Why won’t the Kansas City Star print the name of D.C.’s football team?
Public Editor Derek Donovan confirmed this week that the newspaper’s official policy is to not name the Redskins in its sports coverage because the nickname is “offensive to many people.” He called Redskins “an egregiously offensive term” and “racial slur.” Donovan said he finds it “inconceivable that the NFL still allows a patently offensive name and mascot to represent the league in 2012.” The name of Kansas City’s team? The Chiefs. Donovan says that name isn’t racist.
Is the U.S. giving Dorothy’s ruby slippers to Great Britain?
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History plans to give the slippers actress Judy Garland wore in “The Wizard of Oz” to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum — temporarily. The slippers and the gingham dress worn by Dorothy in the film will be part of an exhibit called Hollywood Costume. The slippers fly back over the rainbow on Nov. 21.
Was St. Louis sprayed with a secret chemical during the Cold War?
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Army sprayed a chemical agent around a mostly black neighborhood the government called “a densely populated slum district.” The spray was a biological weapon the United States was considering using against the Soviet Union. It was tested in St. Louis because the city resembled the targeted Russian cities. Officials are now investigating whether the spraying is linked to cancer cases.
