Here’s what we’ve been paying attention to this week In case you missed it, “This war, like all wars, must end.” This was a key takeaway in a signature policy speech by President Obama on Thursday at the National Defense [...]

Here’s what we’ve been paying attention to this week Did somebody say scandal?! Scandals! It was scandal week for the White House and the media, which is sort of like Shark Week — with all of the teeth and none [...]

Photographer Alice Proujansky already knew what childbirth looked like by the time she was in third grade. On two counts. She’d watched her mother push both of her younger siblings into the world, first when she was 4 and again [...]

Allow me to be candid: navigating and covering the story of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh has been a quagmire for me, full of contradictions and more questions than answers. The other day as I saw the [...]

Here’s what we’ve been paying attention to this week In case you missed it, the Air Force officer in charge of the sexual assault prevention unit — for the entire Air Force — was arrested for… wait for it… sexual [...]

The Gamma Group has moved beyond computer fraud to copyright infringement Hackers, 1995. The Gamma Group website is so eerily generic that it seems fake, like the kind of site that would immediately infect your computer with viruses if you [...]

Here’s what we’ve been paying attention to this week Lawyers of the prisoners at Guantánamo say that at least 100 of the 166 inmates are now on hunger strike, with a handful now required to be force-fed through tubes. While [...]

Here’s what we’ve been paying attention to this week   Marie Nelson uses a bold rhetorical device to take on the 2nd Amendment militants who have appropriated patriotism and rights-based language in their uncompromising mission to protect the weapons manufacturers. [...]

I am no longer a citizen of a government that condones gun violence, no matter how indirectly. The congressmen who voted against the assault weapons ban do not represent me. The Supreme Court that, in its misguided historicism, prohibited states [...]

Fashion Clash on Tajikistan Campus With recent embarrassment over Twitter users mistaking Chechnya for the Czech Republic and significant alarm over North Korean “lady soldiers” wearing four inch heels, it seems as if our fashion and geography faux-pas are all [...]

Kiribati, a tiny Pacific island about the size of New York City, is both “in the middle of nowhere and at the center of everything, including the climate change crisis.” Under siege from rising sea levels on all sides, the [...]

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” The text defended the practice of nonviolent social disobedience and remains a prolific piece of civil rights history. Dr. King was arrested for defying a [...]

Here’s what we’ve been paying attention to this week “Days of Thatcher” by John Sturrock   As the debate over same-sex marriage moves forward in the U.S. and France, Stephanie Ott introduces us to tangible homophobic hate on a visceral [...]

Boom! The gust of color explodes on her body and a million particles of vibrant red are floating through the air. She starts laughing and hurls a cloud of sunny, bright yellow at her friend. Music is playing in the [...]

Arkansas is known as “the Natural State.” Its landscape boasts everything from mountains, crystal clear natural springs, open plains and the kind of woodlands you’d see in a Disney movie. Crater of Diamonds State Park, located in Murfreesboro, is the [...]

What we’ve been paying attention to this week Goldman Sachs wants to give formerly incarcerated youth a fresh start–and profit off the program. Marie Nelson wonders if we are ready for the privatization and financialization of social work.   Bianca [...]

Whether or not you keep up with the news, “Engines of War” at Gasser & Grunert Gallery offers up a dose of reality. In tune with the cynical realism of the film “Zero Dark Thirty,” curators Charles Dee Mitchell and [...]

Social impact bonds: An innovative financial instrument that will revolutionize philanthropy? Or a way for profit incentives to erode the altruistic infrastructure of traditional social services? Social impact bonds are a way to fund government-sponsored social programs with private investment [...]

©Samuel James Ohioan photographer Samuel James documents the ongoing conflict throughout the Niger Delta between armed groups seeking access to the country’s oil wealth and Nigerian security forces that have no intention of ceding control.   See more compelling images [...]

Detroit is a skeleton of a city evocative of a past prosperity, ringed by disproportionately affluent suburbs. While Detroit’s struggles began long before the turn of the century, the political and economic turmoil that has mired the city for the [...]

Detroit is a skeleton of a city evocative of a past prosperity, ringed by disproportionately affluent suburbs. While Detroit’s struggles began long before the turn of the century, the political and economic turmoil that has mired the city for the [...]

North Korea has been at the center of a slew of international headlines over the past few weeks. The nation’s much-maligned recent nuclear test and increasingly aggressive threats have global tensions running high, but for a segment of American society, [...]

This week, Betsy Woodruff at the National Review published a new profile on Representative Steve Stockman (R-Texas). The journalist was with the Congressman on the day that the House took up the Violence Against Women Act, and Mr. Stockman did [...]

Last week The WILD joined in on the global celebration of International Women’s Day, but equality and empowerment of women is a 365 day struggle. In that spirit, Brita Fernandez Schmidt, executive director for Women for Women International, challenged us to [...]

In today’s political and pop media culture, serious discussions surrounding climate change have mostly devolved into a maddening cacophony. While CO2 emissions continue to concentrate in our atmosphere and warm our planet, pundits squabble and politicians dither. All the while, the [...]

In celebration of International Women’s Day, Mann & Miller teamed with director Jan Lisman to produce the short film ‘Some Words to Make A Change.’ The clip features the compelling words of Ash Bhalla performed by Dolores Chaplin, and poetically articulates [...]

After months of cleaning, New Yorkers have begun to rebuild their Sandy-devastated neighborhoods. It’s a triumphant step in rehabilitation for those who have been scraping ocean detritus from their basements since October—and for those who weren’t so lucky. The challenge, [...]

This week, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced the most sweeping piece of legislation to date aimed at tackling the climate crisis.  “The leading scientists in the world who study climate change now tell us that their projections in the past [...]

In a land of orange skies and empty cities, anything is possible, no matter the consequences. Along this vein, Yan Jiehe is flattening seven hundred mountains to make room for “Lanzhou New City” approximately 80 kilometers north of Lanzhou, which is a very, very old [...]

If you have ever wondered what pure bravery looks like, just look into the eyes of Malala Yousafzai. Just a few months ago, she was targeted for assassination by religious zealouts for her online activism surrounding the educational rights of [...]

EVERYBODY EXHALE, the Iranian space monkey was (probably) a fake. Last week, Iranian state TV announced that they had successfully launched a cute little monkey clear off into outer space. The “major achievement” coincided with the birthday anniversary of the [...]

Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images We’ve been keeping track all year of how curious the weather has been, so it’s of little surprise that NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center this week made it official: 2012 was the hottest year on record in the [...]

Swedish multinational clothing company H&M is under pressure by human rights groups to cut ties with clothing suppliers who purchase cotton from Uzbekistan and other countries notorious for using child labor. H&M, famous for being affordably priced and fashionably forward, [...]

  via the New York Times

To many, Ai Weiwei is inspirational in his subversiveness. At the same time, others wonder if he is merely an object of fascination for hipsters in the West and question if he actually matters inside China. Even if the latter [...]

Do you still have Christmas presents to buy? Maybe for your cousin or neighbor or work exchange? World Food Programme has created a solution for you with their holiday eCards: you can personalize the message, schedule the delivery date and [...]

The International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) is calling on clothing brands to adopt better and safer fire safety precautions in garment factories worldwide. Women protesting in Bangladesh. Photo courtesy of The New York Times Over the last six years, several [...]

Rolling Jubilee—a new campaign by Strike Debt and Occupy Wall Street— buys debt for pennies on the dollar, and abolishes it on behalf of recipients. Instead of collecting the debt, Strike Debt abolishes it. Debtors are picked at random. Strike [...]

5. Rush Limbaugh A perennial favorite for Turkey of the Year, or ass of the year, or cock of the year; Rush never seems to go away. He’s the factory farm-raised, hormone-infused butterball, whose over-sized breast meat keeps him from [...]

For advocates of action on climate change, the science is settled — the time to move is now. For the second time in 13 months, thousands took to the streets surrounding the White House calling on President Obama to nix [...]

Veterans Day is always sure to bring about the great American pastime of superficial patriotism. It comes by way of social media posts, car magnet ribbons, pro-athletes wearing star-spangled sweatbands, and the like. It feels uncomfortable to call out these [...]

Aris Messinis/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images A molotov cocktail is set ablaze amidst ongoing protests in Athens. Round after round of imposed austerity cuts continue to further threaten the social stability on the streets. The Greek economy has shrunk by a quarter [...]

About seven seconds after the President’s victory speech, pundits wondered aloud why Obama hadn’t given this same kind of soaring, agenda-driven speech at the DNC convention…, or last year, or at almost any time while governing. The question reveals something [...]

Rarely do we hear of happy endings in grassroots environmental activism; especially when climate change has failed to be considered noteworthy in the upcoming presidential election. Bottom line: success stories are few. Of course, it is important to remember that [...]

Check out the (more) responsible business practices and great styles of Oliberte…This is Africa! Premium Footwear Made in Africa. Created by Canadian Tal Dehtiar, Oliberte is, “the first company to make premium shoes in Africa using African materials and explicitly [...]

After letting it sink in over the last 24 hours or so, the idea that the presidential debate moderators and candidates themselves would over the course of four rounds of discourse fail to mention the words climate change or global [...]

After four debates, three presidential and one veep; 360 minutes of banter: not a single mention of global climate change. This marks the first time since 1984 that climate change and global warming have been left out of the presidential debates. [...]

Kamran Jebreili/Associated Press Students show support for Malala Yousufzai outside of the Pakistani Embassy in Abu Dhabi. Just 14 years-old, Malala was targeted by the Taliban for her advocacy of women’s education. They accused the girl of promoting pro-Western values, [...]

Fatemeh Derakhshandeh Tosarvandan, an Iranian woman accused of adultery, is currently seeking asylum in Canada with her 16 year old son from the harsh punishment that awaits her back home if she is found guilty. In Iran, women convicted of [...]

Gestation crates are individual metal enclosures that are lined side-by-side with very little moving room, not unlike jail cells. Also knows as sow stalls, the semi-permanent cages are home to over 80 percent of U.S. breeding pigs in production operations [...]