Sunset Daily News!

on
Campbell Brown on Her Fight To Get Lousy Teachers Fired

ReasonTV
Oral arguments are scheduled to begin on Wednesday in Wright v. New York, a lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court last July that seeks to overturn certain teacher tenure protections on the grounds that they deny public school students their constitutional right to an adequate education.

Former CNN anchor Campbell Brown, whose organization, the Partnership for Educational Justice, is providing support for the plaintiffs in the case, says that the lawsuit was inspired by the outcome of Vergara v. California. In that lawsuit, a superior court judge struck down five statutes that provide tenure protections to teachers in the Golden State. (The decision is under appeal.)

"Judge [Rolf Treu], in how he wrote his decision, was quite extraordinary," Brown told Reason magazine Managing Editor Katherine Mangu-Ward in an interview for Reason TV.

Israel Shuts Muslim Groups Over Jerusalem Shrine Tensions
WochitBusiness
Israel shut down three local Islamist groups on Monday, accusing them of stoking tensions at a contested shrine in occupied East Jerusalem that has seen increased visits by Jews. Al Aqsa mosque compound in East Jerusalem is Islam's third-holiest site and the vestige of Judaism's ancient temples. Captured by Israel from Jordan in a 1967 war, it is a focus of Palestinian statehood hopes that Jewish ultra-nationalists oppose. Israeli police enforce exclusively Muslim prayer at the site, a ban some Jewish activists have campaigned to overturn with stepped-up visits that have sometimes sparked violent confrontations, exacerbating Palestinian anger over Israel's July-August war in Gaza.

Glenn Greenwald on How to Be a Terror "Expert": Ignore Facts, Blame Muslims, Trumpet U.S. Propaganda
democracynow
http://democracynow.org - Who are the so-called terrorism experts? In the wake of the Paris attacks, the corporate media has once again flooded its news programs with pundits claiming authority on terrorism, foreign policy and world events. We discuss the growing and questionable field of "terrorism experts" with three guests: Glenn Greenwald, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and co-founder of The Intercept; Lisa Stampnitzky, social studies lecturer at Harvard University and author of "Disciplining Terror: How Experts Invented 'Terrorism'"; and Luc Mathieu, foreign affairs reporter for the French newspaper Libération.
Massacre in Nigeria: Up to 2,000 Feared Dead in Boko Haram's Worst Attack to Date
democracynow
http://democracynow.org - As the world focused on the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, a massive atrocity was unfolding in Nigeria. On January 3, the Islamist militant group Boko Haram attacked the northern town of Baga and surrounding areas. Over the next several days, hundreds, possibly thousands, of civilians were killed. Fleeing residents were chased into the bush and shot dead, others reportedly drowning in Lake Chad as they tried to swim away. Scores of homes were burned to the ground, and bodies were strewn in the streets. Estimates of the death toll range from around 500 to up to 2,000. Some 30,000 people were also displaced. Amnesty International says the assault on Baga could be the deadliest of the Boko Haram's six-year insurgency. The group has waged relentless violence in a bid to establish an Islamist state in northern Nigeria. We are joined by Adotei Akwei, managing director of government relations for Amnesty International USA.


Reporters Without Borders on Witnessing the Paris Massacre Aftermath & Press Freedom After Charlie
democracynow
http://democracynow.org - The group Reporters Without Borders is condemning what it calls the "presence of 'predators'" in Sunday's march over the Charlie Hebdo massacre. The group says it is "appalled by the presence of leaders from countries where journalists and bloggers are systematically persecuted" such as Egypt, Russia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia joined other Arab and Muslim countries in condemning the attack at the same time as it faced global outrage at the public lashing of jailed blogger Raif Badawi. On Friday, Badawi received the first 50 of 1,000 lashes as part of his punishment for running a liberal website devoted to freedom of speech in the conservative kingdom. One cartoon shared on social networks shows a pencil being flayed by whips. Amnesty International considers Badawi a prisoner of conscience who is being punished for creating an online forum for debate. 

Related articles