The U.S. Constitution and Ohio state law prohibit courts from jailing people for being too poor to pay their legal fines, but in several Ohio counties, local courts are doing it anyway. The ACLU of Ohio today released The Outskirts of Hope, a report that chronicles a nearly yearlong investigation into Ohio’s debtors’ prisons and tells the stories of six Ohioans whose lives have been damaged by debtors’ prison practices.
“Being poor is not a crime in this country,” said Rachel Goodman, Staff Attorney at the ACLU Racial Justice Program. “Incarcerating people who cannot afford to pay fines is both unconstitutional and cruel—it takes a tremendous toll on precisely those families already struggling the most.”
ACLU Report Exposes Debtors’ Prison Practices in Ohio
How Bradley Manning could have prevented the Deepwater Horizon explosion
Bradley Manning tried to save the eleven men who died – burned alive – on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in 2010. But Barack Obama and the New York Times made sure that wouldn’t happen. Three years ago this month, on the 20th of April, 2010, the BP Deepwater Horizon drilling rig blew itself to kingdom come.
Soon thereafter, a message came in to our office’s chief of investigations, Ms Badpenny, from a person I dare not name, who was floating somewhere in the Caspian Sea along the coast of Baku, Central Asia.
Benzene found in groundwater 10 feet from Parachute Creek, CO
Benzene levels as much as 800 times more than the federal drinking water standard have been found in shallow groundwater in a monitoring well just 10 feet from the banks of Parachute Creek at the site of a liquid hydrocarbon leak.
However, Todd Hartman, spokesman for the state Department of Natural Resources, said Tuesday testing of the creek water continues to show no signs of contamination from the leak.
Sampling results from the newly completed well shows benzene levels of 1,900 to 4,100 parts per billion. The Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum allowable level for benzene, a carcinogen, in drinking water is 5 ppb.
Prairie2: Buffy closes the Hellmouth
Ever heard of 'The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists'? Using information that must have come from something akin to the 'Anonymous' hackers (or maybe the NSA) they have begun to reveal the rampant tax evasion of the wealthy.
The first articles based on a cache of 2.5 million files were published Thursday (today), laying bare the secrets of more than 120,000 offshore entities, including your basic shell corporations and legal structures known as trusts, that have been used to hide the finances of politicians (Mitt Romney?), crooks, drug smugglers, dictators and others from more than 170 nations.
Why Does Exxon Control the No-Fly Zone Over Arkansas Tar Sands Spill?
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has had a "no fly zone" in place in Mayflower, Arkansas since April 1 at 2:12 PM and will be in place "until further notice," according to the FAA website and it's being overseen by ExxonMobil itself. In other words, any media or independent observers who want to witness the tar sands spill disaster have to ask Exxon's permission.
Mayflower is the site of the recent major March 29 ExxonMobil Pegagus tar sands pipeline spill, which belched out an estimated 5,000 barrels of tar sands diluted bitumen ("dilbit") into the small town's neighborhoods, causing the evacuation of 22 homes.
Lead poisoning toll revised to 1 in 38 children in US
More than half a million U.S. children are now believed to have lead poisoning, roughly twice the previous high estimate, health officials reported Thursday. The increase is the result of the government last year lowering the threshold for lead poisoning, so now more children are considered at risk.
Too much lead can harm developing brains and can mean a lower IQ. Lead poisoning used to be a much larger concern in the United States, but has declined significantly as lead was removed from paint and gasoline and other sources.
Strong hints of dark matter detected by space station, physicists say
Physicists announced on Wednesday that they have discovered the most convincing evidence yet of the existence of dark matter – the particles that are thought to make up a quarter of the universe but whose presence has never been confirmed.
Members of an international team gathered at Nasa in Washington and Cern in Switzerland to report their findings, which come from a $2bn particle detector mounted to the International Space Station.
Identities of the rich who hide cash offshore
Millions of internal records have leaked from Britain's offshore financial industry, exposing for the first time the identities of thousands of holders of anonymous wealth from around the world, from presidents to plutocrats, the daughter of a notorious dictator and a British millionaire accused of concealing assets from his ex-wife.
The leak of 2m emails and other documents, mainly from the offshore haven of the British Virgin Islands (BVI), has the potential to cause a seismic shock worldwide to the booming offshore trade, with a former chief economist at McKinsey estimating that wealthy individuals may have as much as $32tn (£21tn) stashed in overseas havens.
Palestinian teen protester killed by Israeli army fire
Israeli forces shot and killed a teenage Palestinian protester during a clash in the West Bank late Wednesday, raising tensions already heightened by the death of a Palestinian prisoner and renewed fighting between Israel and Gaza militants.
The late night killing capped a day of rioting throughout the West Bank in protest at the prisoner's death from cancer and raised the likelihood of further unrest in the Palestinian territories Thursday.
Page 379 of 1174
