The new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall may be a milestone “in the turbulent history of race and democracy in America,” but let’s not kid ourselves: “King weeps from his grave,” writes Cornel West in a New York Times op-ed . Despite our reverence for King, we…
Continue reading …First, East Coasters endure chuckles from California over Tuesday’s earthquake. Now former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is handing out hurricane advice? Though the Daily Caller points out that many would classify the reaction to Hurricane Katrina as a “colossal failure,” Nagin, who was mayor when Katrina hit, still had…
Continue reading …Finally, an airline inspection process we can all give the thumbs up to: US Customs and Border Patrol intercepted damaging khapra beetle larvae at O’Hare last week, which had traveled from India in bags of rice. It’s an event that’s been happening much more frequently, reports the AP . The khapra…
Continue reading …New York City is taking historic measures in anticipation of Hurricane Irene’s bite: Beginning tomorrow around noon, the entire mass transit system will be shut down, a process that could take as long as eight hours. Additionally, a quarter of a million people have been directed to evacuate. Mayor Bloomberg…
Continue reading …Texans headed to a strip club tonight will indeed have to pay a $5 entrance fee. The state’s all-Republican Supreme Court overruled lower courts today and deemed the so-called “pole tax” constitutional, the AP reports . The fee has been levied since 2007 on clubs that both serve booze and present…
Continue reading …He may be an anti-tax champion now, but Rick Perry has supported billions of dollars in tax hikes throughout his political career—among them the biggest increase that ever occurred in Texas history, the Texas Tribune reports. Just weeks ago, the governor signed an online sales tax provision aimed at…
Continue reading …Kindling memories of the infamous Joseph Fritzl case , Austrian police have arrested a man on suspicion of raping and imprisoning his daughters for more than 40 years, the BBC reports. The 80-year-old denies wrongdoing, but authorities say one of his daughters fled during an attempted rape and reported his alleged…
Continue reading …Rick Perry appears to be a “natural conservative, Texas Division,” and that’s awfully appealing for the Republican base, but he’s also got a glaring flaw, writes Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal . Perry has “a chesty, quick-draw machismo that might be right for an angry base but wrong for…
Continue reading …Three years ago, scientists thought humans had never had sex with Neanderthals. Last year, they changed their tune—and now it looks like DNA passed down from Neanderthals has had a “profound impact” on our immune systems. Scientists compared a section of the modern human genome to the same area…
Continue reading …