Trump ordered that the term Homo sapiens be changed to Hetero sapiens. In history books and on websites, the airplane from which the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima will no longer be identified as the Enola Gay, but rather the Enola Straight. Trump also ordered billionaire Mark Cuban, who supported Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, to change his name to Mark American. If he does not do so, he will be charged with terrorism.   read more

A lawsuit was filed against a Catholic hospital in Colorado for wrongful death after staff made no attempt to save a set of unborn twins before the mother died. In a turnabout, lawyers for the Catholic hospital argued that the Colorado Wrongful Death Act did not apply to unborn fetuses because they are not persons.   read more

Afghanistan’s security forces have continued to torture detainees, according to a new report released by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. The torture has occurred despite admonishment from the United Nations and corrective measures by U.S./NATO commanders.   read more

A new report produced by the U.N.’s International Labour Organization says the number of jobless people worldwide is more than 197 million, with another 39 million having given up looking for work. Meanwhile, the incomes of the top 1% globally have increased 60% in 20 years.   read more

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Massachusetts) is President Barack Obama’s choice to succeed current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who will stay on until her successor is confirmed. Kerry seems to have been born for the role, but he has nonetheless worked hard to prepare for it.   read more

In order to meet the requirements to join the European Union, the Greek government needed to mask the true level of its national debt. In 2001 Goldman Sachs stepped in and provided a secret loan using a fictitious historical exchange rate to convert dollars and yen to Euros. The deal instantly went bad—for Greece, but not for Goldman—leaving the nation owing more money than the loan itself.   read more

Both the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation have publicly opposed New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ban on large sodas. Critics say the NAACP’s decision may have been influenced by the large donations it has received from Coca-Cola. For example, the Coca-Cola Foundation last month awarded $100,000 to the NAACP’s Project HELP initiative. And the Hispanic Federation recently lost its president, Lillian Rodriguez Lopez, to Coca-Cola after she accepted a position with the soft drink giant.   read more

A total of 20 now serve in the U.S. Senate (an all-time high), while the House also reached a new high mark with 17.9% female representation. Despite this success, there are still six states that have yet to elect a woman to the House of Representatives: Iowa, Mississippi, Delaware, Alaska, North Dakota and Vermont. Internationally, the United States still ranks in only 77th place in terms of the percentage of women in its national legislature.   read more

While Marsh was in Washington on Monday, Senate Republicans adopted a new redistricting plan that, among other things, would create a new seat that includes part of Marsh’s district. The GOP managed to get their plan approved on a 20-19 vote. Had Marsh, a Democrat, been in attendance, the plan likely would have failed on a tie vote.   read more

Brune explained that the organization has always been committed to “lawful means” to achieve its goals, including lobbying, litigation and grassroots organizing. “Now, for the first time in our history, we are prepared to go further,” he added, without specifically saying what the Sierra Club plans to do. He has said that it will deal with the exploitation of tar sands and its relationship to climate change.   read more

“Obama has thrown disclosures to Congress into question by claiming these new rights for whistleblowers ‘threaten to interfere with my constitutional duty to supervise the executive branch,’” Canterbury wrote. “This is especially disturbing given that Obama has long supported whistleblowers and has previously kept every promise to strengthen protections for them.”   read more

A “dream team” of engineers were responsible for developing the software (Narwhal) behind Obama’s campaign website and databases. With the election over, these tech wizards want to share their achievement with the coding community so other developers can study it and make it even better. But Democratic politicos would prefer to sit on the technology. If Republicans want to duplicate the Obama campaign’s success, let them figure it out for themselves, they argue.   read more

Northside Independent School District in San Antonio began its Student Locator Project that called for all students to carry badges embedded with radio frequency identification (RFID). District officials claimed the devices would help them monitor troublesome students. One 15-year-old student, Andrea Hernandez, objected to wearing her badge for religious reasons. She was then removed from her magnet school, Jay High School, for not complying with the school’s policy.   read more

A new Bloomberg poll of 921 subscribers to Bloomberg Professional service revealed that 47% of global investors surveyed said they are reducing their investments in the U.S. as a direct result of “repeated confrontations between the U.S. Congress and President Obama.” More than a third of respondents said the nation’s fiscal problems pose the biggest threat to the world economy, while 29% chose Europe’s sovereign debt crisis and 15% named China’s slowing economy.   read more

Among the school districts with questionable content were those of Lubbock, Amarillo, Ector County (Odessa) and Longview. Lubbock used a textbook that included fake quotes from Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and Herbert Hoover. The district has agreed to suspend use of the book. In Amarillo Students are urged to learn about “fulfilled prophecy” and to create a “Messianic prophecy list.” They are also taught that Jesus is superior to “Jewish leaders…and their priests.”   read more

Oxfam recommends that the rich donate all of their earnings from 2012, which totaled about $240 billion. The report also suggested that world leaders take action to reduce the widening gap between rich and poor, with a goal of bringing inequality back down to at least 1990 levels. Oxfam proposed that closing tax havens and taxing capital gains at normal rates would raise at least $189 billion a year.   read more

During the 2010-2011 school year, there were 1,065,794 homeless students in preschools and K-12 schools, according to the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. This marked the first time in history that public schools reported more than one million homeless children and youth.   read more