Today’s comic by Matt Bors is Bern in Hell:
Another old Nazi to be tried as accessory to 170,000 murders: 94-year-old Reinhold Hanning is going on trial this week for his role as an SS guard at the Auschwitz death factory. He has been charged on 170,000 counts of accessory to murder. During World War II, he was an SS Unterscharfuehrer—roughly comparable to a sergeant—at Auschwitz from January 1943 to June 1944, a period during which hundreds of thousands of Jews were gassed and their bodies cremated there. His trial is the first of four that German authorities are bringing to court this year in what is likely to be among the very last such cases given the age of the accused. Prior to the 2011 trial of John Demjanjuk, nobody had been convicted for being a death camp guard unless there was evidence of a specific killing. With witnesses dead or otherwise not able to testify, getting convictions for specific crimes has been getting more and more difficult as the years have passed. But the Demjanjuk precedent expanded the number of potential cases.
Results of N.H. Republican primary:
Meet Egypt’s famous jumping donkey.
U of Arizona study demolishes alcohol-Indian myths: The “drunken Indian” stereotype and slur has had a lot of sticking power over the years. But a new study at the University of Arizona has debunked the long-held view that American Indians have a uniquely high rate of use and abuse. Researchers found that the rate of binge and heavy drinking is the same for Indians and whites. There was a major area of difference, however: Indians are more likely to abstain from alcohol altogether than are whites. The study appears in the Feb. 8 edition of the peer-reviewed journal, Drug and Alcohol Dependence. The researchers examined data from a survey of more than 4,000 Native Americans and 170,000 whites between 2009 and 2013. They found that about 17 percent of both Indians and whites were binge drinkers (five or more drinks on one to four days in the previous month). About 8 percent of both groups were heavy drinkers (five or more drinks on five or more days in the previous month). But 60 percent of Indians reported no alcohol use in the past month, compared to 43 percent of whites. That statistic is affected by the fact that many Indian reservations ban the sale of alcohol. James K. Cunningham, the lead author of the study, said: "Of course, debunking a stereotype doesn't mean that alcohol problems don't exist. All major U.S. racial and ethnic groups face problems due to alcohol abuse, and alcohol use within those groups can vary with geographic location, age and gender.”
Majority of low-wage workers must depend on public assistance:
There is an enduring myth that people who rely on public assistance are unwilling to work. However, there are 41.2 million working Americans (nearly 30 percent of the workforce) who receive public assistance—and nearly half of these workers (19.3 million) have full-time jobs. Not surprisingly, these workers are concentrated in jobs paying low hourly wages. A majority (53.1 percent) of workers earning less than $12.16 per hour—the bottom 30 percent of wage earners—earn so little on the job that they must rely on public assistance to make ends meet.
A 10-question quiz on black history.
Part-time to full-time job ratio has not recovered from Great Recession: Since 1968, the U.S. Labor Department has collecting data on whether employed Americans work at full- or part-time jobs. In that first year, just 13.5 percent were counted as part-timers (working less than 35 hours a week). In January 2010, in the depths of the job recession, 20.1 percent were part-timers. Now, six years later, the part-time figure has fallen to 18.2 percent.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Bernie fans came to hear Greg Dworkin say he won big. And it didn’t even hurt! Who turned out & why? Who’s freaking out? Dropping out? Joan McCarter warns of yet another web freedom fight & more Gop obstructionism. Your “smart” toys are spying on you.
Find us on iTunes | Find us on Stitcher | RSS | Donate to support the show!