Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Breakfast News
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South Korea’s president weeps as she apologizes for ferry disaster
Tears rolling down her cheeks, South Korean President Park Geun-hye formally apologized on Monday for a ferry disaster that killed about 300 passengers, mostly school children, and said she would break up the coast guard for failing in its duties.
Park has been hit hard by an angry nationwide outcry over the government’s response to South Korea’s worst civilian maritime disaster in 20 years and the seemingly slow and ineffective rescue operation.
Polls show support for Park has dropped by more than 20 points since the April 16 disaster.
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Renegade Libyan General ‘Suspends’ Parliament
Militiamen loyal to a retired Libyan general say they have “suspended” parliament after launching an attack against the legislative body.
Renegade forces commanded by former general Khalifa Haftar on Sunday stormed the parliament building in Tripoli, firing weapons and ransacking lawmakers’ offices.
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Australia’s conservative government battered over austerity budget
Support for Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s conservative government has collapsed following the release of an austerity budget that has emboldened opponents and even sparked calls for early elections.
The government last week released a contentious budget packed with deregulation moves, new levies and spending cuts aimed at overcoming what it calls unsustainable deficits totalling A$60 billion ($56 billion) over the next four years.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Australia’s biggest cities at the weekend to rail against the changes to welfare, healthcare, education and pensions that they say outstrip the mandate Abbott won in elections last year.
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Elizabeth Warren Reveals Inside Details of Trade Talks
“From what I hear, Wall Street, pharmaceuticals, telecom, big polluters and outsourcers are all salivating at the chance to rig the deal in the upcoming trade talks. So the question is, Why are the trade talks secret? You’ll love this answer. Boy, the things you learn on Capitol Hill,” Warren said. “I actually have had supporters of the deal say to me ‘They have to be secret, because if the American people knew what was actually in them, they would be opposed.'”
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Cisco calls for curb on NSA surveillance efforts
The NSA’s wide-ranging surveillance programme should be curtailed, says hardware-maker Cisco in a letter to President Obama.
Cisco boss John Chambers said faith in US technology companies was being eroded by the NSA’s activities.
The letter comes after whistleblowers revealed the NSA regularly intercepted Cisco hardware to help it gather information on potential targets.
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Student Debt Grows Faster at Universities With Highest-Paid Leaders, Study Finds
At the 25 public universities with the highest-paid presidents, both student debt and the use of part-time adjunct faculty grew far faster than at the average state university from 2005 to 2012, according to a new study by the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-leaning Washington research group.
The study, “The One Percent at State U: How University Presidents Profit from Rising Student Debt and Low-Wage Faculty Labor,” examined the relationship between executive pay, student debt and low-wage faculty labor at the 25 top-paying public universities.
The co-authors, Andrew Erwin and Marjorie Wood, found that administrative expenditures at the highest-paying universities outpaced spending on scholarships by more than two to one. And while adjunct faculty members became more numerous at the 25 universities, the share of permanent faculty declined drastically.
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Quinnipiac Student Calls in Graduation Bomb Threat to Hide Drop-Out From Family: Cops
Police say they arrested an ex-Quinnipiac University student who allegedly admitted to calling in a pair of bomb threats in an attempt to get the Connecticut college’s commencement ceremony canceled because she didn’t want her family to know she had dropped out and wouldn’t be graduating.
Danielle Shea, 22, was arrested in a cap and gown after the threats forced school officials to move the school’s College of Arts and Sciences graduation from the campus’s quad to its sports arena Sunday, according to Hamden police.
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First revolutionary technique to turn light into matter discovered by scientists
In a breakthrough, scientists have for the first time discovered a revolutionary technique to turn light into matter, a feat thought impossible when the idea was first theorised 80 years ago.
Three physicists at the Imperial College London’s Blackett Physics Laboratory worked out a relatively simple way to physically prove a theory first devised by scientists Breit and Wheeler in 1934.
Breit and Wheeler suggested that it should be possible to turn light into matter by ssmashing together only two particles of light (photons), to create an electron and a positron – the simplest method of turning light into matter ever predicted.
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CDC: First case of MERS infection transmitted inside the U.S.
The first case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome believed to be transmitted within the United States has been identified in an Illinois man who was infected and is no longer sick, a doctor with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday.MERS virus detected in U.S.
The unidentified Illinois man had “extended face-to-face contact” during a 40-minute business meeting with an Indiana man who was diagnosed with MERS after traveling from Saudi Arabia, Dr. David Swerdlow told reporters during a telephone briefing.
A blood test confirmed the Illinois man had been previously infected, and he reported suffering only mild cold-like symptoms and did not seek or require medical care, Swerdlow said.
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The Daily Wiki
1. (transitive, idiomatic) To perform menial tasks for; to serve; to assist; to be forced by politics or pragmatism to endorse or promote a belief, individual, or organization that in reality one does not fully support.
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Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Human rights are not only violated by terrorism, repression or assassination, but also by unfair economic structures that creates huge inequalities.
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Breakfast Tunes
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