On Wednesday, Axon (formerly “Taser”) announced its offer to outfit every cop in the US with a free body camera, with rollout beginning as soon as the end of the month. About 20% of police departments use body cameras. The overwhelmingly majority of all police departments have no policies about how best to use the…
On Thursday, the US House Budget Committee voted 19-17 in favor of moving the American Health Care Act, the GOP replacement to the Affordable Care Act, to another final committee before it goes up for a vote in the House of Representatives with some modifications. Yet still, the bill continues to suck.
On a Saturday evening last January, Gynnya McMillen was staying at her mother’s apartment complex in Shelbyville, a city of 15,000 in northern Kentucky. Gynnya, 16, lived in foster care but was allowed weekend visits with her mother, Michelle McMillen, since their long-strained relationship had begun to improve. That…
A student named only as John Doe was accused of sexually assaulting a fellow student in a storage closet in November of 2014. At the time of the assault, Brown University had no policy in place sufficient to deal with the situation, Judge William Smith said in his ruling, and it lacked a definition for consent. They…
Facebook has always had a policy of requiring users to supply their real name on the site. Enforcement has been lax, but there's still a risk of getting caught. Here's how to fly under the radar if you need to.
Proving once again that "pro-life" is a total misnomer, the UN Human Rights Committee has harshly criticized both Ireland and Chile for their ridiculously draconian abortion laws, warning that the restrictions may be a violation of international human rights treaties.
Here's some shitty news. Four days after unanimously approving policy allowing a few very basic rights to transgender students, the East Aurora School District 131 in Illinois has revoked it, claiming that they didn't allow time for input from state officials. We all know this is a bunch of bullshit because the…
In what is a major step forward for transgender women looking to live out the pageant queen's dream, the Miss Universe Organization announced today that they will officially change their rules to allow transgender contestants to into their pageants. That means they'll not only be allowed to compete for Miss Universe,…
In Taiwan, there are 1.09 male births for every female born. The worldwide ratio is 1.06. (For what it's worth, the gap is worse in China and India, despite it being illegal to reveal the sex of the fetus). And the Taiwanese government wants to do something about it.
Here is one possibility: I'm just too dumb to know what writer Joe Klein's real point is in this week's Time cover story about Hillary Clinton. Here is another possibility: He's not so sure himself. Could go either way.
In the Philippines, many women are facing a grim reality: with poverty levels rising along with the population, some can't afford to keep supporting their growing families. The problem? Birth control is hard to find, and abortion is illegal.
Since when is working toward peaceful solutions a "radical" foreign policy? Liz Cheney argues Obama's tactics are "making the nation weaker." She's also pushing the "waterboarding isn't torture" lie, when we know it is. Give up, Cheney. [Politico, Vanity Fair]
You might be forgiven if, upon watching this video of Sarah Palin meeting with and talking to heads of state, you think to yourself, "But, Sarah Palin has never address the United Nations!" Because we did. The video mashes up some actual audio of Palin discussing foreign policy and the religious case for "Drill, Baby,…
Remember this guy? It's the Northern Illinois school shooter, the one who was such a nice bighearted hardworking humanist before he killed five students before turning the gun on his own throat last Valentine's Day. Steve Kazmierczak is the name. I would say it's a shame more school shooters don't have easier names,…
Alberto Gonzales "resigned" after forcing "resignations" out of a bunch of US attorneys who weren't as pathologically loyal to Bush as he was and then suffering a lot of amnesia about how that all came about. What's most remarkable about this is that without being a spooky hatemongering Bible-thumping ideologue, this…
