A record amount of carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide emissions around the world last year jumped by the largest amount on record, increasing by half a billion tons. The 5.9 percent rise was the largest since 2003.
The Week
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President Obama's fund-raisers
President Obama has attended 69 fund-raisers so far this year. That’s an average of one fund-raiser every five days—far more than Presidents George W. Bush or Bill Clinton in their third years.
MotherJones.com
White men on Wall Street earn more
White men working for Wall Street firms earn an average of $154,500 a year. That’s 55 percent more than white women and 72 percent more than black men who work for the same firms.
The Wall Street Journal
Firearms sold on Black Friday set a record
Black Friday set a record for the most firearms sold in the U.S. in a single day. Americans bought at least 129,166 firearms on Nov. 25—32 percent more than the previous one-day record.
USA Today
Presidential pardons and race
An overwhelming percentage of convicted criminals pardoned by presidents over the past decade were white, a ProPublica study found. President George W. Bush pardoned 189 people—all but 13 of whom were white. All 34 drug offenders pardoned by Bush were white. The racial disparity “is very troubling to me and will be to [Bush], because we had no idea of the race of any applicant,” said Fred Fielding, Bush’s White House counsel. President Obama has only pardoned 22 people thus far; 20 were white.
The Washington Post
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Very rich and very poor in California, and morefeature California is home to 111 billionaires, yet it also suffers the highest poverty rate in the country.
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Arctic cold kills tree insects, and more
feature This winter’s arctic temperatures have had at least one beneficial impact: They’ve killed ash borers, gypsy moths, and other tree-eating insects.
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Congress's poor record, and more
feature The 113th Congress is on course to pass less legislation than any Congress in history.
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Gender differences in employment, and more
feature
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A first for West Point, and more
feature For the first time, two male graduates of West Point were married at the military academy’s chapel.
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A God given land?, and more
feature More white evangelical Protestants than U.S Jews believe that Israel was “given to the Jewish people by God.”
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Jailing the mentally ill, and more
feature American prisons have replaced state mental hospitals as a place to warehouse the mentally ill.
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Treating Internet addiction, and more
feature Treating Internet addiction; Freshman virgins at Harvard; A salary handicap for lefties; Prices for vintage automobiles soar; Gun permits for blind people