Most Recent Posts

Archaeologists digging in the foothills of Iran's Zagros Mountains have discovered the remains of a Stone Age farming community. It turns out that people living there were growing plants like barley, peas and lentils as early as 12,000 years ago.

The findings offer a rare snapshot of a time when humans first started experimenting with farming. They also show that Iran was an important player in the origin of agriculture.

In 2009, archaeologist Nicholas Conard of the University of Tubingen led an excavation in the foothills of the Zagros, a mountain range that runs along the Iran-Iraq border.

Based on the suggestion of an Iranian colleague, he'd picked an area close to the border with Iraq and began excavating a mound about eight meters high. Before long, they hit pay dirt: The sediments were rich with artifacts. "Sculpted clay objects, clay cones, depictions of animals and humans," says Conard.

Enlarge image i

We've been following the story of the collapse in Bangladesh of a building that housed several factories where clothes were made for Western retailers. More than 1,000 people died in that disaster in April, and the incident shed light on working conditions in Bangladesh, the world's No. 2 exporter of clothing.

Now there's news that a broad coalition of trade unions and 70 mostly European retailers have come together to sign a deal on fire and building safety in Bangladesh.

Among the signatories are H&M and Inditex, the world's largest retailer which owns brands like Zara. U.S. companies like Walmart and Gap have refused to sign on, saying the accord gives labor unions too much control over workplace safety.

Reuters reports:

"The largely European plan, coordinated by Switzerland-based unions IndustriALL and UNI Global, involves the creation of a team of inspectors to evaluate fire, electrical, structural and worker safety in factories supplying signatory brands.

"In a report published on Monday, the implementation team said that all 70 signatory brands had to provide full details of the Bangladesh factories from which they source goods - the first time such data would be collected or shared in such a comprehensive way.

"Every factory will undergo an initial inspection within the next nine months, with repairs initiated where necessary and a process put in place to allow companies or workers to report problems with buildings that pose an immediate risk."

All this week, NPR is taking a look at the demographic shifts that could shake up Texas politics in the coming years — and what that could mean for the rest of the country.

Within a decade, Hispanics are bound to become the largest ethnic group in Texas. These often Democratic-leaning Texans could reshape the state's GOP-dominated political landscape.

The immigration bill that the Senate approved last week is seen by some Republicans as a chance for their party to win support among Latino voters. But there's scant backing for the bill among Texas Republicans in Washington.

Republican John Cornyn, the senior senator from Texas, is seeking re-election next year, but he does not seem to be seeking the votes of many Hispanic Texans who want an immigration bill passed this year.

"I would love to support an immigration reform bill," Cornyn said last week on the Senate floor. "Unfortunately, the way this bill is shaping up, I cannot and will not."

The junior senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, is the son of a Cuban immigrant, but he strongly opposes the path to citizenship for 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the Senate bill, which he voted against.

"I think we need to treat legal immigrants fairly, and I think granting a path to citizenship is not fair to legal immigrants," he said.

More 'Texas 2020'

It's All Politics

Big Growth Could Shake Up Texas' Old Political Equation

With 40 people still missing after massive explosions Saturday in the center of their town, the people of Lac-Mgantic, Quebec, begin the week "with fears that the death toll from a weekend rail disaster could surge," CBC News writes.

The people there, the news network adds, are devastated by the accident that left the center of the town looking like a war zone. According to The Montreal Gazette, "the city's downtown core was almost completely destroyed by the blast. It housed a mix of commercial and residential units in historic buildings."

When Monday dawned, it was known that at least five people had been killed when freight tankers loaded with crude oil derailed and exploded in the small town near the Maine border. "The search for victims in the charred debris has been hampered by the fact two of the train's cars continued to burn Sunday morning, creating concerns of other potentially fatal explosions," the CBC says.

It's hoped that some of those now counted as missing were away from their homes when the tanks exploded and haven't yet gotten in contact with relatives or authorities.

As for how more than 70 tank cars detached from a locomotive after they were parked several miles from Lac-Mgantic — and then rolled into the town on their own — the investigation continues. There's word of a fire aboard the locomotive before the tank cars separated and began rolling. The Gazette writes in an editorial that:

"Early reports that the conductor had left the freight train parked unattended — with brakes supposed locked in place — in the nearby town of Nantes, with another conductor expected to take over several hours later, are troubling. Preferable would be more simultaneous transfer of responsibility. As it turns out, five minutes after the conductor left, a fire broke out in one of the locomotives. But while firefighters in Nantes put out the flames and reports last night suggested someone representing the company arrived to inspect the train and found no damage, it still remains to be seen whether proper regulatory procedures were followed — and if they were, whether the inspection failed to detect brake damage possibly caused by the fire."