Posts

Argentina fell in default on Wednesday following the collapse of negotiations between the country and “vulture funds” that are demanding full payment for the $1.3 billion in debt the funds bought up at bargain rates. “We’re not going to sign an agreement that jeopardizes the future of all Argentines,” Argentina’s Economy Minister Axel Kicillof declared […]

Police in Ferguson, Missouri on Wednesday arrested reporters and activists, launched tear gas at protesters, and used armored tanks and helicopters to force media out as residents continued to demand answers about the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old who was shot to death by an officer last weekend. St. Louis alderman Antonio French, […]

An EU-U.S. trade deal currently being negotiated behind closed doors puts corporate profits and trade interests above fair and safe food for consumers, a trio of groups charged Wednesday. Friends of the Earth Europe, Minnesota-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), and UK-based Compassion in World Farming outline their concerns in a letter (pdf) […]

Ignoring the concerns of scientists, doctors, food safety advocates, environmentalists, and more than half a million U.S. citizens, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday issued their final approval for what has been dubbed Dow AgroSciences’ ‘Agent Orange’ herbicide. In a press statement, the agrochemical giant said that their Enlist Duo herbicide is now registered […]

In the largest of such efforts by a single university’s faculty to date, 245 Boston University professors and instructors on Tuesday called on the President and Board of Trustees to divest its endowment from oil, gas, and coal companies.  “Because it is unlikely that fossil fuel interests (the major source of this crisis) will stop […]

President Barack Obama announced on Thursday the creation of the world’s largest marine reserve. The action expands the biodiversity-rich Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, which covers seven atolls and islands, from roughly 87,000 square miles to 490,000 square miles. That expansion falls short of what Obama proposed in June, which would have created a […]

The fiery derailment of a train carrying petroleum products and other hazardous chemicals in Saskatchewan on Tuesday puts yet another “spotlight” on the dangers posed to people and planet by transporting oil and other hazardous materials, environmental groups charged on Wednesday. Residents described the scene as a “flash of light,” after 26 of the train’s […]

Despite strong support in the U.S. for abortion rights, lawmakers over the past three years have dramatically cut access to reproductive health care, state by state. This Tuesday, ballot measures in Colorado, North Dakota, and Tennessee escalate this state-level chipping-away strategy by proposing “personhood” provisions and constitutional amendments that, if passed, would open the door […]

Violence against children is a global epidemic in which a young person is killed by violent conflict every five minutes, according to a new study released Tuesday by U.K. branch of UNICEF. The global assessment—titled “Children in Danger: Act to End Violence Against Children”—reveals that an estimated 345 children under the age of twenty-years-old die […]

A plume of radiation from the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan has voyaged through the Pacific Ocean and reached the west coast of North America, scientists confirmed in a new article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. The radiation, which is expected to peak at the end of […]