The super blue blood moon makes first appearance since 1866

PBS NewsHour

Streamed live on Jan 31, 2018

Starting at 5:30 a.m. ET, the super blue blood moon will be visible in the United States. Follow NASA’s coverage of the rare event. The lunar eclipse, happening on the second full moon of a month during a super moon gives the event it name, and we haven’t seen one for more than 150

Why an ancient Mesopotamian tablet is key to our future learning | Tiffany Jenkins | TEDxSquareMile

TEDx Talks

Published on Jun 21, 2017

In our ephemeral, digital world where everything is mediated through a computer screen and summoned by the click of a mouse, ancient objects in dusty old museums are essential to future of learning. In the late eighteenth century, a clay fragment from a piece of the world’s oldest literature overturned orthodoxies and advanced knowledge of the past. It’s an important lesson: evidence from the past will help us to rethink what we know which is never complete. Ancient history and the tangible artifact – something real, not virtual – will take us out of the cloud and bring us back down to earth.

Tiffany Jenkins is an author, academic, and ex-columnist for the Scotsman. She wrote the critically acclaimed Keeping Their Marbles: How The Treasures Of The Past Ended Up In Museums And Why They Should Stay There, published in 2016. She is the writer and presenter of the 2016 BBC Radio 4 series, A Narrative History Of Secrecy. She has been a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, and was previously the director of the Arts and Society Programme at the Institute of Ideas. Her first degree is in art history, her PhD in sociology.

Why we’re overdue to know the brilliance of Africa’s civilizations

PBS NewsHour

Published on Feb 27, 2017

Archeologists and scholars are learning more about Africa than ever before, from the digitization of records and the unearthing of ancient treasures. Audie Cornish talks with Henry Louis Gates Jr. of Harvard University about Africa’s rich but overlooked history and how his six-part PBS series “Africa’s Great Civilizations” took shape.

Record Number of Students Walk Out of Classes in Global Strike for the Climate

May 24, 2019

And youth activists in cities around the world have launched another one-day global climate strike that could rival a March 15 action that saw an estimated 1.6 million participants. Organizers, inspired by 16-year-old Swedish high school student Greta Thunberg, say they’re planning more than 1,350 separate strikes in every continent on Earth today—including two strikes in Antarctica. This is 19-year-old activist Marta Macías from Madrid, Spain.

Marta Macías: “It’s estimated we have 11 years before climate change is irreversible. And if we don’t take the necessary measures over these 11 years, we will end up without a planet. I want to defend my life on this planet, as well as the survival of my species and all of the other species that live on it.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders Proposes Tax on Wall Street Speculation

May 24, 2019

Meanwhile, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has unveiled a bill that would apply a small tax on Wall Street transactions in order to raise hundreds of billions of dollars for social programs. The legislation would tax stock, bond and derivatives trades in order to fund job creation, Medicare for all, free public college, environmental and climate change programs, housing assistance and HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention. The bill was co-sponsored in the House by Democrat Barbara Lee of California.

Rep. Barbara Lee: “With just a fraction—and this is a very modest proposal—a fraction of a tax on Wall Street, we can raise over $220 billion per year. That’s $2.2 trillion over 10 years. And just think of what we could do with those resources and with that money.”

The bill has the backing of another 2020 presidential contender, New York Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. On Wednesday, Gillibrand proposed a “Family Bill of Rights” that would see the U.S. invest more in maternal and child health, paid family leave, affordable child care and universal pre-K.

New Campaign Calls on 2020 Candidates to “Put People Over the Pentagon”

May 24, 2019

Back in the United States, a new campaign is calling on 2020 presidential candidates to pledge to cut Pentagon spending by at least $200 billion annually to pay for Medicare for all, a Green New Deal and other programs. The campaign pledge, called “Put People Over the Pentagon,” also promotes alternatives to war and presses lawmakers to prevent the president from ordering military action without a declaration of war from Congress.

Trump Pledges $16 Billion to Aid Farmers Harmed by U.S.-China Trade War

May 24, 2019

President Trump promised Thursday to spend $16 billion to relieve farmers and agribusiness companies who’ve lost revenue to the growing U.S. trade war with China. Speaking to a crowd of farmers and ranchers brought into the White House, Trump repeated his false claim that China would reimburse the U.S. for the losses. The move came as China’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. vegetables and meat products have driven commodity prices to their lowest level in over a decade.

Banker Accused of Bribing Paul Manafort to Win Trump Administration Post

May 24, 2019

An associate of Donald Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort was indicted Thursday on bribery charges. New York City prosecutors say Stephen Calk, the former chair and CEO of Federal Savings Bank in Chicago, approved $16 million in high-risk loans to Manafort in an effort to win a senior position in the Trump administration. Prosecutors say that after receiving the loans, Manafort made at least two calls to Trump’s transition team in late 2016 asking for Calk to be appointed secretary of the Army. Calk faces up to 30 years in prison; he pleaded not guilty at an arraignment in a Manhattan court on Thursday.

Trump Calls Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson “Dumb as a Rock”

May 24, 2019

President Trump lashed out at former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Thursday after Tillerson spent seven hours in a closed-door session with the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The Washington Post reports topics of Tuesday’s discussion focused on Tillerson’s relationships with President Trump, his family and other White House advisers; Middle East and North Korea policy; and Trump’s interactions with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting in Germany last July. A congressional aide who was present for Tillerson’s testimony later told the Post, “We spent a lot of time in the conversation talking about how Putin seized every opportunity to push what he wanted. There was a discrepancy in preparation, and it created an unequal footing.” Responding to Tillerson’s testimony on Twitter, President Trump called his former secretary of state “dumb as a rock” and “totally ill prepared and ill equipped to be Secretary of State.”

Doctored Video Showing “Drunk” Nancy Pelosi Retweeted by Trump Lawyer Rudy Giulian i

May 24, 2019

This comes as a doctored video of Pelosi went viral in right-wing social media circles. The video, edited from an appearance by Pelosi this week at the Center for American Progress, was slowed down to 75% speed in order to make Pelosi sound as though she was slurring her words. By Thursday night, versions of the video had circulated to millions of social media users, many of whom commented that they believed Pelosi was drunk. The video was also shared by President Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani, who tweeted—and later deleted—the comment, “What is wrong with Nancy Pelosi? Her speech pattern is bizarre.” Meanwhile, President Trump retweeted a mashup video of Pelosi edited by the Fox Business channel with the caption, ”PELOSI STAMMERS THROUGH NEWS CONFERENCE.”