For many, the battle over the Keystone XL pipeline is about national energy strategy and global climate change. For residents of the Manchester neighborhood in Houston, it’s also about what will be processed and spewed into the air in their backyards.
Activist Doug Fahlbusch recently brought some attention to the community when he held up a sign at a Valero-sponsored golf tournament that said, “TAR SANDS SPILL. ANSWER MANCHESTER.” That protest got him carried away from the links by security guards and arrested.
Keystone XL oil would be processed in sick East Texas community
The Mines That Fracking Built
This story is the first installment of Truthout's Fracking Road Trip series on the wide-reaching impacts of the fracking industry.
The bluffs rise up gently from the rolling hills and farmlands of Wisconsin's Chippewa County. For years, the bluffs stood silent as small farming communities grew around them. The bluffs are too steep to farm and most of the trees in the area grow on the tops of bluffs and around their rolling slopes and steep faces. It's unusually cold for April and trees stand as silhouettes against a layer of snow.
Most ground turkey found contaminated with fecal and antibiotic-resistant bacteria: report
Dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria has been found in ground turkey on U.S. grocery shelves across a variety of brands and stores located in 21 states, according to a report by a consumer watchdog organization.
Of the 257 samples of ground turkey tested, more than half were found to be positive for fecal bacteria and overall, 90 percent were contaminated with one or more types of disease-causing organisms, many of which proved resistant to one or more common antibiotics, Consumer Reports found.
No. 10: Rhode Island Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage
Rhode Island became the 10th U.S. state to embrace marriage equality, following a procedural vote in the House of Representatives and independent governor Lincoln Chafee's signature on the Marriage Equality Act today.
Chafee had a message for LGBT Rhode Islanders in a speech on the steps of the State Capitol in Providence, where he signed the bill: "At long last, you are free to marry the person you love."
Florida sheriff reintroduces chain gang
The sheriff in this county of beaches and spaceships has launched a very visible anti-crime campaign that civil-rights activists are questioning.
For the past few weeks, a small band of convicted inmates from Brevard County Jail has been working on a chain gang. First-year Sheriff Wayne Ivey says he launched the project as a sort of living and breathing public service announcement, choosing black-and-white striped costumes harkening to a bygone era; black boots with chains around the ankles; and bold, bright signage aimed at making the chain gang as visible as possible.
California to confiscate guns held illegally in firearms crackdown
California plans to confiscate guns from 20,000 people who bought them legally but have since been disqualified because of criminal or psychiatric problems, boosting the state's relatively tough approach to gun control.
Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation on Wednesday allocating $24m – generated by fees taken from gun buyers at the time of purchase – to the crackdown, the first in a series of gun control bills following the Sandy Hook massacre.
US rejects EU claim of insecticide as sole reason for bee colony collapse
A government report blamed a combination of factors for the disappearance of America's honeybees on Thursday and did not join Europe in singling out pesticides as a prime suspect.
The report, by the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency, blamed a parasitic mite, viruses, bacteria, poor nutritions and genetics as well as pesticides for the rapid decline of honey bees since 2006.
Creationsim Win: Louisiana Science Education Act Repeal Fails
A Louisiana law that allows public school science teachers to use supplemental materials in their classrooms will remain on the books, despite criticism that it’s a back-door way to teach creationism.
The Senate Education Committee voted 3-2 Wednesday against the proposal by Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, D-New Orleans, to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act, in what has become an annual debate before the panel.
Delegitimizing Pro-Palestinian Queer Voices
In the last eight years, the Israeli government has sought to rebrand Israel as a “liberal haven” for gay rights in an otherwise-homophobic Middle East as a means of increasing tourism and international goodwill.
Critics refer to the campaign as “pinkwashing,” an attempt to whitewash the Israeli occupation by focusing on gay and lesbian issues. Many of these critics are queer people themselves, and their movement against Israeli policies is building within the LGBT community. But recent pro-Israel initiatives hope to change that; rather than simply promoting Israeli gay images in the international sphere, these Israel advocates are actually attempting to sanitize LGBTQ spaces of pro-Palestinian activism entirely.
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