The House of Representatives began debate Saturday on legislation to transform the nation's health insurance system. "Now is the chance to fix our health care system and improve the lives of millions of Americans," said Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D.-N.Y.), chair of the Rules Committee, as she opened the daylong debate.
Town officials in Kent, Connecticut are balking at the wording of a proposed memorial to a local victim of the 9/11 attacks. Because the victim's father insists that the memorial call the attackers as "Muslim terrorists," officials have said that it's inappropriate to single out a religion in a tax-funded project. "We're a very welcoming, caring community," said First Selectwoman Ruth Epstein. "To disparage a particular religious group would not be appropriate.
Rep. William Delahunt (D.-Mass.), a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan, voted against a House resolution yesterday congratulating the New York Yankees on their World Series victory. "He couldn't bring himself to vote for it," said his spokesman Mark Forest.
On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear a case to decide whether the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment" precludes life sentences without parole for juvenile offenders who have not committed capital crimes.
Three doctors and a nurse have been arrested for allegedly selling newborns after telling their mothers they had died. Police uncovered the scheme after one of the women learnt her baby was alive and had been sold to a woman for 15,000 pesos ($1240), said Mexico City's deputy attorney general, Luis Genaro. The woman gave birth to a girl through caesarean section at the private Central West Hospital in a working-class district in October 2008, Mr Genaro said.
House Democratic leaders agreed Friday night to settle an impasse over abortion by letting the entire House vote on a proposed solution, a risky decision that could determine the fate of their trillion-dollar overhaul of the nation's health care system. Under the agreement, anti-abortion Democrats will be permitted to offer an amendment on the House floor to the health-care overhaul bill. The amendment would prohibit a new government-run insurance plan created by the health-care bill from offering to cover abortion services, congressional sources said. It would also block people who received federal subsidies for the purchase of health insurance from buying policies that offered coverage for abortions.
President Obama, extending condolences to Fort Hood, Texas, reminded Americans that people of all faiths and none serve in the military -- an oblique attempt to prevent a backlash against Muslims. "They are Americans of every race, faith and station,” he said. "They are Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and nonbelievers. They are descendants of immigrants, and immigrants themselves. They reflect the diversity that makes this America. But what they share is a patriotism like no other."
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Investigators probing the death of a Kentucky census worker found hanging from a tree with the word "fed" scrawled on his chest increasingly doubt he was killed because of his government job and are pursuing the possibility he committed suicide, two unnamed officials told AP. Bill Sparkman, 51, was found naked and hanged from a tree Sept. 12 in the Daniel Boone National Forest near Manchester, Ky.
Two hundred and thirty seven members of Congress are millionaires, according to a new report by the Center for Responsive Politics -- that's 44 percent of the body compared to about 1 percent of Americans overall. Read More
During Ed Schultz's show Friday night on MSNBC, former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo got up and left the show in the middle of a segment after Daily Kos publisher Markos Moulitsas referred to Tancredo's Vietnam draft deferment. "Tom, I'm a veteran. Okay?" Moulitas said in a discussion about government health care for veterans. "I did not get a deferment because I was too depressed to fight a war I supported in Vietnam." Read More
A 1965 Volkswagen van stolen 35 years ago in Spokane, Washington, was found by customs agents in a shipping container in the Los Angeles port last month.
Entrepreneur Jason Sadler, has earned $85,000 this year by wearing a T-shirt each day supplied by any company and using social media tools to promote the firm.
U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina has become the second prominent Republican candidate in California to apologize for her spotty record of voting in elections. "I'm a lifelong registered Republican but I haven't always voted," she said Thursday. "And I will provide no excuse for it." Read More
As an evangelical Christian living in Texas, climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe found that many conservatives had questions about climate change based on things they'd heard on talk radio. So Hayhoe and her husband, Andrew Farley, the pastor of a nondenominational church in Lubbock, Texas, decided to answer the questions in a new book, A Climate for Change: Global Warming Facts for Faith-based Decisions. When it comes to conservative Christians, I think the real question is who can we trust on this issue?" Farley said.
A firsthand account from a soldier present during the Fort Hood shootings, according to Kevin Drum at Mother Jones: "I was walking into the medical SRP building when he started firing (he never made it to the main SRP building ... the media accounts are understandably pretty off right now). He was calmly and methodically shooting everyone. Like every non-deployed military post, no one was armed. For the first time in my life I really wish I had a weapon. I don't know how to explain what it feels like to have someone shoot at you while you're unarmed. He missed me but didn't miss a lot of others."
