Good morning — and a happy 66th birthday to Al Gore! Here are some of the stories we’re reading on a gloomy Monday morning in New York City…
Stat of the day: 84 percent — share of Virginia voters who favor the legalization of marijuana for medicinal use, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll. Voters are about evenly divided on legalization for recreational use, reports Rebecca Shabad for The Hill.
“A threat to security, food and humankind” –> The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report “raised the threat of climate change to a whole new level on Monday,” reports Suzanne Goldenberg for The Guardian.
The real costs of war –> Almost 40 percent of the 2.6 million veterans of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan show symptoms of PTSD and half of them say they know a fellow vet who’s attempted suicide. Those are just two of the eye-opening revelations from an exhaustive survey by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation. The Washington Post’s Rajiv Chandrasekaran reports.
The whales win –> In a decisive victory for our cetacean friends, the International Court of Justice ruled that controversial Japanese whale hunts in the Antarctic are not about scientific research and ordered Japan to revoke any scientific permits it’s issued. Andrew Darby has the details at The Sydney Morning Herald.
It starts in pre-school –> The Nation’s Mychal Denzel Smith on the school-to-prison pipeline’s early intakes.
PC police –> Chris Christie was giving a rip-roaring pro-Israel speech to a group of Jewish conservatives, including megadonor Sheldon Adelson, when he mentioned the “Occupied Territories.” A murmur reportedly went through the room and Christie later apologized to Adelson for using the internationally recognized language. Kenneth Vogel reports for Politico. ALSO: Juan Cole on the “shame” of American politicians trekking out to Las Vegas to participate in what’s become known as “the Adelson primary.”
They don’t want your vote –> Steven Yaccino and Lizette Alvarez report for The New York Times on the “new GOP bid to limit voting in swing states” — measures beyond voter ID that “shake up fundamental components of state election systems.”
Sold out –> “New York City charter schools will now enjoy some of the greatest protections in the country,” reports Fox News, and will be barred from charging the privately operated schools rent for space in public buildings thanks to a state budget worked out by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
“A drinking water source for about seven million Chicagoans” –> BP has doubled its initial estimate of how much oil it spilled into Lake Michigan last week, according to Steve Horn of DeSmogBlog.
Bush v. Clinton again? –> Phillip Rucker and Robert Costa report for The Washington Post: “Many of the Republican Party’s most powerful insiders and financiers have begun a behind-the-scenes campaign to draft former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush into the 2016 presidential race.”
Whistling past the graveyard –> At The American Prospect, Adam Lioz ties the Supreme Court majority’s view that money isn’t a corrupting influence in politics to our spiraling inequality.
Union-busting for God –> At In These Times, Bruce Vail looks at a Jewish school that’s claiming a religious exemption to the National Labor Relations Act in a case that Vail calls the “Hobby Lobby of union-busting.”
Somalia piracy is so last decade –> Last year there were seven pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia — none successful — and 107 in the Malacca Straight between Indonesia and Malaysia, making it the world’s new piracy hotspot according to Patrick Winn at The Global Post.
Two justice systems –> At The Raw Story, Tom Boggioni reports that a Delaware judge granted parole to an heir to the Du Pont fortune who was found guilty of raping his daughter because the defendant, according to his ruling, “will not fare well” in prison.
Hoax –> A story about British researchers cloning a dinosaur circulated quickly on the internet over the weekend, but it turns out to have been a rather obvious hoax.
