With the support of the state's main teachers' union, the Arizona Education Association (AEA), they united teachers, counselors, librarians, school bus drivers, school psychologists, office staff, academic coaches and other staff to fight for higher pay for all school workers and increased funding for the whole public education system.

The searing satire of headline writers at this outlet over the last two days have perhaps done more than most mainstream journalists to expose just how wantonly cruel the actions of the IDF have become and how ludicrous and vile the arguments of its defenders remain

Big Primary Wins for Socialists and Progressives Who Ran on 'Popular Demands That Were Deemed Impossible'....

Defying national and state-level Democratic establishment forces that have worked to crowd out left-wing candidates and demonstrating that there is a deep hunger among the American electorate for a bold progressive agenda, candidates running on platforms of Medicare for All, free college, and a living wage emerged victorious in several state primaries on Tuesday and tore through the boundaries of what is conventionally considered politically feasible.

In the next half century or so, Christianity’s long reign as the world’s largest religion may come to an end, according to a just-released report that builds on Pew Research Center’s original population growth projections for religious groups. Indeed, Muslims will grow more than twice as fast as the overall world population between 2015 and 2060 and, in the second half of this century, will likely surpass Christians as the world’s largest religious group.

Citing scholars who say women in ancient India took part in religious activities, women like Khadkikar say nothing in Hindu practice or scripture forbids their participation. In ancient India, “fewer taboos were attached to women priests,” says Nanditha Krishna, a historian and professor at the University of Madras.
As gender equality grows in India thanks to gains in education as well as the spread of social media, young urban Indians especially are warming to the idea of women in the priesthood.

Though many U.S. lawmakers chose to stay silent on Monday as Israeli forces massacred Palestinian protesters in Gaza, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was among those speaking out to condemn the violence—which Amnesty International warned may amount to "war crimes"—as he also called for the United States government to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, instead of sanctioning the intensification of it.

Four members of the City Council recently proposed a modest "head tax" of $500 per year on each employee of the 3 percent top businesses--those that make over $20 million a year--in Seattle. This would provide $75 million for homeless services and "deeply affordable" housing.
Amazon could pay its share of the tax--$20 million--for the next 80 years just out of its first quarter 2018 profit, and Bezos could personally pay it for 650 years out of his net worth of $130 billion.
But instead of supporting this modest levy, Amazon suspended construction on two buildings in downtown Seattle, jeopardizing 7,000 construction jobs, to defeat the tax. As of May 12, Bezos worked out a deal with Mayor Jennie Durkan to cut the tax in half and reportedly planned to re-start construction.

Today, the Big Bang model of Cosmology is pretty much taken for Gospel, and for good reason. For more than fifty years, evidence gathered from all manner of sources has supported the notion that the Universe as we know it expanded from an infinitely dense singularity.
But things didn't always look so certain for the Big Bang. In its most nascent form, the idea was known as the hypothesis of the primeval atom, and it originated from an engineer turned soldier turned mathematician turned Catholic priest turned physicist by the name of Georges Lemaître. When Lemaître published his idea in the eminent journal Nature in 1931, a response to observational data suggesting that space was expanding, he ruffled a lot of feathers.....

As Keating continued, anti-religious sentiments provided underlying motivation to debunk Lemaître's theory.

Under sweltering 94-degree heat in front of the General Assembly building, a hardy group of progressive activists gathered to revive the 40-day Poor People’s Campaign, the civil disobedience movement founded 50 years ago by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.