T1Wk4 Yong Zhi Ming 2SB5: Breathless in Beijing

By Melinda Liu, Newsweek, 21 Jan 2013

“Killer smog” has overtaken the Chinese capital. Authorities blamed the shockingly high pollution levels—the worst since records began four years ago—on not only vehicle exhaust but also dust from construction sites and a rare period of unusually cold weather, which prompted people to burn more coal to stay warm. One big problem is the rapid growth of car ownership in Beijing, from about 3 million during the 2008 Olympics to more than 5 million today.

(Feng Li/Getty)

T1Wk4 Lee Chan Young 2AA1: Investing in Guns

By Joe Nocera, The New York Times, 18 Jan 2013

In 2006, Cerberus Capital Management, the private equity firm run by the secretive financier Steven Feinberg, set out to raise $6.5 billion in a new fund called Cerberus Institutional Partners Series IV. Feinberg’s reputation for extracting value from troubled companies — by replacing management, shuttering facilities and creating “efficiencies” — was such that by May 2007, when the fund was finally closed, it had gotten commitments for nearly $1 billion more than it had sought.

Cerberus Institutional Partners Series IV is the fund that took over Chrysler in 2007. It bought General Motors’ financing arm, now called Ally Financial. It gobbled up hospitals, purchased bus companies, and even bought the raunchy magazine Maxim.

It is also the fund that bought Bushmaster Firearms, the company that made the assault weapon used by Adam Lanza to massacre 20 children and seven adults in Newtown, Conn., last month. It bought Remington Arms, the maker of the pump-action shotgun that was among the guns James Holmes used to kill 12 people and wound 58 in Aurora, Colo. It bought a handful of other firearms companies, which it then merged into a new parent company, Freedom Group. At which point, Cerberus was the largest manufacturer of guns and ammunition in the country.

T1Wk4 James Wong 2SA4: Lance Armstrong’s fall from grace

BUT THEN AGAIN, By MARY SCHNEIDER

LIKE many people, I’ve been following Lance Armstrong’s fall from grace. One minute he’s the hero of the cycling world, and the next, he’s talking to Oprah, trying to look contrite but not quite pulling it off. Lance has stood on the winner’s podium wearing the prized yellow jersey at the end of the Tour de France, seven times, and I’m curious to know what was going through his head on those occasions.

T1Wk3 Victoria Khoo 2AA1: Gun Control Bills Flood Statehouses In Wake Of Sandy Hook Shooting

New gun control bills are flooding into state legislatures around the country, among the clearest signs that the shooting deaths of 20 children and six adults in a Connecticut elementary school last month have galvanized lawmakers and the public on the issue of guns.

While pro-gun lawmakers have filed dozens of measures to loosen gun regulations since the shooting, including bills allowing schoolteachers to carry concealed weapons in the classroom, these proposals are significantly outnumbered by bills pushing stronger gun laws, according to data that the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, an advocacy group that tracks federal and state gun laws, shared with The Huffington Post.

Indeed, the states are much more active around gun legislation than lawmakers in Congress, highlighting the role states can and will play in the gun control debate even if the divisive issue continues to stymie the federal government.

T1Wk3 Alison Han 2SB5: The NRA Guns for Sasha and Malia

by David Frum, The Daily Beast Newsweek Digital

the NRA Advertisement against Obama:

Two things to say about the NRA’s shocking new advertisement.

T1Wk3 Koh Huey Chen 2SA4: Why we won’t stop global warming

by Harvey Young, Aljazeera Opinion

Unless our short- and long-term interests align, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever do anything about climate change.

If you’ve ever seen a person purchase a pack of cigarettes featuring an image of a blackened, cancerous lung, then you probably understand that big issues like global warming may never be solved. The cause of inaction: an inability to stop future dangers for want of short-term pleasures. Pleasure almost always trumps long-term self-interest.