American schools are 'more segregated than they were in the 1960s,' says Hillary Clinton →

The Clinton campaign pointed us to a passage in a 2014 study by UCLA Graduate School of Education’s Civil Rights Project that tracked the amount of southern black students attending white schools in the South. By that yardstick, schools are slightly less integrated now than they were in 1968. That’s the year the Supreme Court mandated the enforcement of desegregation in Green vs. County School Board and diverse classrooms really started to become reality.  
Clinton, however, bookended the 1960s as the point of comparison and her claim doesn’t hold true for the better part of the decade. Jim Crow laws were still in place until the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and despite the Brown decision, most black students in the South still didn’t attend white schools,"the kind of schools that provided strong potential opportunities for diverse learning experiences," according to the study. In 1967, one in 100 black students went to a white school. In 1960, it was one in 1,000.
"It’s true that segregation for blacks is worse today than it was in 1968, but it’s certainly not worse than 1964 and before," said Gary Orfield, a UCLA professor of education and lead author of the study Clinton cited...
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Clinton does have a strong point that American schools have relapsed into monochrome. Classrooms were the most diverse from the 1970s through the early 1990s. At peak integration, four out of 10 black southern students attended a white school, while less than a third of all black students attended black schools.
"We’ve lost a lot of the progress we gained, no doubt about that," Clotfelter said.
Experts say the backslide was the consequence of a series of judicial decisions, beginning with Milliken vs. Bradley in 1974, a relatively unheard of but seminal case in the desegregation saga...

Unacceptable Impact: The Supreme Court takes a stand against housing discrimination. →

On Thursday, in a 5–4 opinion  written by Justice Anthony Kennedy and joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, the Supreme Court held that the 1968 Fair Housing Act—passed in the wake of Martin Luther King’s assassination, huge riots, and urban destruction—allows federal action against “disparate impact” as well as overt discrimination. This ruling not only affirms an essential tool in combating racial discrimination, it upholds the view that racial disparities are a national problem that the government ought to combat.
Disparate impact—the idea that, whether intentional or not, something is discriminatory and illegal if it has a disproportionate “adverse impact” on a particular group—is easy to understand, on account of its universal presence in the United States. Explicit racial bias is frowned on and most Americans strive for tolerance and fair treatment. Yet, there are vast racial gaps in almost every part of American life, from incarceration and the criminal justice system, to education, health care, and even air quality. While it’s tempting to blame “personal responsibility” or a nebulous “culture of poverty,” neither can explain broad trends of racial inequality that snare minorities of all education and income levels. Put simply, racism is so embedded in the structure of American society—from how we distribute wealth to how we determine punishment—that neutral, “colorblind” actions can easily produce unequal, racist results.
This is most apparent in housing, where cities and towns can create and bolster segregation through exclusionary zoning, and banks can target minorities for the worst, and most dangerous, mortgage loans. Both practices have disproportionately hurt blacks and Latinos, and both practices have been targeted for lawsuits and federal investigation...

Supreme Court rules gay couples nationwide have a right to marry →

The Supreme Court on Friday delivered an historic victory for gay rights, ruling 5-4 that the Constitution requires that same-sex couples be allowed to marry no matter where they live and that states may no longer reserve the right only for heterosexual couples.
The court’s action marks the culmination of an unprecedented upheaval in public opinion and the nation’s jurisprudence. Advocates called it the most pressing civil rights issue of modern times, while critics said the courts had sent the country into uncharted territory by changing the traditional definition of marriage.
The country’s first legally recognized same-sex marriages took place just 11 years ago, the result of a Massachusetts state supreme court decision. Now, more than 70 percent of Americans live in states where same-sex couples are allowed to marry, according to estimates.

Out of control vaping makes Hawaii raise smoking age to 21 →

Hawaii is the first state in the US to raise its smoking age to 21, a measure that was signed into law on Friday and will become effective January 1st. The law bans the sale of cigarettes and e-cigarettes to anyone under 21; it also bans their public possession and consumption until that age.
The law was passed amid growing concerns about the prevalence of e-cigarettes, the use of which is on the rise among teens. In its legislation, Hawaii notes that a poll of six of its high schools found that 25 percent of 9th and 10th grade students had used an electronic smoking device at least once and 18 percent used one regularly...
The state says that 34 percent of its current smokers picked up the habit between the ages of 18 and 20...

Humans creating sixth great extinction of animal species, say scientists →

The world we're creating (without intending to) is much less interesting...

The modern world is experiencing a “sixth great extinction” of animal species even when the lowest estimates of extinction rates are considered, scientists have warned.
The rate of extinction for species in the 20th century was up to 100 times higher than it would have been without man’s impact, they said.
Many conservationists have been warning for years that a mass extinction event akin to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs is occurring as humans degrade and destroy habitats. 
But the authors of a study published on Friday said that even when they analysed the most conservative extinction rates, the rate at which vertebrates were being lost forever was far higher than in the last five mass extinctions.

American recycling is stalling, and the big blue bin is one reason why →

Once a profitable business for cities and private employers alike, recycling in recent years has become a money-sucking enterprise. The District, Baltimore and many counties in between are contributing millions annually to prop up one of the nation’s busiest facilities here in Elkridge, Md. — but it is still losing money. In fact, almost every facility like it in the country is running in the red. And Waste Management and other recyclers say that more than 2,000 municipalities are paying to dispose of their recyclables instead of the other way around.
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Many of the problems facing the industry can be traced to the curbside blue bin — and the old saying that if it sounds too good to be true, it just might be. Anyone who has ever tossed a can into a bin knows what’s supposed to happen: Anything recyclable can go in, and then somehow, magically, it’s all separated and reused.
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In recent years, the problem of contamination has spread beyond glass. The problem was exacerbated when municipalities began increasing the size of bins, believing that bigger was better to keep more material from landfills.
Consumers have indeed been filling the bigger bins, but often with as much garbage as recyclable material.
With the extra room, residents stopped breaking down cardboard boxes. Because a full shipping box sometimes fits inside, even with foam and plastic wrap attached, all of it more frequently shows up at sorting facilities.

Hackers ground 1,400 passengers in attack on Polish airline LOT →

A cyber attack against Polish flagship carrier LOT grounded more than 1,400 passengers at Warsaw's Frederic Chopin Airport in what an airline spokesman described as the "first attack of its kind". 
The attack occurred at around 4:00 pm (1500 GMT), and targeted the airline's ground operations system, the carrier said in a statement.
The incident, which led to the cancellation of 10 flights departing from Warsaw, was resolved by 9:00 pm.
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The airline said in a statement on its website that the "IT attack" meant it was unable to create flight plans and flights were not able to depart from Warsaw.