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The SNL skit that never aired: Chuck Hagel confirmation hearing. Researchers reconstruct the common ancestor of mammals. Stephen Colbert reports on the state of the Rubio. Some of the awesome people who create Wikipedia.

Readers respond - The Persistence of Racial Resentment; Meredith Tax on Democracy, Islam and the Left. Response to Carl Proper (The Americanization of the United States); Prisoner X. Plus: Grad Students Take Action at UIC - Urge School to Not Break Their Hearts; Resources on Racial Justice; Role of Public Intellectuals - New York - Feb 15; Life of Eslanda Robeson - Conversation with Barbara Ransby - Chicago - Feb 19; Red Brain, Blue Brain - There is a Difference;

The U.S.-led sanctions regime is strangling the Iranian people, cutting off trade relations, financial transactions, and access to vital goods. The results have been stark and devastating: currency devaluation, skyrocketing inflation, factory closures, layoffs, unpaid wages, and now a major healthcare crisis.

One in three women on the planet will be raped or beaten in her lifetime. One billion women violated is an atrocity.

According to a report released Wednesday from the Center for American Progress Action Fund, raising the minimum wage would also be a pillar for women's rights

On Monday, a grassroots, anti–corporate tax-dodging coalition called Flip the Debt crashed a "Fix the Debt" party at St. Anselm's College in New Hampshire hosted by Honeywell CEO David Cote to tell the gathered deficit hawk disciples that paying their "damn taxes" would be a better solution than crippling the nation with fiscal austerity measures.

Consider these issues of legality and US legacy: The belligerent and misplaced aggression and ensuing chaos after the 2003 Iraq invasion led to hundreds of thousands of casualties (over a million by some calculations) and the largest refugee crisis in the region since the Nakba, with over 4 million Iraqis being displaced from their homes. After a decade of warfare Afghans have been perishing under the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the world.

In the midst of an escalating international row with Australia, the Israeli government has been forced to admit that it secretly imprisoned a "dual-nationality" citizen – known as "Prisoner X" – who subsequently killed himself while being detained in Ayalon prison.

As an administration decision on Keystone XL looms the protests and civil disobedience in Washington are heating up once again.

Many new state workers — ranging from teachers to police officers to street cleaners — will retire with fewer retirement benefits than their current counterparts. Since 2009, faced with ballooning bills and strained budgets, 45 states have either cut pension benefits or increased mandatory employee retirement plan contributions, or both.