Majority of U.S. public school students are in poverty →

I'm not surprised, given the slowly falling wages of the lower and middle classes in the US, over the past few decades.

For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of U.S. public school students come from low-income families, according to a new analysis of 2013 federal data, a statistic that has profound implications for the nation.

The Southern Education Foundation reports that 51 percent of students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade in the 2012-2013 school year were eligible for the federal program that provides free and reduced-price lunches. The lunch program is a rough proxy for poverty, but the explosion in the number of needy children in the nation’s public classrooms is a recent phenomenon that has been gaining attention among educators, public officials and researchers.

ICC to probe possible war crimes in Palestine →

I would be quite surprised if the investigation moved much farther than this step:

Prosecutors at the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) will open a preliminary inquiry into possible war crimes in the Palestinian territories, the first formal step that could lead to charges against officials there and in Israel, the court has said.

They will determine whether preliminary findings merit a full investigation into alleged atrocities, which could result in charges against individuals on either the Israeli or Palestinian side.

"A preliminary examination is not an investigation but a process of examining the information available in order to reach a fully informed determination on whether there is a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation pursuant to the criteria established by the Rome Statute," the court's statement said on Friday.

Exclusive: ISIS Gaining Ground in Syria, Despite U.S. Strikes →

ISIS continues to gain substantial ground in Syria, despite nearly 800 airstrikes in the American-led campaign to break its grip there.
At least one-third of the country’s territory is now under ISIS influence, with recent gains in rural areas that can serve as a conduit to major cities that the so-called Islamic State hopes to eventually claim as part of its caliphate. Meanwhile, the Islamic extremist group does not appear to have suffered any major ground losses since the strikes began. The result is a net ground gain for ISIS, according to information compiled by two groups with on-the-ground sources.
In Syria, ISIS “has not any lost any key terrain,” Jennifer Cafarella, a fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for the Study of War who studies the Syrian conflict, explained to The Daily Beast.
Even U.S. military officials privately conceded to The Daily Beast that ISIS has gained ground in some areas, even as the Pentagon claims its seized territory elsewhere, largely around the northern city of Kobani. That’s been the focus of the U.S.-led campaign, and ISIS has not been able to take the town, despite its best efforts.

Congress Starts the New Year Off By Kicking the Disabled →

It did this in a technical move that is likely to escape the attention of most of the public. The Republican Congress voted to ban any reallocation of Social Security tax revenue between the retirement fund, designated for retirees and survivors, and the disability fund for disabled workers. This matters because the disability fund is projected to face a shortfall some time in 2016. If no steps are taken by that point, workers suffering from cancer, heart disease or other disabling conditions will see their benefits cut by almost 20 percent.

Idea for Tackling Inequality #27,653: Stop Subsidizing It →

A trade policy that is intended to put U.S. manufacturing workers in direct competition with low-paid workers in countries like Mexico and China has the predicted and actual effect of lowering their wages. It also lowers the wages of non-college educated workers more generally, as displaced manufacturing workers crowd into other sectors of the economy.

By contrast, recent trade agreements have done little or nothing to put highly educated professionals like doctors and lawyers in competition with their counterparts in the developing world. The same argument for gains from trade that economists used to justify deals like NAFTA would apply to proposals to make it easier for foreign professionals to train to U.S. standards and work in the United States. The lower pay to doctors and lawyers would save us tens of billions a year on health care costs and legal fees.

But economists get really confused when they're asked about free trade in professional services. They apparently only studied policies that lower the wages of less-educated workers.

Can We Talk About Patent Monopolies? →

Quoting the whole thing, since it's such a small post:

It's more than a bit bizarre that patent protection doesn't get a single mention in a NYT column on "why drugs cost so much." Of course without government granted patent monopolies the vast majority of drugs would sell for $5-$10 per prescription. And, drug companies would not have incentive to mislead the public about the safety and effectiveness of their drugs.

Are All Terrorists Muslims? It’s Not Even Close →

So here are some statistics for those interested. Let’s start with Europe. Want to guess what percent of the terrorist attacks there were committed by Muslims over the past five years? Wrong. That is, unless you said less than 2 percent.
...
Back in the United States, the percentage of terror attacks committed by Muslims is almost as miniscule as in Europe. An FBI study looking at terrorism committed on U.S. soil between 1980 and 2005 found that 94 percent of the terror attacks were committed by non-Muslims. In actuality, 42 percent of terror attacks were carried out by Latino-related groups, followed by 24 percent perpetrated by extreme left-wing actors.