20 Million Annual Readers, New Milestone for ProCon.org

ProCon.org announced that it surpassed 20,000,000 annual readers in 2014, a 22.1% increase over 2013. The educational website, which launched in July 2004, also announced a new record for the number of times it has been referenced by mainstream media–more than 400 times in 2014.

Some of those references included: The New York Times,Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times,Boston Globe, Denver Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, BBC, Slate,Daily Beast, Forbes, The Atlantic, USA Today, and International Business Times.

ProCon.org, a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501©(3) public charity online at www.procon.org, promotes critical thinking, education, and informed citizenship by presenting research on controversial issues in a Pros and Cons format, with no spin and at no charge. The growing list of issues featured on the ProCon.org site includes subjects ranging from medical marijuana, alternative energy, and gay marriage, to the death penalty, immigration, and the Cuba embargo. Procon.org also provides valuable reference materials on each subject covered and is widely used by students, teachers, journalists, legislators, and the general public.

Educators in more than 5,500 schools in all 50 states have used ProCon.org in their educational materials to tech persuasive writing, critical thinking, speech, debate, history, science, and many other subjects.

ProCon.org CEO Jay Rakow stated: “Surpassing the 20,000,000 annual users mark represents a major milestone for ProCon.org. It confirms the value of providing a nonpartisan look at the tough issues our society faces so we can all make better informed decisions. We are grateful to our many readers, to our dedicated research staff, and to our donors, who make it possible for us to provide our service free of charge. As we celebrate our tenth anniversary, we take great pride in reaching so many people and we look forward to serving them for years to come.”

School Uniforms

imageTraditionally favored by private and parochial institutions, school uniforms are being adopted by US public schools in increasing numbers. Almost one in five US public schools required students to wear uniforms during the 2011-2012 school year, up from one in eight in 2003-2004. Mandatory uniform policies in public schools are found more commonly in high-poverty areas.

Proponents say that school uniforms make schools safer for students, create a “level playing field” that reduces socioeconomic disparities, and encourage children to focus on their studies rather than their clothes.

Opponents say school uniforms infringe upon students’ right to express their individuality, have no positive effect on behavior and academic achievement, and emphasize the socioeconomic disparities they are intended to disguise. Read more…

Death Penalty in California Ruled Unconstitutional by Federal Judge

imageOn July 16, 2014, California's death penalty was ruled unconstitutional by US District Judge Cormac J. Carney. 

Carney ruled on a petition submitted by death row inmate Ernest Dewayne Jones, who has been on California’s death row for nearly 20 years. He was condemned to death in 1995 after being convicted of raping and murdering his girlfriend’s mother.

In his ruling, Judge Carney called California’s death penalty system “dysfunctional,” and said that systemic delays in carrying out death sentences in California have created a situation whereby “the death sentence carefully and deliberately imposed by the jury has been quietly transformed into one no rational jury or legislature could ever impose: life in prison, with the remote possibility of death." 

The judge went on to argue that "allowing this system to continue to threaten Mr. Jones with the slight possibility of death, almost a generation after he was first sentenced, violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.”

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Natasha Minsker, Director of the ACLU of Northern California, stated that Judge Carney’s ruling was “the first time any judge has ruled systemic delay creates an arbitrary system that serves no legitimate purpose and is therefore unconstitutional.”

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Intensifies with Rocket Fire and Troop Deployment

imageOn July 8, 2014, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched Operation Protective Edge, a campaign including airstrikes throughout the Gaza Strip. This recent escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict began with the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank. 

The Israeli government blamed the murders on the political militant group Hamas, which has neither denied nor taken public responsibility for the deaths. Shortly after the bodies were found and a funeral held, Guardianreports that three Israelis kidnapped a Palestinian youth named Mohammed Abu Khdeir in West Jerusalem and burned him to death as revenge for the Israeli victims. Within days, militants in Gaza began launching rockets into southern Israel in response to the killing.

Over 100 rockets have struck Israel since July 7, with more being intercepted by the Iron Dome Missile defense system. The rockets have been aimed at population centers such as Tel Aviv, and have gone 100 km (62 miles) north of Gaza to Hadera, marking the farthest into Israel a rocket from Gaza has ever reached. Both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad have claimed responsibility for some portion of the rockets. A spokesperson for the Islamic Jihad said “our activity will expand in accordance with the expansion of Israeli aggression,” while Hamas has pledged to avenge the deaths of at least two of its members killed in the Israeli airstrikes thus far.

Israeli air raids into Gaza have targeted up to 400 sites in the first two days, including many locations associated with members of Hamas, according to CBC news. The Israeli government has also approved the mobilization of 40,000 reserve troops, mostly infantry, to be stationed along the border for a possible ground offensive. So far, 23 Gaza residents are reported dead with 122 injured, making this clash the most deadly since Operation Pillar of Defense against Hamas in Gaza in Nov. 2012. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed the IDF to “take the gloves off” and “prepare for a thorough, long, continuous and strong campaign in Gaza.”

Leaders on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have expressed desire to end the violence…

Legal Prostitution Attracts Attention at World Cup

A protest in Niterói (near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) against recent prostitution arrestsProstitution is legal in Brazil, home to the 2014 World Cup tournament, and host to an estimated 600,000 foreign soccer fans visiting the country for the month-long competition.

While paying for sex has been legal in Brazil since at least as early as 2000, pimping and owning brothels are illegal in the country. One estimate puts the number of prostitutes in Brazil at one million in a country of nearly 203 million. 

There are said to be around 2,000 prostitutes working in Belo Horizonte (one of the World Cup’s 12 host cities) alone. Belo Horizonte gained notoriety in 2013 when Cida Vieira, chairwoman of Aprosmig, a local prostitutes’ union, said that the city’s prostitutes would accept credit card payments to make transactions more convenient for World Cup attendees. The city gained still more publicity when Laura Maria Do Espirito Santo, a founding member of Aprosmig, came up with the idea of arranging English lessons for prostitutes so they could better cater to English-speaking soccer fans attending the competition. “The language gets you ahead,” remarked Santo. “We are learning the basics. They say there’ll be 200,000 tourists in Belo Horizonte so it makes a lot of sense.”

Death Penalty on Hold in Ohio after Federal Court Ruling

A death chamber at the Southern Ohio Correctional FacilityOn May 28, 2014, US District Judge Gregory L. Frost blocked executions from taking place in Ohio until Aug. 15, 2014, while issues surrounding the state’s new lethal injection methods are resolved. Two executions had been scheduled to occur before Aug. 15, with two more planned for later in the year. Judge Frost ordered the state and lawyers representing inmates on death row to “work together” to resolve their dispute over the use of new drug protocols adopted by Ohio in 2013.

Due to shortages of drugs customarily used to carry out thedeath penalty, including pentobarbital (used to anesthetize the inmate) and vecuronium bromide (used to induce paralysis), states have turned to experimental drug combinations. The new procedures have been blamed for botched executions in Ohio and Oklahoma.

During a Jan. 16, 2014 execution at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, witnesses said they saw inmate Dennis McGuire “choke, clench his fists and seemingly struggle against his restraints for more than 10 minutes” before being pronounced dead, according to the Los Angeles Times. McGuire, 53, was given the death penalty for raping and murdering a pregnant woman. On Apr. 29, 2014 at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, Clayton Lockett stayed alive for 43 minutes after the execution’s commencement and at times “struggled violently, groaned and writhed, lifting his shoulders and head from the gurney,” according to the Guardian. Lockett, 38, was convicted of rape and of killing a 19 year-old woman, who was buried alive as Lockett watched.

Today, President Obama announced more than 300 private and public sector commitments to create jobs and cut carbon pollution by advancing solar deployment and energy efficiency. The commitments represent more than 850 megawatts of solar deployed – enough to power nearly 130,000 homes.
President Obama Announces Solar Power Commitments and Executive Actions
Alternative Energy - ProCon.org

Source: alternativeenergy.procon.org

Immigrants in the United States Illegally Use Health Services Less Than Uninsured US Citizens

Filipino Immigrant Receives Dialysis Treatment in ERA new study of health care benefits in California, published in Health Affairs on May 5, showed that per year 9% of undocumented immigrants in California visited the emergency room versus 12% of uninsured US citizens in California versus 20% of all US-born citizens in California. Immigrants in the country illegally visit a doctor an average of 1.7 times a year, uninsured citizens visit 1.8 times, and insured citizens visit 3.2 times a year. 

California is home to over 2.2 million undocumented immigrants, who account for 6.8% of the state’s population and nearly 25% of the state’s uninsured population. The 2010 Affordable Care Act gave the 3.3 million US citizens in California access to healthcare but did not extend those benefits to immigrants in the country illegally.

The study’s authors concluded that this lack of insurance coverage could lead to more advanced disease and, thus, higher public expenditures to treat immigrants in the country illegally who have not used health care services. They also say extending health care coverage to immigrants in the country illegally could benefit the insurance exchange, and reduce the burden on emergency and safety-net providers like emergency rooms and urgent care offices. California State Senator Ricardo Lara has proposed the Health for All Act, which would extend fully-paid Medicaid coverage to immigrants in the country illegally, stating, “This is an issue that has been a concern at many clinics and non-profit hospitals… If we’re going to fully implement the ACA, the conversation has to include this vulnerable population.”

Climate Change Is Impacting the United States Now

Melting Arctic Ice in SummerThe National Climate Assessment, a report produced by a group of more than 300 experts and a 60-member Federal Advisory Committee, concluded that human-induced “climate change is happening now.”

The report, released on May 6, 2014, details how climate change "impacts are visible in every state,“ including increased heat, drought, insect outbreaks, and wildfires in the Southwest, receding glaciers and thawing permafrost in Alaska, increased coral bleaching and disease outbreaks in Hawaii, coastal flooding, intense rain and snow events in the Northeast, and increased risk of extreme events such as hurricanes in the Southeast.

According to the 2014 report, US average temperature has increased by 1.3°F to 1.9°F since 1895, and is projected to rise another 2°F to 4°F over the next decade. Specific examples of climate change impacts from the report include a 70% increase in the amount of rain falling in heavy storm events in the Northeast between 1958 and 2010, and the possibility that Arctic summer sea ice may "virtually disappear before mid-century.” In Puerto Rico, the coastline near Rincòn is eroding at a rate of 3.3 feet per year, and coastal areas in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas already have average annual losses that total $14 billion due to hurricane winds, land shifting, and sea level rise.

Under a 1990 Congressional mandate, the National Climate Assessment report is to be published once every four years. The conclusions of the 2014 National Climate Assessment provided support for President Obama’s Climate Action Plan released in June 2013. In an interview about the assessment report, Obama stated that climate change “is not some distant problem of the future. This is a problem that is affecting Americans right now. Whether it means increased flooding, greater vulnerability to drought, more severe wildfires — all these things are having an impact on Americans as we speak.”

15 Anti-Obesity Drugs, 1892-Present

diet pills, apple, and measuring tapeDoctors and drug manufacturers have been trying to help patients lose weight for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Soranus of Ephesus, a Greek physician in the second century AD, used a combination of laxatives and emetics to help his patients lose weight. Patients, doctors, and drug manufacturers often overlook serious side effects in the quest for weight loss. For example, the industrial chemical, 2,4 Dinitrophenol (DNP), used for pesticides and wood preservatives, has been used by bodybuilders for fat loss since the 1980s despite being linked to at least 62 deaths.

Below are a selection of 15 drugs used to combat obesity, many of which have been discontinued or withdrawn over health concerns, along with their status in the United States as of Apr. 2014, and their side effects. As of May 2014, seven of the drugs are legally available (one of these, thyroid extract, is frequently used off-label and unregulated by bodybuilders) and eight have been discontinued or withdrawn over safety concerns (three of which are still used illegally).

1 in 25 Inmates Awaiting Death Penalty Were Wrongly Convicted, Study Says

death row at San QuentinAccording to a new study, approximately 120 of the about 3,000 inmates on death rowawaiting the death penalty in the United States were wrongfully convicted. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences online on Apr. 28, 2014, estimated that 4.1% of death row sentences (1 in 25) were wrongful, a “conservative estimate” according to the authors and twice the number of death row cases that were actually overturned.

The authors noted, "Death sentences represent less than one-tenth of 1% of prison sentences in the United States, but they accounted for about 12% of known exonerations of innocent defendants from 1989 through early 2012, a disproportion of more than 130 to 1." 

After a conviction, wrongful convictions are "extremely difficult to detect,” according to the authors, so the “majority of innocent defendants remain undetected.” The authors explained, innocent defendants “are sentenced, or resentenced to prison for life, and then forgotten.”

The study showed that between 1973 and Dec. 1, 2004, 12.6% of death row inmates were executed, 4% died on death row (not via execution), 46.1% were still on death row as of Dec. 1, 2004, 35.8% had their sentences changed and were no longer on death row, and 1.6% were exonerated.