Eddyville, Ky A prison doctor and two other staffers at the Kentucky State Penitentiary have been fired after a mentally disturbed inmate starved himself to death. James Kenneth Embry, 57, who had three years left on a nine-year drug sentence, was found dead in his cell in Eddyville in January. Embry started behaving erratically last spring when he stopped taking […]
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The owners of one Denver coffee shop aren’t just talking about social issues, they’re actually doing something about them. Co-founders Madison Chandler and Mark Smesrud opened the Purple Door two years ago with the goal of hiring homeless young adults, giving them one-year contracts to help them get back on their feet. Jenna Williams, a 23-year-old who had been living […]
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Until recently, Pakistan has not used the bulk of its coal reserves – some of the largest in the world – for power generation. Within the past year the government in Islamabad has signed a number of financial and technological agreements with China aimed at exploiting massive coal reserves at the Tharparkar mine in Sindh province, in the south of the […]
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Most people would agree that fossil fuels simply need to go. They’re the cause of pollution, wars and climate change. Scientists have been researching alternative energy solutions like wind and solar power, and hydrogen fuel for cars, for years. But while some automakers — like Toyota and Honda — are bringing hydrogen-fueled cars to market, wind and solar are still […]
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The eight-hour work day is becoming obsolete, as companies pressure employees for “productivity”—that is, long work days. But employees ‘may pay the ultimate price for overworking, a new British study finds. Researchers followed more than 7,000 healthy, middle-aged U.K. government employees for roughly 12 years and discovered that those who reported clocking 11-hour days had a 67 percent higher risk […]
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Why do people complain? Not to torture others with their negativity, surely. When most of us indulge in a bit of a moan, the idea is to “vent.” By getting our emotions out, we reason, we’ll feel better. But science suggests there are a few serious flaws in that reasoning. One, not only does expressing negativity tend not to make us […]
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A desparate farmer killed himself in public, and India’s politicians do little more than point their fingers. Gajendra Singh, 43, climbed a tree and hanged himself during a rally against the government’s new land acquisition bill. A suicide note said his crop had failed and he could not support his three children. Singh joins “a long list of farmers who […]
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Of the world’s billion Internet users, one in three logs on in English. That’s no surprise. The technology got its start in the U.S., most Web pages are English, and more than 60 percent of the U.S., Canadian, U.K., and Australian populations are online. But China is catching up. The number of Chinese speakers using the Internet is five times […]
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Durham University, leading a team of international researchers believe they have discovered the largest known canyon on Earth. Utilizing precise satellite data and ground-penetrating radar, they have calculated it to be over 62 miles long and over half a mile deep at some points. More precise measurements will be necessary to confirm these findings, although that will be a difficult […]
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More than 850 million people around the world—one in nearly seven—don’t have enough to eat. Although current global food production is sufficient to feed everyone, the number eating less than the minimum the human body needs—an average 2,100 calories a day for adults—now grows by more than ten million a year, mostly in the poorest nations. Countries with unstable food […]
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