Archive for the ‘Original’ Category
Reporting: Conservative student group becomes a lightning rod beyond campuses
Barely three years old, Youth for Western Civilization has attracted a small but fast-growing following with its anti-multicultural, anti-illegal immigration message. It’s also drawn the scrutiny of critics who say it’s white nationalism with a fresh young face. Thanks to its discipline in advocating a small number of simply stated positions and a new-media-savvy communications strategy, YWC may be radically refreshing the template for political organizing in American higher education.
Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com)
Bin Laden compound could yield big intelligence harvest
“Thousands of documents” recovered from Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan could help the U.S. “destroy al-Qaida,” U.S. officials told NBC News. …
U.S. officials would not discuss details of what might be in the papers and on the computer drives, including whether the material was encrypted. But in an interview with NBC News’ Brian Williams, CIA Director Leon Panetta said, “The reality is that we picked up an awful lot of information there at the compound.” …
Panetta confirmed that relatives of bin Laden were in Pakistani custody and said the U.S. had been assured that it would “have access to those individuals.”
Panetta said that combined with the computer data, “the ability to continue questioning the family” could yield significant leads “regarding threats, regarding the location of other high-value targets and regarding the kind of operations that we need to conduct against these terrorists.”
Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com with Jim Miklaszewski and Robert Windrem of NBC News)
Osama bin Laden killed in Pakistan, Obama says
Osama bin Laden, the Saudi extremist whose al-Qaida terrorist organization killed more than 3,000 people in attacks on the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, was shot and killed Sunday in a U.S. military operation in Pakistan, and the U.S. has recovered his body, President Barack Obama announced Sunday night.
“Justice has been done,” the president declared as crowds formed outside the White House to celebrate, singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “We Are the Champions,” NBC News reported.
Obama said bin Laden, 54, whom he called a terrorist “responsible for the murder of thousands of American men, women and children,” was killed in Pakistan earlier in the day after a firefight at a compound in the city of Abbottabad in a military operation that was based on U.S. intelligence.
Other U.S. officials said one of bin Laden’s sons and two of his most trusted couriers also were killed, as was an unidentified woman who was used as a human shield.
The news immediately raised concerns that reprisal attacks from al-Qaida and other Islamist extremist groups could follow soon.
“In the wake of this operation, there may be a heightened threat to the U.S. homeland,” a U.S. official said. “The U.S. is taking every possible precaution. The State Department has sent advisories to embassies worldwide and has issued a travel ban for Pakistan.”
Police in New York, site of the deadliest attack on Sept. 11, said they had already begun to “ramp up” security on their own.
Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com with Bill Dedman and JoNel Aleccia of msnbc.com and NBC News dispatches)
Reporting: Bible edits leave some feeling cross
Easter may sound a little different this year.
It’s purely a coincidence, but U.S. Catholics and Protestants alike are being introduced this Easter season to separate “official” updated translations of the Christian Bible, which arrive in the year the magisterial King James Version celebrates its 400th birthday.
But with millions of dollars in publishing revenue and the trust of millions of churchgoers hanging in the balance, the new versions aren’t being met with universal acceptance.
While the changes may seem small, they are resounding throughout Christianity, whose many denominations formed or broke off from others over clashing interpretations of God’s word.
The two new translations touch on some of the most sensitive issues behind those differences, particularly on the inequality of women in society and on the divinity status of Mary and — by extension — the birth of Jesus.
Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com)
Obama: Military action has stopped Gadhafi
President Barack Obama declared Monday night that the U.S. military action in Libya had “stopped (Moammar) Gadhafi’s deadly advance,” fulfilling what he said was a U.S. responsibility not to “turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries.” …
In a nationally televised address from the National Defense University in Washington, Obama sought to convince a skeptical Congress and a doubting nation that he was doing the right thing by intervening militarily in a third Muslim nation. He did that by casting the conflict as a moral response to oppression by Libya’s leader, whom he called “a tyrant.” …
The administration has struggled to make clear what it hopes to achieve in Libya, where U.S. forces were sent March 19 while Obama was out of the country on a South American tour. …
Obama acknowledged that “Americans continue to have questions about our efforts in Libya.” To allay those concerns, he stressed that enforcing reform in Libya “will be a task for the international community and, more importantly, a task for the Libyan people themselves.”
Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com)
Triple whammy slows Japan relief effort
A gas station worker tells drivers who camped out overnight Wednesday that no fuel is available in Ichinoseki in northern Japan. Physical destruction and harsh, snowy conditions have created a severe fuel shortage in the country. (Hiroaki Ono/AP)
Rescue and recovery efforts after the nuclear disaster in Japan are being stymied by a nearly overwhelming array of obstacles, as government and aid groups struggle with the physical devastation of last week’s earthquake and tsunami, the specter of radiation dangers and harsh weather conditions.
“The huge challenge for the aid workers on the ground is just the operating conditions they are dealing with,” said Kirsten Mildren, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “Search and rescue workers are saying they’ve never seen anything like this.”
Mildren said the tsunami that followed last week’s magnitude 9.0 earthquake “took everything in its path. … The level of destruction is just monumental and you’ve still got flooded areas, and now on top of that you’ve got this rain and this snow.”
The need in Japan is extreme, the United Nations reported. The 450,000 refugees crowded into 2,444 shelters don’t begin to tell the story: About 1.6 million households are without water in 12 prefectures. Temperatures are below freezing in much of the area. Anxiety is rising over radiation leaks from the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactors.
Full story (Miranda Leitsinger and Alex Johnson/msnbc.com)
Reporting: Safety debate delays new license for Japan-type reactor
A new license for one of the U.S. nuclear plants most similar to Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi facility has been on hold for more than five years, offering a uniquely extensive record of safety and security concerns with its reactor and others like it.
Of the 104 active nuclear reactors in the United States, 23 use GE or GE Hitachi boiling water systems featuring the same Mark I containment system as the reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station.
Only six of those, however, are Mark I systems paired with General Electric Model 3 reactors, closely resembling the configuration of the first reactor to fail at the Fukushima plant, according to records of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
And just one of those six — the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, Mass., about 40 miles south of Boston — has a new license application currently before the NRC.
As it happens, Pilgrim and its parent company, Entergy Corp. of New Orleans, have been tied up in court and legislative hearings on the license since January 2006 — the longest such delay on record. That has generated a years-long docket of regulatory filings, responses, claims and counterclaims.
The records show that Pilgrim is still vexed by leaks of radioactive tritium into the groundwater and unexplained cracking in control rod blades that help regulate its nuclear reactions, as well as unspecified security violations.
Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com)
Grammar Day: ‘Correct’ and ‘proper’ aren’t the same thing
In honor of National Grammar Day, I’m republishing this post from 2011:
National Grammar Day (as proclaimed by the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar) started in March 2008, almost exactly two years after Jack Dorsey sent the first tweet on Twitter.
Putting those events in the same sentence isn’t a non sequitur. Grammar isn’t a simple system, but it’s easy to reduce beliefs about “correct” grammar to simple cris de coeur that fit snugly in Twitter’s 140-character limit. The #language hashtag is an active one, and much of the traffic blares its horns at a misspelling or a grammatical offense that has slipped through to publication. I’ve certainly sped along in its fast lane — #language is littered with my own objections and funny-to-me observations.
Debates over grammar are like debates over the existence of God or what region is home to the best barbecue*. We all have firmly held beliefs, and what makes the debates so fun is that all of us are right and all of us are wrong.
Good grief, Charlie Sheen!
If, as I am, you’re sick to death of Charlie Sheen, this may be for you. I’ve written a small bookmarklet to change all references to “Charlie Sheen” in a Web page to “Charlie Brown.” Just because.
Permanent link: Good Grief, Charlie Brown!
Life is a warm line of javascript.
Teacher layoffs raise class-size tensions
Video: Higher projected classroom sizes have sparked a debate on whether student performance will suffer. NBC's Rehema Ellis reports.
As governments struggle to reduce education deficits, they are considering closing thousands of schools and laying off huge numbers of teachers. What will that do to class sizes, and what will it mean for pupils?
In fact, research into whether smaller classes actually improve academic performance is extensive but contradictory.
“Probably few issues in education have been studied as often as class size, yet few studies have produced satisfactory or consistent results,” said researchers at Health and Education Research Operative Services, a nonprofit foundation that studies education programs nationwide.
Full story (Rehema Ellis, Victor Limjoco and Alex Johnson/NBC News)
Alex Johnson - Journalist at Large 