Friday, January 25, 2013
Join the national conversation in the top stories of the week.
This column is designed to offer a platform to discuss national stories on a local level. Share your opinion in the comment section! ---------- PBS' Nova debuted "Rise of the Drones" on Jan. 23, 2013, documenting how these unmanned aircraft have changed the face of war in less than a decade. Ten years ago, the U.S. owned around 50 drones - now, that number is closer to 7,000, with no hint of slowing down. In fact, the 2012 budget included $5 billion for research, development and procurement of drones. The controversy surrounding the use of drones is not new; one question brought out by the documentary, however, is. What will the U.S. do with it's thousands of drones once the War on Terror is over? A federal law signed in February of 2012 …
Friday, January 4, 2013
Join the national conversation in the top stories of the week.
This column is designed to offer a platform to discuss national stories on a local level. Share your opinion in the comment section! ---------- Our 113th Congress is the most diverse ever. The first Asian-American female, Mazie Hirono, was sworn in, along with the first openly gay Senator, Tammy Baldwin. South Carolina's Sen. Tim Scott became the first African-American senator in the Deep South since Reconstruction. (By the way, Hirono is also the first Buddhist senator and the first female senator from Hawaii, according to the Huffington Post.) And New Hampshire now has only females representing the state in both the Senate and the House. That's a first, too. Now if only they could all just get along. ---------- In Venezuela, Hugo …
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Join the conversation in this week's Hot Topics.
This column is designed to offer a platform to discuss national stories on a local level. Share your opinion in the comment section! ---------- The political leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, now says that an Islamic Palestinian state will replace the land of Israel, including the West Bank and Gaza Strip, according to the New York Times. He spoke in Gaza on the 25th anniversary of the founding of Hamas, claiming that Israel will be "wiped away." “We will never recognize the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation, and therefore there is no legitimacy for Israel, no matter how long it will take,” he said. “We will free Jerusalem inch by inch, stone by stone. Israel has no right to be in Jerusalem.” These are not new threats. But they are "…
Friday, November 30, 2012
Join the national conversation in this week's Hot Topics column.
This column is designed to offer a platform to discuss national stories on a local level. Share your opinion in the comment section! ---------- Members of the United Nations took a vote on Thursday, Nov. 29, that upgraded the Palestinian Authority's status to "non-member observer state." The Vatican, for example, holds the same status. Out of 193 nations, 138 voted in favor. The U.S. and Israel were among those who voted against. Only nine total voted against the measure, with 41 abstaining. The vote is largely symbolic, and would "do nothing to advance the peace and the two-state solution we all want to see," according to Secretary of State Clinton. The new status for Palestine grants them access to the International Criminal Court, …
Friday, November 16, 2012
Join the national conversation in this week's Hot Topics column.
This column is designed to offer a platform to discuss national stories on a local level. Share your opinion in the comment section! ---------- As Israel and Gaza traded rockets, the world watched as it unfolded over Twitter. With tweets like "We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead" and "The #Hamas' Fajr-5 missile can reach 3.5 million Israelis. Imagine the entire population of #LA under threat" from the Israeli Defense Force, it seemed likely earlier this week that the fight would escalate. It did. On Friday, Hamas fired a rocket near Jerusalem, the first time they have ever aimed for the city. It's possible that this could become full on war, as Israel …
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Join the national conversation in this week's Hot Topics column.
This column is designed to offer a platform to discuss national stories on a local level. Share your opinion in the comment section! ---------- I'm sure you've heard by now that David Petraeus, Director of the CIA, resigned over an extramarital affair. Reports have surfaced that the affair was discovered by investigating his emails. Questions arise, but I'm sure we'll find out more about who, what, when and where. The Chicago Tribune reports that the woman was a journalist and his biographer. While the public has questioned why he would resign over an affair -- when even presidents have had affairs and remained in office -- the FBI expected him to resign "rather than risk the possibility that he could be blackmailed to give intelligence …
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Join the national conversation on this and other topics in this week's Hot Topics column.
While the matter of foreign officials monitoring U.S. elections was more of a prominent story last week, it got pushed to the side when Hurricane Sandy blew through the northeast. So, in case you missed it, an international group is sending a very large delegation of officials -- over 100 -- to oversee the elections. It's the largest contingency to ever visit North America during elections. Why? Because of alleged intimidation practices by Republicans who want tighter voter ID laws, according to Fox. Civil rights groups, including the ACLU, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the NAACP. In an effort to dispel myths about the election monitoring, the Organization for Security and Co-operation (OSCE) issued a few …
Friday, October 26, 2012
Join the national conversation as we discuss this week's Hot Topics.
First things first: Frankenstorm. Some say this could be the storm of the century, but who knows what could happen between now and then? The storm has already ravaged the Caribbean, causing 40 deaths. Meteorologists expect a combination of high winds, heavy rain and extreme tides, according to the BBC. It could also bring snow. Our weather blogger believes it has the potential to become the "perfect storm," causing all kinds of drama. It should hit the U.S. late Monday or early Tuesday. ---------- Donald Trump's "October Surprise" left many a little disappointed. Some believe President Obama should release his education records and passport applications. That's not a surprise, that's a request. He did offer to donate $5 million to charity …
Friday, October 19, 2012
Join the conversation in this week's Hot Topics as we discuss the biggest scandal the Boy Scouts of America have ever faced, as well as the world's oldest father and a New York appeals court striking down the Defense of Marriage Act.
Allegations of child sexual abuse have been made against 97 Georgia men who were in leadership roles from the '60s through mid-80s. They make up a small portion of the total number of men -- over a thousand -- recently outed by documents released Thursday by the Boy Scouts of America. The number of boys molested by these men is over 4,000. Forty-four Scout leaders from the metro-Atlanta area were named, including men from Stone Mountain, Lithonia, Woodstock and Marietta. These men were not reported to authorities, but kept in a file to prevent them from volunteering with the organization again. Some, however, continued in the roles. The files are known as the "ineligible volunteer" files. After one Pennsylvania man admitted to "acts of …
Friday, October 5, 2012
Join the national conversation as we discuss this week's Hot Topics.
A senior lawmaker is calling for an investigation after a lawsuit claims that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducted illegal experiments on humans. Some asthmatic patients were allegedly exposed to carcinogens, like diesel exhaust and fine particulate matter, according to Foxnews.com. "It is extremely disturbing that EPA may have conducted illegal human experiments, exposing people with conditions such as asthma and metabolic syndrome to concentrated high levels of substances like fine particulate matter and diesel exhaust," Inhofe, the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, wrote in a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the committee chair, and published on FoxNews.com. "EPA has repeatedly…
J M Davis
5:20 pm on Saturday, November 17, 2012
Unbelievable!!! Worker's listened to their union leader and look what it got them. Lets see the union fining me or lose my job? Well, lets lose my job. I can't believe it. This is America and those folks chose to let the union dictate their future. I guess the Baker's Union is proud??? more ›