Schools in Pakistan are increasingly targeted by terrorists, prompting widespread closures, and frustrating the dreams of students in a nation fraught with civil strife and illiteracy. After a pair of October 20 suicide bombings at one of Pakistan’s largest universities killed eight people and injured dozens more, officials shut down schools around the country. They were the latest in a series of attacks that have targeted or destroyed more than 600 Pakistani schools since 2007, reported Inter Press Service. Yet some students decried the most recent closures. One first-grader complained that she was “bored at home,” while a fourth grader told IPS that the closures were interfering with her goal of becoming a doctor to “take care of my fellow women.” Continue Reading →
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California Prisons Report: A Look Inside with Hastings Scholar Hadar Aviram
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Despite a year of legal sanctions and budget cuts, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation takes an upbeat tone in its new annual report. Inspirationally titled "Corrections Moving Forward" [25 mb PDF], the report opens with a letter from the CDCR secretary Matthew Cate, who writes that "in the midst of significant challenges, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has quietly had a remarkable string of successes in the last year. While it is easy to focus on the negative, there have been many positive developments at our agency." Continue Reading →
Filed under: Featured, Smarter on Crime, Exclusives, Featured, Prisons & Public Health
The Buzz is Catching
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Second-hand smoke? Not an issue for electronic cigarettes, which emit nicotine-infused vapor. That’s good news for nonsmokers, and those who want to skirt anti-smoking laws. But should the FDA regulate them as “drug delivery devices” for nicotine addicts? Photo: Izuaniz Continue Reading →
Filed under: Featured, Featured, Photos
Regulators Swipe at Electronic Cigarettes
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Smokeless electronic cigarettes may win converts, following new Centers for Disease Control evidence that secondhand smoke can raise the risk of heart disease by up to 30 percent in nonsmokers. The devices are battery operated, and dispense with burning tobacco; instead, users inhale a nicotine-infused vapor as the tip of the e-cigarette glows with a small red light. Proponents say that hit of nicotine doesn’t have the same health risks, especially for non-users. E-cigarettes have no odor and produce no smoke from combustion, which means e-smokers can get around smoking bans in public places. But no smoke doesn’t mean no fire. Continue Reading →
Filed under: Nation, Public Health, News You Might Have Missed
A Pound of Cure: Tracy Velazquez on Prisons and National Health Care Reform
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By Bernice Yeung | Crowdfund this with Spot.Us
Part of the Prisons & Public Health news blog
In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Tracy Velazquez of the Justice Policy Institute said national health-care reform could keep people out of jail. “Every year, thousands of people are locked up in U.S. prisons and jails because they do not have access to health care to treat mental illness and drug addiction,” she wrote. “Prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities are now some of the largest providers of mental health services in the country.” In conversation with Newsdesk.org, Velazquez, whose Washington, D.C.-based think tank considers “tough on crime” policies to have largely failed, said the costs of incarceration greatly outweigh the price of preventive health care. Bernice Yeung: Tell us more about the connection between health care reform and criminal justice policy. Continue Reading →
Filed under: Smarter on Crime, Exclusives, parole, prison, Prisons & Public Health, Public Health, reentry
Future National Seashore?
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Rising tides may destroy Everglades National Park in Florida, sherpas fear melting ice will cause glacial lakes to burst their banks in a "mountain tsunami" and wipe out Mt. Everest's climbing trails ... how will climate change ruin your vacation? Photo: Everglades National Park/Heartajack Continue Reading →
Filed under: Environment, Photos
Will Climate Change Ruin Your Vacation?
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Climate change could alter your travel plans in the not too distant future — including the face of world tourism destinations, how visitors get there, and who gets to go. A new report by the British tourism industry and a sustainability think tank, Forum for the Future, warns the impact of climate change could degrade now-popular vacation hot spots. Among the scenarios imagined is a type of “doomsday” see-it-while-you can rush to visit natural resources before they disappear; the high cost of a “green” travel and climate-related political instability in some destination countries may also threaten the industry. Another study on the issue is just kicking off at Michigan State University, where a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation will be used to examine climate-change impacts on global industries such as tourism. Yet destinations around the United States and the world may already be feeling the effects. Continue Reading →
Filed under: Environment, News You Might Have Missed
The Bottle Problem
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Plastic water bottles, a global pollution problem, have been banned from San Francisco to Bundadoon, Australia. Yet waste still proliferates, with 1,500 bottles thrown out each second. And in the U.S., the water itself is less regulated than what comes out your kitchen tap. Photo: Nairobi street/Meaduva Continue Reading →
Filed under: Featured, Photos
Again With the Bottled-Water Wars
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If you want to buy a bottle of water, you won’t find it in Bundadoon. Residents of the small town in southern Australia voted in late September to ban bottled water and set up high-tech, filtered water stations throughout town, where people can have a free drink. For those who can’t break the bottle habit, chilled filtered water in ‘bundy-on-tap’ re-usable bottles can be purchased in stores, Kazakhstan News Net reported. While Bundadoon may be the world’s first “bottle-free zone,” the move away from the sale of bottled water has achieved a steady flow. In London, the government will install water stations this month at heavily trafficked bus and rail stations, reports the Guardian. Continue Reading →
Filed under: Environment, News You Might Have Missed
Playing for Life?
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Because so many U.S. veterans are video game mavens (right), researchers are using warlike games to help treat post-traumatic stress syndrome. Even as governments worldwide try to regulate video game violence, new research is finding a curious flip side to the virtual carnage. Photo: Soldier in Iraq/U.S. Army Continue Reading →