The Obama administration announced today that it would grant waivers to ten states to free them of some of the requirements of No Child Left Behind. In return, Obama said, the states "have agreed to raise standards, improve accountability, and undertake essential reforms to improve teacher effectiveness."

Obama also acknowledged that his administration has “determined we need a different approach" than that set forward in the Bush-era NCLB legislation.

What might this different approach be? So far, it's looking like one upshot of the rhetoric around increased accountability will be even more standarized testing. Now that 48 states, two territories and the District of Columbia have joined the Common Core State Standards Initiative, national examinations may be administered up to eight times a year beginning in 2014. 

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday approved a ban on all sewage discharges from large ships along California’s 1,624-mile coast, making it the largest coastal no-discharge zone in the nation. The measure would stop the dumping of over 22 million gallons of waste, bilge water, and other sewage each year into the state’s marine waters, according to the EPA. 

The ban, which was introduced in August, goes into effect in March and will stop large passenger and oceangoing vessels weighing over 300 gross tons from dumping even treated sewage, which can contain pathogens and contaminants harmful to human and marine life.

Remember the new privacy policy from Google you've been neglecting to read? Well, according to one privacy watchdog group, it could be putting “literally hundreds of millions of Internet users at grave risk.” The ominous statement comes from The Electronic Privacy Information Center, which filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Wednesday in an attempt to stop the new privacy policy before it goes into effect March 1.

EPIC alleges that Google is in violation of an October consent order with the FTC. The order was the result of EPIC's complaint over failed social networking site, Google Buzz.  EPIC accused Google of disclosing personal information acquired from Gmail accounts without user consent as a way to kickstart the social media website.  The FTC determined the practices were “unfair and deceptive” and issued an order prohibiting Google from “misrepresenting the extent to which it maintains and protects the privacy and confidentiality of personal information” and failing to comply with other privacy safety measures. 

Rick Santorum’s sweep of the races in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri on Tuesday didn’t just revive his campaign for the GOP nomination. It also made war with Iran in the near future more likely than it was two days ago.  

The GOP has been in an unfamiliar place for most of the early election season. With the economy improving, their traditional advantage in the realms of defense and foreign affairs will be critical to their prospects in the fall election. But President Obama’s successes in the “war on terror” and in Libya have left them searching for a foreign-policy foothold.

Enter the Iran factor. It’s been an on-again, off-again issue for a long time. As the ex-GOP Congressional staffer Mike Lofgren writes in this trenchant essay, Iran has been perpetually been “two or three years away from obtaining a nuclear weapon” for the last three decades. Each time the issue flares again, war hawks claim that Iran is right on the verge of having nuclear weapons, and that it poses a danger so immense that we have no choice but to act.  

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared the controversial Proposition 8 unconstitutional Tuesday morning, marking a major victory in the fight for marriage equality.

The panel of three judges stated that California’s ban on same sex marriage “served no purpose, and had no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California.” 

The ruling upholds the decision of former San Francisco Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in August 2010, who found the proposition unconstitutional. Judge Walker ruled that Prop 8 violated due process and equal protection under the laws as defined by the 14^th amendment.  Despite his ruling, the ban has remained in place pending appeals. The American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the sole sponsor of the court case, said it will now urge the 9th Cicruit to lift the stay on same-sex marriages.

ProtectMarriage, the proponents of Proposition 8 in the Perry v. Brown case, vowed to appeal, clearing the way for a potential Supreme Court ruling as early as next year.  Prop. 8 backers could also ask a larger panel of the 9^th Circuit to rehear the case.

Theodore B. Olson and Theodore J. Boutros, lawyers for the foundation, said during a press conference following the decision that they expected the ruling to be upheld if it went to the Supreme Court because the case was in line with Supreme Court law and precedent.

A common, condescending position on hunger and malnutrition in the U.S. holds that poor families simply need to learn the value of cooking and eating healthfully. A new survey from anti-childhood hunger organization Share Our Strength flies in the face of some of these assumptions, as Daniel Meyer of The New York Times pointed out. The survey, “A Report on Low-Income Families’ Efforts to Plan, Shop for and Cook Healthy Meals,” concluded that eating healthy is a priority for most low-income families and 8 out of 10 families cook at home at least five times per week.

And yet, this story may still leave a bad taste in your mouth, considering that the survey was funded by ConAgra Foods--purveyor of Slim Jims and frozen dinners like Kid Cuisine. 

The survey was conducted by Share Our Strength’s Cooking Matters program, which teaches techniques for, and the benefits of, healthy family meals.  According to their website, Share Our Strength donated $500,000 in grants in 2010 to provide summer meals to children and helped 100,000 individuals at risk of hunger “get more from their food resources.” One of the organization’s largest sponsors is the ConAgra Foods Foundation, the philanthropic branch of the corporation.

Though officials at Arizona State University claim that they are blocking access to Change.org, the popular online petition site, because it was found to be a source of spam e-mails, students point to a notable coincidence: Change.org is also currently hosting a petition calling on the university to decrease the cost of tuition. 

After Arizona State University student Eric Haywood used Change.org to circulate a petition called, "Arizona State University: Reduce The Costs Of Education For Arizona State University Students," the university began blocking e-mails from the site. 

“Although the individual who sent the email may not consider himself a spammer, he acquired a significant number of ASU email addresses, which he used to send unsolicited, unwanted email, which is the definition of spam,” ASU spokeswoman Julie Newberg told the Downtown Devil.

Mitt Romney has a point. The firestorm over his comment that he isn’t concerned about “the very poor” is nonsense, and this is one of the rare cases where the full context does change everything. For two reasons. 

First, it’s hardly news that the poor are a low priority for the GOP. Politicians go where the votes are, and few votes are in play among the poor as defined by Romney—that is, the poorest five percent of the population. It may be politically dumb to say it out loud. But do we really want politicians to be more hedged and calculating in every comment?

More importantly, Romney went on to admit the need for a “safety net” and promised to fix it “if it needs repair."

Oh, really?

Romney’s callousness makes for a great sound bite. But what about his endorsement of a role for government? What exactly did he mean by repairing the safety net? And what is the proper scope of that net? Why not focus on those questions? 

Today in New York, a U.S. district court heard arguments to determine whether a landmark suit against agricultural giant Monsanto will be allowed to go forward.

Last March, the Public Patent Foundation filed claims challenging the validity of 23 of Monsanto's patents on behalf of the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGTA) and 82 other farming associations. Monsanto filed to dismiss the case, but a judge agreed to hear oral arguments from both sides. The claimants' suit said that they were bringing the action "to protect [farmers] from ever being accused of infringing patents on transgenic seed."

This refers to the Monsanto's longstanding practice of suing small and organic farmers who are accused of using its patented seed varieties. The agro-giant acknowledges that since 1997, it has filed suit against farmers 145 times and has settled another 700 alleged infringements out of court. 

Those targeted by lawsuits include farmers who purchased seeds from Monsanto and then violated their contracts by saving seeds for the next year’s planting—in a 2003 case, a farmer who purchased $24,000 of seeds from Monsanto was forced to pay $780,000 for such a violation, sending him into bankruptcy. But contamination of non-GMO seed also occurs naturally as a result of wind and animal activity, leaving organic farmers open to allegations that they are also infringing on Monsanto patents.

The Supreme Court’s decision in U.S. v. Jones last week was hailed by the ACLU as a “victory for privacy” and has largely been interpreted as an encouraging sign that the courts are willing to wade into the murky waters of technology and privacy.

But the case also highlighted the fact that the government is already actively engaged in using new technologies to spy on citizens, and the narrow ruling does not present a challenge to many of these activities.

In a unanimous decision published last Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that the government’s warrantless installation of a GPS tracking device on a suspect’s vehicle and the subsequent monitoring of its movements for 28 days were unconstitutional.

The narrow opinion of the majority of the court, led by Justice Scalia, focused largely on the physical intrusion that resulted from the installation of the device.

The case demonstrated that the government is more than willing to argue for unthinkable powers. In a powerful exchange during oral arguments, Justice Breyer summarized the government’s desired outcome: “If you win this case, then there is nothing to prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24 hours a day the public movement of every citizen of the United States. . . [Y]ou suddenly produce what sounds like '1984.'”

But while the ruling will limit the warrantless installation of GPS tracking technologies, many modern surveillance methods that rely on built-in GPS systems and other technologies are left untouched.