Salon explains Romney’s latest overseas gaffe, where he explains how “culture makes all the difference” in regard to the flagging Palestinian economy -- despite the fact that “Both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have said the Palestinian economy can only grow if Israel lifts these restrictions.”---

Top of the Alty World

“Romney’s New Overseas Disaster,”—Salon

Pulitzer prize-winning investigative reporters Don Bartlett and James Steele discuss the decimation of the middle class in their book, as well as Romney’s legacy heading up the 2002 Olympics, leading an Olympic committee “where that entire operation raided the federal Treasury like no other Olympics in history."—Democracy Now!

Mother Jones magazine explores how the natural-gas industry forks over big bucks to sponsor industry-friendly research to university professors.—Mother Jones

A peer review of a study questioning the ability of same-sex parents has found the study severely lacking.—Q Salt Lake

Top of Alty Utah

KRCL discusses the specter of rape in the U.S. Armed Forces, and host Rape Recovery Center director Holly Mullen and congressional candidate and former West Point graduate and Army veteran Donna McAleer.—RadioActive

An LDS jail volunteer gets into trouble for advocating for leniency for a man later convicted of trading in child pornography.—Salt Lake City Weekly

The University of Utah and the Salt Lake City Department of Veteran Affairs are teaming up to develop new prosthetic technology to aid combat veterans.—KCPW

Utah plans to wait until the last minute to take its Obamacare medicine.—Salt Lake City Weekly

Rantosphere:

Utah Stories' Richard Markosian reflects on the loss of Utah’s green belt along the I-15 corridor.

“…Can’t ‘democracy’ somehow trump capitalism and still protect open space and the small-town quality of life? County councils in these unincorporated areas should be working with state land managers to answer this question. If not, sadly, ma-and-pa shops will continue be traded for Applebee's and Sizzler, and open space traded for asphalt.”—Utah Stories

The Long View

Truthout looks at the disturbing connection between fracking and earthquakes in Ohio, especially through the lax supervision of fracking injection-well Northstar 1.

“A Truthout investigation has revealed that Ohio regulators permitted Northstar 1 operators to raise its maximum injection pressure twice, once shortly before and once again after the well caused two initial earthquakes on March 17, 2011. The injection well had the highest pressure of any well in the state, but the well operator was not required to conduct seismic testing before drilling and operating the well.”—Truthout