Jan 01
Robert Bates apologized for the fatal shooting of an unarmed man in Tulsa.
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How NYC's Landmarks Act Bulldozed the Future
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Once
upon a time New York City's builders blithely turned spectacular monuments into
dust. Henry James complained about Manhattan’s "restless renewals,” but in the
old days nostalgia was for writers and poets. Developers were preoccupied with
building the future. This ethos of creative destruction allowed New York
to become the world’s preeminent city. And then fifty years ago this Sunday,
Mayor Robert F. Wagner signed the Landmarks Preservation Act. The law made it
illegal to destroy any structure that the city’s planning elite deem too
important not to save. Today almost a third of the buildings in Manhattan, and
more than 33,000 structures citywide, may as well be encased in a life-sized
historical diorama. To illustrate the damage done by this law, let’s
imagine that the Landmarks Act had been passed not in 1965, but in 1865, when
the spire of Trinity Church still towered over Lower Manhattan. Modern New York
wouldn’t exist. |
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Volunteers Gather to Care for Glenn Ford, Exonerated Louisiana
Man ...
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http://democracynow.org
- In Louisiana, former prosecutor Marty Stroud has met with former death row
prisoner Glenn Ford to apologize to him for wrongfully charging him with murder.
After 30 years in prison, Ford was released from death row last year after the
state admitted new evidence proves he was not the killer. Stroud recently wrote
a three-page letter in the Shreveport Times calling on the state to stop
refusing to compensate Ford, who now has stage 4 lung cancer. We get an update
on Ford’s case from his friend Jackie Sumell.
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Watch: Art Exhibit Recreates Tiny Cell Where the Late Herman
Wallac...
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http://democracynow.org
- We speak with New Orleans-based artist Jackie Sumell about her collaboration
with former prisoner and Black Panther, Herman Wallace. As Democracy Now!
reported in October of 2013, Wallace died just days after his conviction was
overturned and he was released from nearly 42 years in solitary confinement. He
was a member of the Angola 3, who was convicted for the 1972 murder of a prison
guard, but long maintained his innocence and said they were framed for their
political activism. The project Wallace worked on with Sumell began when she
asked him, "What sort of house does a man who has lived in a 6-foot-by-9-foot
cell for over 30 years dream of?" You can see his response in the exhibit called
"#76759: Featuring the House That Herman Built." The exhibit opened this week at
the Brooklyn Public Library’s main branch and includes a life-sized replica of
Wallace’s prison cell, selections from his correspondence with Sumell, books
from his reading list,
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U.S. Coast Guard Touts Record-setting Drug Busts
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wochit
Business |
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The
offloading of tons of cocaine, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, was used
as a backdrop to announce record-setting drug busts in the eastern Pacific
Ocean.
Representatives from the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Navy and Royal
Canadian Navy gathered on a San Diego dock Thursday, as the crew of the U.S.
Coast Guard Cutter Boutwell unloaded more than 14 tons of cocaine. The drugs,
with an estimated street value of $424 million, were taken in 19 separate
seizures in drug transit zones near Central and South America. The Coast Guard
says the current fiscal year, which ends on September 30, is already the most
successful since 2009 for drug seizures. The total amount of cocaine taken for
the fiscal year so far is reported to be 28 tons, worth more than 848 million
dollars. Authorities say 101 smugglers have also been apprehended.
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Test Mutiny: Tens of Thousands of New York Parents Revolt
Against S...
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http://democracynow.org
- In an act of mass civil disobedience, tens of thousands of parents in New York
state had their children boycott the annual English Language Arts exam this
week. At some Long Island and upstate school districts, abstention levels
reached 80 percent. Protest organizers say at least 155,000 pupils opted out —
and that is with only half of school districts tallied so far. The action is
seen as a significant challenge to the education agenda of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and
to standardized testing nationwide. More than a decade after the passage of No
Child Left Behind, educators, parents and students nationwide are protesting the
preponderant reliance on high-stakes standardized testing, saying it gives undue
importance to ambiguous data and compromises learning in favor of test prep. We
speak to Jack Bierwirth, superintendent of Herricks Public Schools in Long
Island, and parent Toni Smith-Thompson, who led the boycott against standardized
testing at Central Park East...
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Did NBC Cover Up Role of U.S.-Backed Free Syrian Army in 2012
Kidna...
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http://democracynow.org
- NBC News is at the center of a new controversy, this time focused on its chief
foreign correspondent Richard Engel. Back in 2012 he and five other members of
an NBC News team were kidnapped by armed gunmen in Syria. They were held for
five days. Just after his release Engel spoke on NBC News and said this about
his captors: "This is a government militia. These are people who are loyal to
President Bashar al-Assad. They are Shiite." Well, earlier this week, a New York
Times investigation prompted Engel to revise his story and reveal he was
actually captured by Sunni militants affiliated with the U.S.-backed Free Syrian
Army. In an article published on Wednesday, Engel said the kidnappers had "put
on an elaborate ruse to convince us they were Shiite shabiha militiamen."
According to the Times investigation, NBC knew more than it let on about the
kidnappers. We speak to As’ad AbuKhalil, professor of political science at
California State University, Stanislaus....
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