In five years, if you want to take a trip from San Francisco to San Diego, it may be possible to do it on a small electric plane–and with a ticket that costs less than driving or taking the train. The Israel-based startup Eviation, which is building a new all-electric, nine-seat airplane, called the Alice Commuter expects to begin making its first commercial flights in 2021 and scale up to hundreds of routes across the U.S. over the next few years.
The timing is right, the founders say, because of the current state of technology. “There is a revolution happening in aviation, and it’s happening because of lightweight materials, energy density of batteries, the power of electric propulsion, and the computer power of managing this together,” says Omer Bar-Yohay, co-founder and CEO of Eviation, the winner of the transportation category of Fast Company‘s 2018 World Changing Ideas Awards.
While some other startups in the space (including Zunum Aero, which has the backing of the VC arms of JetBlue and Boeing) are focusing first on hybrid planes, Eviation chose to […]
Under a proposed Louisiana law, peaceful protests like 350.org’s “Draw the Line on Tar Sands and the Keystone XL pipeline,” in the French Quarter in New Orleans on September 21, 2013, bear the possibility of prison sentences as long as 20 years, or fines of up to $10,000.
Credit: Julie Dermansky / Corbis
On April 12, 2018, in the chambers of the Louisiana State House of Representatives, Rep. Major Thibaut Jr. stepped up to the microphone before the Speaker to introduce seemingly benign House Bill 727. According to his testimony, the bill was humble — almost technical — in scope and aimed primarily to add “pipelines” to the list of what the state considers “critical infrastructure.” It had faced no opposition in committee, Thibaut added, and had “over sixty-something authors.”
“It’s a good bill,” he said, then motioned for favorable passage. Ninety-seven legislators voted yay, three voted nay, and just like that, all 4.6 million residents of Louisiana took a step toward losing their First Amendment rights. Should the bill become law, it would impose […]
Credit: CNN
After years of protests against police abuses in Minneapolis, Baltimore, Standing Rock, and beyond, law enforcement has found a way to try and clamp down on any future mass movements by quietly lobbying for bills that seek to criminalize protesting itself.
According a Monday report from In These Times, police associations, police unions, district attorneys, and cops in leadership positions have been lobbying in favor of “protest suppression” laws in at least eight states:
According to research conducted for In These Times in partnership with Ear to the Ground, law enforcement in at least eight states—Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Washington and Wyoming—lobbied on behalf of anti-protest bills in 2017 and 2018. The bills ran the gamut from punishing face coverings at protests to increasing penalties for “economic disruption” and highway blockage to criminalizing civil protests that interfere with “critical infrastructure” like oil pipelines.
Emboldened by the Trump administration, at least 31 states have considered 62 pieces of anti-protest legislation since November 2016, with at least seven enacted and […]
A new PRRI survey finds white evangelical support for President Trump at an all-time high, with 75 percent holding a favorable view of the president and just 22 percent holding an unfavorable view. This level of support is far above support in the general population, where Trump’s favorability is at 42 percent.
White evangelical support for Donald Trump has steadily increased over time. Notably, Trump’s favorability among white evangelicals never reached 50 percent during the 2016 primary season. By the early fall of 2016, however, his favorability among white evangelicals had jumped to 61 percent. By the inauguration it increased to 68 percent, and shortly after the inauguration in February 2017 it jumped again to 74 percent. Over the course of 2017, there were minor fluctuations, but Trump’s favorability among white evangelicals never dipped below 65 percent during this time.
Trump’s support among white evangelicals at this stage of his presidency is strikingly solid. While there are modest differences by gender, Trump’s favorability among white evangelical women is still a robust 71 percent, compared to 81 percent among white evangelical […]
24% of Americans say children are not treated with dignity, respect- 22% of Americans say children do not have opportunity to learn and grow
- U.S. ranks lower than many other wealthy economies in both areas
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The student-led reaction to recent school shootings in the U.S. has sparked a national discussion about how best to protect America’s children from violence. However, about one in four Americans feel that the country can make progress in the way children are treated in their everyday lives.
Before the recent school shootings in Parkland, Florida, 73% of U.S. adults said children in the country are treated with respect and dignity, while 24% disagreed. The “yes” percentage places the U.S. in the bottom one-third of wealthy OECD economies on this measure.
% Yes
% Yes
Finland
93
Austria
86
United States
73
Switzerland
92
Australia
84
Portugal
73
Canada
92
France
84
Germany
71
Ireland
92
Denmark
83
Hungary
70
Norway
90
United Kingdom
83
Japan
64
Netherlands
89
Israel
83
Latvia
62
Belgium
89
Poland
82
Mexico
49
Spain
89
Iceland
81
Greece
48
Slovakia
89
Slovenia
81
South Korea
46
Luxembourg
88
Estonia
77
Chile
45
Sweden
87
Italy
76
Turkey
44
Czech Republic
87
New Zealand
74
Percentage “yes” among OECD member countries
Gallup World Poll
A slightly higher proportion of Americans — 77% — say most children in the U.S. have the opportunity to learn and grow every day, while 22% disagree. […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
