#HEADLINES: US Drones Searching for Kidnapped Nigerian Girls, Biggest Fast Food Strike in World History, Venezuela Details Dozens of Anti-Government Protesters, Liberals and Religion, Qatar Promises Labor Reforms, Veterans' Info Tossed in Trash, African Poachers Slaughter Dozens of Elephants in Key African Park
"White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said 'unmanned, unarmed' aircraft had joined reconnaissance flights over a swath of Nigeria where Boko Haram is believed to be holding the girls hostage. Carney cautioned during a news conference that the area of greatest suspicion still covering an expanse of land 'along the size of West Virginia.'
The announcement comes as some U.S. lawmakers are urging the use of force to rescue the Nigerian girls. Senators in both parties recently floated the idea of using special forces to aid in the search, and Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain went further on Tuesday. 'I certainly would send in U.S. troops to rescue them,' McCain told to the Daily Beast.
Carney, however, said U.S. counterterrorism experts dispatched to Nigeria would limit their activity to an 'advisory capacity,' focused on finding the girls."
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| source: Overpass Light Brigade |
"Fast food workers in more than 150 US cities are walking off their jobs today, while coordinated protests against low wages and poor working conditions in the industry are taking place in more than 30 countries — the largest global fast food protest ever.
Workers organized by local labor groups like Fast Food Forward, and international ones like the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Association — which represents about 12 million workers in 126 countries — responded to a global call for greater dignity in the industry and expressed their solidarity with the US workers' campaign for a $15 hourly wage."
"Police in Venezuela have detained at least 80 demonstrators who were demanding the release of those arrested in recent anti-government protests.
Hundreds of people, mostly students, had marched peacefully through the streets of the capital Caracas.
But security forces later clashed with a group of demonstrators who threw stones and home-made explosives, and tried to erect barricades.
More than 40 people have been killed during three months of unrest."
"Rather than serving as a unifying force, the public dialogue around faith has become increasingly contentious over the past 40 years. If religious expression was once the glue that bound men together, today it is just as likely to be the cudgel that breaks them apart.
Social conservatives present an easy target for blame....But there is equal if not greater culpability on the progressive left, which has marched itself right out of the conversation on religion and faith under the flag of secularization.
By insisting on a rigid 'wall of separation' between religion and public life, liberal America surrendered its place at the table and has been forced instead into a defensive posture as it fields charge after charge of 'waging war' on the faithful."
Qatar has promised to scrap key elements of its controversial labour laws, in the wake of an international outcry over conditions for migrant workers before the 2022 World Cup, which followed a Guardian investigation into workplace abuse in the Gulf state.
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But human rights groups, which had hoped this would be a watershed moment, feared the lack of detailed proposals represented 'a missed opportunity to tackle the key issues.' Amnesty International said it suspected it amounted to a 'change of name rather than a reform to the system.'"
"Boxes of documents containing sensitive personal information found in dumpster outside of Arizona veteran housing complex. KPNX's Chris Williams reports."
"One of Africa's oldest national parks announced Tuesday that it had been hit by an unusual wave of attacks by armed elephant poachers, with dozens of carcasses found, and three suspected poachers killed.
Garamba National Park, a remote 1,900-square-mile park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, issued an urgent alert Tuesday that it had been hit by poachers emanating from an area known to house the terrorist group the Lord's Resistance Army.
According to African Parks Network (APN), an NGO that manages Garamba under agreement with the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation, 33 elephant carcasses have been discovered so far. Most appear to have been killed in April, but ten carcasses were discovered Friday, their tusks removed."
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