By Allyssia Alleyne20 August 2015 Weston-Super-Mare, England (CNN) — The seaside town of Weston-Super-Mare in south-west England is chilled and gloomy when we arrive. Surrounding it: an upside down slide fashioned from a battered old truck, an old-school carousel, a ferris wheel. Inside, Cinderella’s coach has crashed, surrounded by clicking paparazzi. Here it is: the […]
By Oliver Lazarus11 August 2015 (PRI) – The number of worldwide refugees last year totaled over 50 million — the highest since World War II. They’ve come from most corners of the world — but nowhere, perhaps, has more attention than the Mediterranean Sea, where approximately 200,000 people have attempted the journey to Europe from […]
By Tyler Durden 3 August 2015 (ZeroHedge) – The Athens Stock Exchange reopened on Monday and unsurprisingly, some folks were selling. Trading was suspended five weeks ago after PM Alexis Tsipras’ dramatic midnight referendum call precipitated capital controls and a lengthy bank “holiday.” Shares opened lower by nearly 23% and the country’s banks traded limit-down, […]
21 July 2015 (KidsCount.org) – The KIDS COUNT Data Book [pdf] is an annual publication that assesses child well-being nationally and across the 50 states, as well as in the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Using an index of 16 indicators, the report ranks states on overall child well-being and in economic well-being, education, […]
22 July 2015 (Desdemona Despair) – The Kids Count project keeps track of lots of data relating to the health and well-being of children in the United States. Des whipped up this graph in no time using the graphing tool at the Kids Count Data Center. The percentage of children in extreme poverty was level […]
By Brad Plumer 7 July 2015 (Vox) – If you only focused on the United States, you might think coal’s days were numbered. The dirtiest of all fossil fuels once provided more than half of America’s electricity. That has since dropped to 39 percent, thanks to competition from cheap natural gas, a tireless campaign by […]
3 July 2015 (Desdemona Despair) – Will world agriculture be able to support a human population of 12 billion people in the year 2100? The answer largely turns on how much land is available for growing crops. Unfortunately, the world’s arable land area is declining at an enormous rate. The UN Convention to Combat Desertification […]
By Adam Vaughan18 June 2015 (The Guardian) – On Thursday the Vatican published Pope Francis’s long-awaited encyclical on the environment, which warns of ‘serious consequences’ if the world does not act on climate change. [English translation: LAUDATO SI’, mi’ Signore] Ban Ki-moon reacts: The secretary-general welcomes the papal encyclical released today by His Holiness Pope […]
By David O’Reilly and Tom Avril 13 June 2015 (Philadelphia Inquirer) – On the day he was elected pope, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina stood before a line of his fellow cardinals to receive their blessings. “Don’t forget the poor,” whispered his Brazilian friend, Cardinal Claudio Hummes, as the two embraced in the Sistine Chapel. […]
By Claire Rigby15 April 2015 São Paulo (The Guardian) – With water levels worryingly low in at least two of São Paulo’s largest reservoirs, insecurity around water has become a fact of life for most paulistanos – as has a newfound interest in self-reliance and thrift: in stored water, rainwater collection and reduced usage. Yet […]
