Hong Kong Police Move In On Volatile Protest Site

Hong Kong police have begun clearing barricades and making arrests around themost volatile site in the city’s ongoing pro-democracy demonstrations. After a generally peaceful clearance of barricades during the day, clashes erupted in the Mong Kok neighborhood on Tuesday night, with police using pepper spray during confrontations with protesters intent on holding their ground.

While the U.S. remained gripped by the turmoil in Ferguson, Missouri, Hong Kong police steadily forced protesters to retreat, opening peripheral roads while leaving the protest's epicenter intact. The police reportedly made several dozen arrests of those who resisted, including at least one Hong Kong legislator.

4 Reasons Keystone Really Matters

It doesn’t matter.

Ever since the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline exploded three and half years ago, that’s been the argument from the project’s liberal supporters. Sure, the oil that Keystone would carry from the Alberta tar sands is three to four times more greenhouse-gas-intensive than conventional crude. But that’s not on Keystone XL, we’re told. Why? Because if TransCanada isn’t able to build Keystone to the south, then another pipeline will be built to the west or east. Or that dirty oil will be transported by rail. But make no mistake, we have long been assured: all that carbon buried beneath Alberta’s boreal forest will be mined no matter what the president decides.

Why Ferguson Burns

Ferguson is on fire. Immediately after St. Louis prosecutor Robert McCulloch announced that a grand jury had failed to indict Police Officer Darren Wilson in the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, waves of unrest roiled the city. A dozen buildings were torched and looted, and two police cars were set ablaze. As President Obama appeared on TV urging calm, cops in Ferguson fired rounds of tear-gas canisters into crowds and deployed armored vehicles with gun turrets that were built for our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They eventually arrested sixty-one people. In cities across the country, Americans spontaneously took to the streets, shutting down highways and bridges in acts of civil disobedience. In New York City, one demonstrator splattered Police Commissioner Bill Bratton with fake blood.

Auditor General Fall Report Points To Shortcomings At Library and Archives Canada

OTTAWA - Future generations may not be able to enjoy Canada's recorded heritage — including photos, maps and important documents — because Library and Archives Canada is not collecting all of the material it should from federal agencies, the auditor general says.

In a report tabled Tuesday, Michael Ferguson says Library and Archives doesn't even know what it already has due to a backlog of 98,000 boxes of records — almost one-quarter of them military files, some dating to 1890.

Auditor General Fall Report: Veterans With PTSD Face 8-Month Waits, Dizzying Paperwork

OTTAWA - Many of Canada's battle-scarred veterans wait up to eight months to find out if they are eligible for long-term, mental-health disability benefits and the department responsible for their care has no idea if its treatment programs are effective, the auditor general said Tuesday.

For a handful of those ex-soldiers, the cumbersome application process is only the beginning of a battle for care that can rage for years.

Who gets the $$ for food in the North -- big business or hungry people?

Anyone who has ever spent any time in Canada's North knows that basic, healthy food is excruciatingly expensive, while what is available on store shelves is severely limited.

Historically, the Inuit, Dene, Cree, Innu and other peoples of the North relied on the land. When things were good, they could fashion a decent, balanced diet for themselves.

They had high-quality, lean meat from caribou, moose, arctic hare, ptarmigan, beaver and muskrat and, for coastal peoples, from sea mammals such as whales and seals.

Tories refuse to apologize to Liberal candidate even as Sun Media retracts story their attacks were based on

OTTAWA - Conservative MPs are refusing to apologize for pillorying a Liberal candidate, even though the news story on which their criticism was based has been retracted.

Sun Media retracted Tuesday a story published last week that attributed quotes about the Harper government's income splitting plan to Banff-Airdrie Liberal candidate Marlo Raynolds.

The quotes came from a secretly recorded conversation during a Nov. 13 public meeting in Canmore, Alta., involving Raynolds, local resident Tam McTavish, one other man and a young woman identified as Alexandra Constantinidis, a former parliamentary assistant to Conservative MP Rob Anders.

Experts Blast Ferguson Prosecutor’s Press Conference, Legal Strategy

Hours after revealing the grand jury had reached a decision and months after police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown, St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch announced late Monday night that Wilson would not be indicted. As communities around the country and across the world reacted to the decision, legal experts told ThinkProgress how unusual — and in some cases troubling — the process was that brought about this outcome.

Both supporters of McColloch and those demanding his ouster stressed the uniqueness of the case and the national media attention it garnered. But law professors and legal experts had sharply varying views on whether the presentation of the non-indictment and legal procedures were followed appropriately, adequately or fairly.

Michael Brown Family Attorneys Address Prosecutors' Failings

The family of slain teenager Michael Brown held a press conference Tuesday, following the previous evening's announcement that there would be no indictment in the case of Ferguson, Missouri police Officer Darren Wilson, who fatally shot an unarmed Brown on Aug. 9.

Brown's family members did not speak during Tuesday's press conference, but attorneys for the family offered strong criticism of the grand jury process that led to Monday's announcement.

Watching Ferguson Burn: What Constitutes Appropriate Rebellion?

"This is what it feels like when you feel like you can't go any lower. I understand the anger, but I'm sad. The way this is going to be told, is these people will seem crazy. That's the way the narrative will go. But these people are worse than crazy, they're hopeless at this point. And this is what it looks like when people get to the point of hopelessness."
— Dr. Stefan Bradley, All In With Chris Hayes, Ferguson, Missouri

Days before the grand jury verdict, the typical Constitution Bozo Outfitter in my mom's hometown, like so many signs across the south, read, "Pants Up, Don't Loot." The admonishment was familiar to anyone following the racial discourse in living memory. Bill "Here, Drink This" Cosby only became more beloved by white America for telling black people their problems began at their belts. The racial equivalent of telling a hippie to get a haircut, it ignores that the rest of the system isn't rigged against the hippie. It doesn't matter if a crowd's pants are down if you pay attention to the man at the dais reading out a miscarriage of justice while the walls go up around them.