 2010 when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded. 17 others were injured. The resulting damage to the ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico has left hundreds of fishermen without jobs and income for the foreseeable future. The U.S. government, led by President Obama, has remained committed to understanding the causes and resolution of the tragedy since its occurrence and has responded with the full force of the tools at their disposal.
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By BBC News
Mexico has demanded a full inquiry after a Mexican teenager died after a US border patrol agent opened fire from the US side of the border.
The youth, believed to be 14 or 15, was found on the Mexican side under a bridge linking Ciudad Juarez with El Paso.
US authorities said the agent was defending himself and colleagues after they came under attack from people throwing stones and rocks.
The FBI is investigating the incident.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon condemned the shooting and called for the incident "to be thoroughly investigated and those responsible punished", his office said.
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By Marc Lamont Hill
In a recent interview, rapper Slim Thug unleashed a very disturbing attack on Black women, here's an excerpt:
...Most single Black women feel like they don’t want to settle for less. Their standards are too high right now. They have to understand that successful Black men are kind of extinct. We’re important. It’s hard to find us so Black women have to bow down and let it be known that they gotta start working hard; they gotta start cooking and being down for they man more. They can’t just be running around with their head up in the air and passing all of us.
I have a brother that dates a White woman and he always be fucking with me about it saying, 'Y’all gotta go through all that shit [but] my White woman is fine. She don’t give me no problems, she do whatever I say and y’all gotta do all that arguing and fighting and worry about all this other shit.'...
While many people dismissed it as a publicity stunt or the rant of an ignorant rapper, I felt compelled to respond to him in the form of an open letter.
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By Justin Pritchard, Tamara Lush, & Holbrook Mohr for The Associated Press
Professor Peter Lutz is listed in BP's 2009 response plan for a Gulf of Mexico oil spill as a national wildlife expert. He died in 2005.
Under the heading "sensitive biological resources," the plan lists marine mammals including walruses, sea otters, sea lions and seals. None lives anywhere near the Gulf.
The names and phone numbers of several Texas A&M University marine life specialists are wrong. So are the numbers for marine mammal stranding network offices in Louisiana and Florida, which are no longer in service.
BP PLC's 582-page regional spill plan for the Gulf, and its 52-page, site-specific plan for the Deepwater Horizon rig are riddled with omissions and glaring errors, according to an Associated Press analysis that details how BP officials have pretty much been making it up as they go along. The lengthy plans approved by the federal government last year before BP drilled its ill-fated well vastly understate the dangers posed by an uncontrolled leak and vastly overstate the company's preparedness to deal with one.
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On June 10, the U.S. Senate will vote on Sen. Lisa Murkowski's Big Oil Bailout resolution that would prevent the EPA from holding polluters accountable, and fill Big Oil’s pockets with an additional $140 billion. That’s $140 billion for Big Oil, and higher gas prices and less domestic investment in jobs and our economy for you.
Your help is urgently needed to stop Murkowski's lobbyist allies working for Big Oil.
Use the Click-to-Call tool above to call your Senators and tell them to vote "NO" on the Murkowski Big Oil Bailout. Tell them it’s time to decide if they are with big oil or if they are with us! Visit www.StopTheBigOilBailout.com for more information.
By Jennifer Steinhauer for The New York Times
Candidates here who long to replace Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Senator Barbara Boxer, who is in a tough battle to defend the seat she has held for nearly two decades, are in the final hours of pressing their cases in races that are among the most high-profile — and costly — of the primary contests that will play out in 11 states on Tuesday.
Republican candidates making a final and frenzied plea to California primary voters each claimed to offer the most viable and formidable challenge to their Democratic competitors, who, unchallenged in their own party, have remained largely silent.
Voters here are also being asked to decide whether their primary election system should be replaced with a version in which all candidates would run in a first round, leaving the top two vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, to compete in the general election.
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By Robert Rooks for theGrio
Last week, federal officials announced a decrease in our nation's jail population for the first time since 1982. This comes at a time when overall crime is down despite this being the worse economic recession in decades. Although the announced decrease in jail population is a promising bit of news, reactions should be measured.
The US is 5 percent of the world's population and has 25 percent of the world's prisoners. Over the last 30 years, the US criminal justice system experienced the second largest increase in government investment, second only to health care. Last year, as state budget shortfalls loomed, 31 states cut education budgets while increasing money for incarceration.
Unless we support ongoing efforts to downscale prisons and jails, our country will literally go broke and funds for other public sector ventures will dry up.
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Reps. Lee and Ellison Ask President Obama to Call for Flotilla Investigation and End Gaza Blockade
June 7th, 2010
by admin
Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) sent the following letter to President Barack Obama asking for an investigation into the recent flotilla incident between Israeli forces and a civilian marine convoy and calling for an end to the Israeli blockade in Gaza:
Dear Mr. President,
As Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, we are deeply troubled by the military action aboard the aid flotilla en route to Gaza earlier this week, resulting in the death of nine civilians, including one American. We welcome your call for full disclosure of the facts of this incident. We also ask you to do two things: first, do everything in your power to support a thorough investigation into the incidents on the flotilla; second, call for a lifting of the blockade on Gaza.
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By Monique W. Morris for theGrio
In Mississippi, Alvin Robinson, an African-American man, was on trial for murder after he'd allegedly had an altercation with and killed a white man following a frightful traffic incident. During the jury selection for his trial, an African-American woman showed up dutifully for service, but was turned away because she had "no ties to the community," though she'd worked for the same local company for six years. One by one, the African-Americans who had been summoned were dismissed from service.
In a silent protest to being stricken from the jury for what she suspected to be a thinly-veiled attempt to maintain the racial homogeny of the all-white jury, this woman returned to the courthouse each day, only to watch Mr. Robinson be found guilty for murder (even though three of the jurors slept through portions of the trial) and sentenced to prison.
This sounds like a throwback to 1874, but in 2010, racial discrimination remains a barrier to the administration of fair justice in a number of jurisdictions around the country.
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By Madeleine Coory for AFP
Weather-related catastrophes brought about by climate change are increasing, the top UN humanitarian official said Sunday as he warned of the possibility of "mega-disasters".
John Holmes, the UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, said one of the biggest challenges facing the aid community was the problems stemming from changing weather patterns.
"When it comes meteorological disasters, weath-related disasters, then there is a trend upwards connected with climate change," Holmes, who is in Australia for high-level talks on humanitarian aid, told AFP.
"The trend is there is terms of floods, and cyclones, and droughts."
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By Jay Newton-Small and Katy Steinmetz for TIME
Voters in 11 states will go to the polls Tuesday to pick which Republicans and Democrats they'd like to see slug it out in November. We'll find out if Blanche Lincoln will become the third Senate incumbent to lose his or her primary; which Republican will get to challenge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid; and if Jim Gibbons of Nevada might be the first sitting governor to lose a primary.
This year's Super Tuesday of primaries is filled with intrigue, ranging from sexual indiscretions in South Carolina — and, no, this doesn't involve Mark Sanford, Argentina or the Appalachian Trail — to massages for drug-addicted prisoners in Nevada. We'll also see some interesting tests of the power of the Tea Party movement: It's looking like the GOP establishment candidate in Virginia's Fifth Congressional District has nothing to fear from his six Tea Party challengers, though such groups may succeed in bringing down South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis.
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By Dennis Wagner for The Arizona Republic
A group of artists has been asked to lighten the faces of children depicted in a giant public mural at a Prescott school.
The project's leader says he was ordered to lighten the skin tone after complaints about the children's ethnicity. But the school's principal says the request was only to fix shading and had nothing to do with political pressure.
The "Go on Green" mural, which covers two walls outside Miller Valley Elementary School, was designed to advertise a campaign for environmentally friendly transportation. It features portraits of four children, with a Hispanic boy as the dominant figure.
R.E. Wall, director of Prescott's Downtown Mural Project, said he and other artists were subjected to slurs from motorists as they worked on the painting at one of the town's most prominent intersections.
"We consistently, for two months, had people shouting racial slander from their cars," Wall said. "We had children painting with us, and here come these yells of (epithet for Blacks) and (epithet for Hispanics)."
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By Jeremy Clarke for Reuters
A few million dollars invested by governments in restoring nature could prevent far greater losses of the free services that ecosystems provide to people around the world, a U.N. report said on Thursday.
In the study released before World Environment Day on June 5, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said nations could boost their economies by replenishing dying forests, marshes, coral reefs and riverbanks.
"What are the real economic value of some of these resources? Wetlands, of which half have been destroyed, have an economic value of $7 trillion per year," Tim Kasten, a UNEP natural resources expert, told reporters in Nairobi.
"All together these services are providing up to $70 trillion per year of economic benefit," Kasten said.
UNEP warned the loss of ecosystem services could lead to a 25 percent loss in the world's food production by 2050.
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By theGrio
The nation's local jail population has declined for the first time since the federal government began keeping count, officials said Thursday, two weeks after reporting a drop in the crime rate.
The number of inmates in county and city jails was about 767,600 at the end of last June, down by nearly 18,000 inmates from a year earlier.
Growth in the U.S. jail population has been slowing since 2005. The latest total was down 2.3 percent and represented the first decline since the Bureau of Justice Statistics began its annual survey of jails in 1982.
The reversal took place as crime in the United States fell dramatically. Violent crime fell 5.5 percent last year, and property crime was down 4.9 percent, the third straight year of declines.
The drop in local jail populations, like the crime decline, coincided with the economic downturn that has taken a heavy toll on city and county budgets.
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By CNN Staff
BP planned Friday to successively close four vents at the top of an undersea well containment cap through which oil was still gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.
The company hopes very little oil will be escaping once the vents are shut, BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said. He said he was optimistic that the "cut and cap" operation, which hit a snag earlier in the week, will be successful.
"I think it should work," he said.
President Obama, who told CNN's Larry King that he was "furious with the entire situation," was heading to Louisiana on Friday to meet with political and business leaders.
Obama canceled a trip to Asia for a third tour of the oil-affected Gulf Coast, underscoring the gravity of the crisis. He plans to see firsthand the slick along coastal communities and environmentally sensitive ecosystems.
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Join us at noon on June 4 for a protest at BP headquarters in Washington, D.C. We'll stage a citizen's arrest of BP CEO Tony Hayward!
The public interest and environmental groups will list charges against the corporation, including worker safety and environmental violations, price-gouging, negligence and the inability to adequately respond to the mounting catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico and surrounding communities. The charges will culminate in a finding of criminal negligence and the presentation of a prison jumpsuit fitted for Hayward.
The action is intended to underscore the seriousness of BP's failure to protect the lives of workers and the environment, and to highlight the need for the U.S. to move away from inherently dangerous and dirty fuel to clean energy sources.
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By Ben Gemen for The Hill
President Barack Obama will vow Wednesday to personally corral Senate votes for a sweeping climate change and energy bill in the coming months.
His comments are sure to hearten environmentalists, who have been pressing for the White House to exert more political pressure on lawmakers this year.
“The votes may not be there right now, but I intend to find them in the coming months. I will make the case for a clean energy future wherever I can, and I will work with anyone from either party to get this done,” Obama plans to say in speech at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania Wednesday afternoon.
“But we will get this done. The next generation will not be held hostage to energy sources from the last century,” he plans to add, according to excerpts released by the White House.
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By John Mitchell for theGrio
For those of us who can recount the days when Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Danny Ainge hoisted the Boston Celtics on their backs and turned upside down our delicately crafted notion of who was supposed to dominate the NBA - anyone but a bunch of white boys - as the Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers meet for the 12th time to decide the World Champions in 2010 some perspective is required.
As a teenager growing up in Philadelphia in the 1980s, my hatred for the Celtics knew no bounds. After all, this was supposed to be Dr. J's game, a racial heirloom passed down to him by the likes of Wilt Chamberlain, Connie Hawkins, Oscar Robinson and Earl "The Pearl" Monroe.
Even the white media had conceded hoops to the colored. The message was crystal clear: You can have basketball; it's yours. Just don't ever get the sick and twisted notion in that little head of yours that one day you can be , say, president, governor, run a Fortune 500 Company or anything else that doesn't require you to break a sweat.
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Want to invoke your right to remain silent? You'll have to speak up.
In a narrowly split decision, the Supreme Court's conservative majority expanded its limits on the famous Miranda rights for criminal suspects on Tuesday — over the dissent of new Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who said the ruling turned Americans' rights of protection from police abuse "upside down."
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, said a suspect who goes ahead and talks to police after being informed he doesn't have to has waived his right to remain silent. Elena Kagan, who has been nominated by President Barack Obama to join the court, sided with the police as U.S. solicitor general when the case came before the court. She would replace Justice John Paul Stevens, one of the dissenters.
A right to remain silent and a right to a lawyer are at the top of the warnings that police recite to suspects during arrests and interrogations. But Tuesday's majority said that suspects must break their silence and tell police they are going to remain quiet to stop an interrogation, just as they must tell police that they want a lawyer.
This decision means that police can keep shooting questions at a suspect who refuses to talk as long as they want in hopes that the person will crack and give them some information, said Richard Friedman, a University of Michigan law professor.
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Israel on Wednesday began deporting the bulk of nearly 700 international activists detained during its deadly raid on an aid flotilla bound for Palestinians in the blockaded, Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
The raid that ended with Israeli soldiers killing nine activists has strained diplomatic ties, sending Israeli relations with Turkey, in particular, to a new low. At least four of the nine killed were Turkish and the ship Israel attacked was Turkish. Israel ordered families of its diplomats out of that country.
Egypt eased its blockade of Gaza after the raid and at the newly opened crossing in the town of Rafah, about 300 Palestinians entered through Gaza's main gateway to the outside world. A smaller number entered Gaza from Egypt and humanitarian aid also came in including blankets, tents and 13 power generators donated by Russia and Oman.
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By Helene Cooper & Peter Baker for The New York Times
The Obama administration said Tuesday that it had begun civil and criminal investigations into the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, as the deepening crisis threatened to define President Obama’s second year in office.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in New Orleans that he planned to “prosecute to the fullest extent of the law” any person or entity that the Justice Department determines has broken the law in connection with the oil spill. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 120 points shortly after Mr. Holder’s announcement as energy stocks tumbled on expectations of the federal investigations. BP lost 15 percent of its market value during the day’s trading.
BP and government officials said flatly for the first time that they had abandoned any further plans to try to plug the well, and would instead try to siphon the leaking oil and gas to the surface until relief wells can stop the flow, most likely not before August.
Mr. Holder’s comments, which echoed those of Mr. Obama earlier in the day in the Rose Garden, reflected deepening frustration within the administration at the inability to stop the spill, along with wide concern that the government and the president appear increasingly impotent as oil laps at the shorelines of Louisiana, and now Alabama and Mississippi.
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Pro-Palestinian activists sent another boat to challenge Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and Egypt declared it was temporarily opening a crossing into the Palestinian territory after a raid on an aid flotilla that ended with Israeli soldiers killing nine activists.
The raid provoked ferocious international condemnation of Israel, raised questions at home, and appeared likely to increase pressure to end the blockade that has deepened the poverty of the 1.5 million Palestinians in the strip.
NATO on Tuesday joined calls for a "prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation" into the raid. "As a matter of urgency, I also request the immediate release of the detained civilians and ships held by Israel," said NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in a statement after representatives of the alliance's 28 nations had met.
"Turkey called the emergency meeting, but its representative did not demand that the alliance take collective action against Israel, said a diplomat who attended the talks," the Jerusalem Post reported.
Turkey, which unofficially supported the flotilla, has led the criticism, calling the Israeli raid a "bloody massacre" and demanding that Washington condemn the raid. The White House has reacted cautiously, calling for disclosure of all the facts.
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By Clifford Krauss for The New York Times
Unable for six weeks to plug the gushing oil well beneath the Gulf of Mexico, BP renewed an effort Monday to use a dome to funnel some of the leaking crude to a tanker on the surface. A similar attempt failed three weeks ago, but officials said they had resolved some of the technical problems that forced them to abort last time.
If successful — and after the string of failures so far, there is no guarantee it will be — the containment dome may be able to capture most of the oil, but it would not plug the leak. Its failure would mean continued environmental and economic damage to the gulf region, as well as greater public pressure on BP and the Obama administration, with few options remaining for trying to contain the spill any time soon.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. plans to visit the Gulf Coast on Tuesday and meet with state attorneys general. Several senators have asked the Justice Department to determine whether any laws were broken in the spill.
A lasting solution for the leak may be months away, after engineers complete the drilling of a relief well, which would allow them to plug the leaking well with cement.
On Monday, engineers positioned submarine robots that will try to shear off a collapsed 21-inch riser pipe with a razorlike wire studded with bits of industrial diamonds. If that is achieved, officials will need at least a couple of days to position a domelike cap over the blowout preventer, which failed to shut off the well when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers.
The trapped oil would then be funneled through a hose to ships floating near the well.
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By theGrio
It's called "The Redemption Project: Inmates Got Talent," and it's a new documentary focused on convicted felons who are attempting to turn their lives around by showcasing their musical and comedic talents.
Created by two comedians, Johnny Collins and Joel Jerome, the name is an obvious play on the hit TV show, "America's Got Talent".
Collins and Jerome originally had the idea to perform inside Putnamville Correctional facility in Indiana but decided to put a spin on that by inviting the inmates to put on a show.
As Collins puts it, "they're not going anywhere anyway."
The idea of the project is to help convicts turn over a new leaf and establish themselves as productive members of society and for ex-inmate, "Big Mike" Mitchell, the program has already proven successful.
"Big Mike", a career criminal for more than ten years, is now a committed husband and father who views performing as his new lease on life.
Collins and Jerome are still shopping for a distributor for "Inmates Got Talent", which runs just under two hours.
By Avishay Artsy for NPR
A new green startup business in New Hampshire collects compostable material from local cafes and restaurants. The company's business model is to help restaurants be more eco-friendly — and save money on trash removal.
At the Black Trumpet restaurant in Portsmouth, N.H., chef and co-owner Evan Mallett says he’s long wanted to compost, but no one could offer regular pickups, and their tiny restaurant has no extra space for storage.
"Not only inside the restaurant but also outside," Mallett says. "We don’t have a back alley, we don’t have a parking lot."
But then, a young, idealistic entrepreneur named Rian Bedard offered a solution. Bedard had recently moved from San Francisco — which requires that its residents separate their trash and compost.
Bedard was inspired to try to bring curbside compost pickup to New Hampshire’s coast.
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