The Tragic, Forgotten History of Zombies

The horror-movie trope owes its heritage to Haitian slaves, who imagined being imprisoned in their bodies forever.
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Is desalination the future of drought relief in California?

San Diego is set to soon start supplying itself with millions of gallons a day of fresh, drinkable water, using saltwater from the Pacific Ocean, converted by a brand new desalination plant. As California's historic drought continues, the plant will likely intensify the debate over the role of desalination may play in the state's water supply. Special Correspondent Mike Taibbi reports.
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Nazis against Nazis – Germany's most involuntary charity walk

On November 15th, neo-Nazis walked through the streets of Wunsiedel. We could not stop them - but we could make them walk for something meaningful: and that is how for the first time a right-wing memorial march became a charity walk - without knowing of the participants. For every meter they walked, €10 went to EXIT-Deutschland - a Nazi opt-out programme. The result: €10.000 and lots of surprised right-wing extremists.
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What "Narcos" Gets Wrong About the War on Drugs

The Netflix show distorts history and misrepresents the conflict
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Cities combat state laws in the quest for faster, cheaper Internet

: Telecom giants influence state laws to prevent public high-speed Web service
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The police want to see your entire internet history

Police are to be given the power to view everyone’s entire internet history in a new surveillance bill to be published next week, according to reports. The proposed legislation will make it a legal requirement for telecoms and internet service providers to retain all of the web browsing history for all customers for a period of 12 months, according to the Daily Telegraph.
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The 1965 Blackout: Hear The Eerie Broadcast When New York Went Dark

Before we hear his broadcast, we need to set the scene. West Island Weather has more: Over 30 million people were affected including some provinces in Canada. Everything went dark. Patients in the middle of surgery, people in subways were trapped in darkness from New York to Canada and most states in between. A plane was getting ready to land when the runway disappeared. 1700 Passengers from a powerless subway train were rescued from a bridge in New York.
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Deso Dogg, Ex-Rapper Who Joined ISIS, Is Killed by U.S. Airstrike

The German-born former rapper Deso Dogg, who abandoned his music career in 2010 and became a recruiter in Syria for the Islamic State, was killed in an airstrike this month, the Pentagon confirmed Friday. The musician, born Denis Cuspert, toured with the American performer DMX in 2006 but later abandoned rap music and became a well-known singer of nasheeds, or Islamic devotional music, in German.
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When It Comes To Counterterrorism, Why Bush And Obama Aren't So Far Apart

NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with New York Times reporter Charlie Savage about his new book, Power Wars: Inside Obama's Post-9/11 Presidency.
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Storms, Possible Tornadoes Lash Texas; 2 Still Missing

The second day of turbulent weather in Texas.
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Police to be granted powers to view your internet history

UK Home Secretary Theresa May expected to announce plans to give security services powers to view web browsing history of everyone in the country
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How corporations use fine print to deny Americans their day in court

By inserting individual arbitration clauses into a soaring number of consumer and employment contracts, companies like American Express devised a way to circumvent the courts and bar people from joining together in class-action lawsuits, realistically the only tool citizens have to fight illegal or deceitful business practices.
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Russian plane 'completely destroyed' in Egypt crash

Search and rescue officer says all 224 passengers and crew on flight from Sharm el-Sheikh likely to have died in Sinai crash
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Sci-Fi’s Hugo Awards and the Battle for Pop Culture’s Soul

A battle over diversity is raging in the world of science fiction. And it's a battle for the soul of all popular culture. By Amy Wallace.
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Halloweens Past: Wacky Pranks With Wagons

When America was younger: Ladies wore hats, men sported spats and Halloween could be hard on the family buggy or wagon. By the late 19th century, All Hallows Eve had become a night for playing tricks on neighbors. One of the favorite capers was to "borrow" someone's wagon and send it — driverless — down a hill. Or place it — by some mysterious method — in a remote spot, such as the top of a barn or house.
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How to Cut Coffee's Bitterness

Coffee is my go-to choice for a cognitive boost. I enjoy a morning cup of joe (almost every alternate day), but like a lot of people I’m not a fan of coffee’s bitter flavor. So to mask it, apart from adding lots of milk, I guiltily dump in a sugar cube (or maybe two). I’m not alone. Even connoisseurs of coffee, such as the Specialty Coffee Association of America, treat bitterness as a defect, describing it as “caustic,” “phenolic,” “creosol,” and “alkaline.” So, recently when my...
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Public Faces: Photography as Social Media in the 19th Century

Many of the traits we associate with our selfies were also present in the most popular photographic format of the 1860s, the carte de visite....
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The Fin-de-Siècle Paris Theater Whose Performances Were Literally Torturous

A knife in the eye. A splash of acid in the face. Murder. Comedy. Ah, the theater! By Eric Grundhauser.
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A Republican party split in two

While the Republicans are likely to keep majorities in Congress and in state executive offices, the White House seems more difficult - what's happening here?
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Shaker Aamer released from Guantánamo Bay after 14-year detention

No 10 says no plan to detain British resident on return from imprisonment without trial in US military camp where he was beaten.
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Al Molinaro, Big Al on ‘Happy Days’ actor, dead at 96

Al Molinaro, the actor best known for playing diner owner Big Al Delvecchio on “Happy Days,” died Thursday, according to reports.
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Paul Krugman on How the GOP Got Taken Over by Scam Artists

Republicans voters just have to decide which grifter they prefer to nominate.
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Clarke And Dawe: Australian political Satire

John Clarke and Bryan Dawe explain the Australian political conundrum via a quizz show.
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Jordan’s Rage: Fighting ISIS through Poetry

Muhammad Fanatil al-Hajaya's memorial poem for the executed Jordanian pilot Mu'ath al-Kasasbeh is a rallying cry for all Jordanians to rise up against ISIS.
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No, Hillary. You did not bring democracy to Burma

Clinton points to Burma as a prime example of her foreign policy leadership. But how far has the country really come? By Samantha Michaels.
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Law Enforcement: Traveling From Anywhere To Anywhere Is Suspicious Behavior

Want to travel from anywhere to anywhere in the United States without being hassled by law enforcement officers? Good luck with that, citizen. USA Today's Brad Heath pointed out an interesting footnote in an asset forfeiture filing that made the assertion that traveling from Chicago to Los Angeles is inherently suspicious. (One presumes the opposite is also true.)
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How Big Ag Stampeded Over Science and Reason to Keep Sustainability Out of Our Dietary Guidelines

Did Big Ag’s beef-loving cowboys just lasso the 2015 Dietary Guidelines? It sure does look that way. By Jeff Turrentine.
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The Selling Of Trust

How Russia’s longest and largest bank fraud has been covered up as it passed from one owner to another, starting with Mikhail Khodorkovsky and ending with Ruben Aganbegyan, Alexander Mamut, et al. By John Helmer.
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Making Insider Trading Legal

Thanks to gaping loopholes implicitly endorsed by the Supreme Court, hedge funds now essentially have a license to cheat. By Patrick Radden Keefe.
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Republicans will not air February debate on NBC

A coming US presidential debate will not air on NBC after Republicans said this week's forum on a sister network was conducted in "bad faith".
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Saving Speaker Ryan

When the clock strikes midnight tonight, it may well toll the end of the best day in the speakership of Paul Ryan... By John Lawrence.
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The EU just made porn filters illegal

The European Union has voted through legislation that will require all internet providers to treat online traffic “without discrimination” – effectively ending porn filters established by David Cameron. The ruling, which has been greeted with dismay by anti-porn campaigners, will come into effect by the end of the year and is part of a broader move by the EU towards “net neutrality.”
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'Person of interest' named in 1989 Jacob Wetterling disappearance

An Annandale, Minn., man first questioned 26 years ago about the disappearance of Jacob Wetterling has re-emerged as a “person of interest” in a chilling abduction that has long stymied investigators and haunted the public, authorities said Thursday. Daniel James Heinrich, 52, was arrested at his home Wednesday night on charges of receiving and possessing child pornography. At a news conference Thursday in Minneapolis...
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Big Data Analysis of Debate Shows Ted Cruz Grabbed Viewers' Attention

NEWS ANALYSIS: An expanded analysis of voter sentiment and reactions to the Republican candidates' debate conducted by CNBC on Oct. 28 produced some surprising results.
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Rigging of Foreign Exchange Market Makes Felons of Top Banks

For the world’s biggest banks, what seemed like the perfect business turned out to be the perfect breeding ground for crime. The trading of foreign currencies promised substantial revenues and relatively low risk. It was the kind of activity that banks were supposed to expand after the 2008 financial crisis. But like so many other seemingly good ideas on Wall Street, the foreign exchange business was vulnerable to manipulation...
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Anonymous threatens to release 1,000 names of KKK members

The hacking collective Anonymous has threatened to reveal the names of 1,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan, in a move which could cause immense embarrassment for supporters of the white supremacist organisation.
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Police Used Terrorism Powers to Seize Reporter's Laptop

British police used anti-terrorism laws to seize the computer of a reporter who has interviewed supporters of the Islamic State group, the BBC said Thursday. The broadcaster said police had obtained an order from a judge under the Terrorism Act "requiring the BBC to hand over communication between a 'Newsnight' journalist and a man in Syria who had publicly identified himself as an IS member."
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The Truth About Ben Carson and the Company He Says He Never Had ‘Any Kind of Relationship’ With

Last night’s Republican presidential debate was hardly lacking in demonstrable lies uttered with total conviction. One of the more audacious was Ben Carson’s claim that he never had “any kind of relationship” with controversial nutritional-supplement company Mannatech... By Eric Levitz.
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Philadelphia police join call to boycott Quentin Tarantino movies

All 14,000 Members of the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 have joined officers in New York and Los Angeles in calling for a boycott of Quentin Tarantino’s films. “Tarantino has shown through his actions that he is anti-police,” the group’s president, John McNesby, said in a statement. “Mr. Tarantino has made a good living through his films, projecting into society at large violence and respect for criminals; he it turns out also hates cops.”
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North Korea's slave labor force is growing, U.N. special rapporteur says

The number of North Korean workers enslaved abroad is growing, and many are forced to work as long as 20 hours a day while the regime embezzles hundreds of millions of dollars from their pay. Marzuki Darusman, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, said the growing exploitation of North Korean workers by the regime in Pyongyang "reflects the really tight financial and economic situation in the North," CNN reported.
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Springtime for Grifters

**Submitter's note: to avoid paywall restrictions, always browse this site in privacy/incognito mode.** The scammers — some looking for votes, some just to line their pockets — figure their victims won’t believe the truths presented by mainstream media.
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Atheistophobia: It’s time to talk about the most persecuted minority in the world

While apologists create mendacious claims of the “New Atheist” threat that is persecuting Muslims – very little attention is given to how atheists have been a persecuted minority for centuries
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Special Series - Putin's Russia: Kremlin Rules

Twenty-five years after the Cold War, fear of Russia's regional ambitions seems once again to be on the rise; while many Russians, in turn, feel threatened and misunderstood by the West.The country's president, Vladimir Putin, had said that he would "reclaim what was rightfully Russia's", and now this seems to be playing out in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. So how do Russians feel about their president and his "strong armed" way of governing?
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Severe Storms, Possible Tornadoes, Flooding Slam South-Central Texas

Here's what we know about the impacts from this round of severe weather.
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European Union Calls For Edward Snowden Criminal Charges To Be Dropped: Will Whistleblower Find Asylum in Europe?

The European Union's Parliament voted 285 to 281 Thursday to drop charges against former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who exposed the agency's widespread spying activities. The Parliament said that not enough has been done to protect the rights of EU citizens from mass surveillance. In a release, the Parliament urged countries to "drop any criminal charges against Edward Snowden, grant him protection and consequently...
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Massive 'Crack in the Earth' Opens up in Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains

The immense crack, which appears to split a hilltop in half, was discovered by startled backcountry hunters.Contrary to some sensational claims swirling about on social media, the crack is not an opening to the underworld or a sign that Yellowstone is about to erupt.
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Time off for bad prose

The makers of the Romanian edition of the board game Monopoly may want to consider altering the “Get out of jail free” card to one reading “Wrote a book in jail”. A change in the law in 2013 allows convicts to claim 30 days off their sentences for every work they publish while in prison. This has led Romanian tycoons and politicians imprisoned on corruption charges to indulge in a frenzy of scribbling. It is a system as corrupt as they are.
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Why One Museum Is Fiercely Fighting the Return of Nazi ‘Looted’ Artworks

Inside the protracted $250 million battle for the Guelph Treasure.
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Jap Herron: A Novel written from the Ouija Board (1917)

Jap Herron was a novel written, supposedly, by a deceased Mark Twain from beyond the grave, dictated via the medium of a Ouija board. The scribe (faithfully taking down notes, or perhaps a little more than just that, depending on your view) was Emily Grant Hutchings, a woman who had actually corresponded with Twain 15 years earlier.
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Final volume of Mark Twain’s autobiography now on shelves

The third and final volume of the autobiography of legendary American author and humorist Mark Twain was published this week, courtesy of editors at the Mark Twain Papers and Project at UC Berkeley…
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