Credit: Tony Webster

What began as a way of trolling Prius drivers became a signature protest against America’s first black president — rolling coal. Drivers spend hundreds or thousands of dollars retrofitting their trucks so they can blanket cyclists, motorists, and pedestrians with thick, black clouds of exhaust.

“I run into a lot of people that really don’t like Obama at all,” one seller of coal-rolling equipment told Slate. “If he’s into the environment, if he’s into this or that, we’re not. I hear a lot of that.” In some instances, the practice has taken on an explicitly racial tone, as drivers publish videos of themselves rolling coal on Black Lives Matter protesters.

Why would anyone spend so much money to do something so hostile and self-defeating? New research may offer some insight.

After Barack Obama took office, white Americans were less likely to see climate change as a serious problem, according […]

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Passengers line up for a bullet train at a platform in Tokyo Station.
Credit: Yuya Shino/Reuters

It is a scene that plays out each weekday morning across Tokyo. Suit-clad office workers, gaggles of schoolchildren, and other travelers gamely wend their way through the city’s sprawling rail stations.

To the casual observer, it is chaos; commuters packed shoulder-to-shoulder amid the constant clatter of arriving and departing trains. But a closer look reveals something more beneath the surface: A station may be packed, yet commuters move smoothly along concourses and platforms. Platforms are a whirl of noisy activity, yet trains maintain remarkable on-time performance. Indeed, the staggering punctuality of the Japanese rail system occasionally becomes the focus of international headlines—as on May 11, when West Japan Railways issued a florid apology after one of its commuter trains left the station 25 seconds early.

Tokyo is home to the world’s busiest train stations, with the capital’s rail operators handling a combined 13 billion passenger trips annually. Ridership of that volume requires a deft blend of engineering, planning, […]

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Vacation is often a time to relax and refresh. Some experts think it could even make you more productive when you head back to work. But a whopping 49 percent of Americans won’t be taking one this summer, and while lack of money certainly plays a role, it’s not the only reason so many people are deciding to stay home.

Bankrate, which conducted a survey of 1,000 people aged 18 or older, found that, of the 49 percent who aren’t planning a vacation, 50 percent said they can’t afford it, 24 percent have other family obligations and 22 percent can’t take time off work.

Younger people “are most likely to say they can’t go on vacation because there’s too much on their plates,” the survey notes. “They’re also more inclined to say that their financial situation is keeping them from taking time off.”

The Story of Oklahoma, the state’s wildly outdated history textbook.
Credit: Melissa Smith/AFTVoices

I am a proud general at US Grant high school. We have the best administrators, the most dedicated teachers and amazing students. But we are struggling. Our building is only 10 years old, but it was built for 1,200 people. We currently have 2,000 students and 160 staff members.

Our classes are extremely overcrowded, with 30 and 40 students per class. Some of us don’t even have enough desks for our students to sit in. Coach Aaron McVay, one of our PE teachers, has had classes of more than 80 students. How much learning happens in a class of 80?

Some teachers don’t even have classrooms. They keep their belongings, textbooks and supplies on carts and push them from classroom to classroom, hour to hour. I have been a traveling teacher. Like some of our fellow union members who are adjunct college professors and hold “office hours” in their cars and nurses who travel from school to school, fingers crossed, hoping no […]

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Buddy Pilgrim at the first day of the 2016 Republican National Convention.
CreditTimothy A. Clary/Agence France-Presse

America’s Christian nationalists have a new plan for advancing their legislative goals in state capitols across the country. Its stated aim is to promote “religious freedom.” Not shy, they call it “Project Blitz.”

“Blitz” accurately describes the spirit of the enterprise, but the mission has little to do with what most Americans would call religious freedom. This is just the latest attempt by religious extremists to use the coercive powers of government to secure a privileged position in society for their version of Christianity.

The idea behind Project Blitz is to overwhelm state legislatures with bills based on centrally manufactured legislation. “It’s kind of like whack-a-mole for the other side; it’ll drive ‘em crazy that they’ll have to divide their resources out in opposing this,” David Barton, the Christian nationalist historian and one of four members of Project Blitz’s “steering team,” said in a conference call […]

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