Senator Edward Kennedy, the long-serving liberal icon from Massachusetts who was hospitalized this weekend after suffering a seizure, has been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, his doctors revealed today. Read More
FBI agents raised concerns about U.S. interrogators mistreating terror detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay during the three years after Sept. 11 but in some cases were slow to report it, an upcoming Justice Department report concludes. Read More
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Five superdelegates chose Barack Obama Monday: Alaskan supers Cindy Spanyers and Blake Johnson, Kansas Democratic Chair Larry Gates endorses Obama, Washington State Democratic Party Chairman Dwight Pelz and West Virginia Sen. Byrd. Read More
Several lanes of Interstate Highway 80 were shut down for hours overnight after a truck hauling double-stuffed Oreos crashed into a median, spilling tons of the chocolate cookies across the highway, police said. Photo Read More
Four Philadelphia police officers were fired and four others demoted or suspended after a video showed them beating three suspects after a drug-related shooting, the city's police chief said on Monday.
Jane Novak, a 46-year-old stay-at-home mother of two in New Jersey who publishes the blog Armies of Liberation, has never been to Yemen. She speaks no Arabic, and freely admits that until a few years ago, she knew nothing about that strife-torn south Arabian country. And yet Novak has become so well known in Yemen that newspaper editors say they sell more copies if her photograph -- blond and smiling -- is on the cover. Read More
A British teenager is facing prosecution for using the word "cult" to describe the Church of Scientology. During a peaceful demonstration opposite the London headquarters of the controversial religion, London police officers confiscated a placard with the word "cult" on it from the youth, who is under 18, and a case file has been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service.
Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan and a one-time opponent of civil rights legislation, endorsed Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination on Monday. "I believe that Barack Obama is a shining young statesman, who possesses the personal temperament and courage necessary to extricate our country from this costly misadventure in Iraq, and to lead our nation at this challenging time in history," he said.
Sen. Barack Obama ripped into a Republican ad today that targets comments made by his wife, Michelle. The Illinois senator told Good Morning America that he expects hardball tactics from the Republicans if he becomes the Democratic presidential nominee. "But I also think these folks should lay off my wife," he said.
An alarming number of 21-year-olds are participating in a dangerous practice of consuming 21 alcoholic beverages to celebrate reaching legal drinking age, according to a new report by researchers at the University of Missouri. More than a third of men and a quarter of women surveyed at the university who drank alcohol the day they turned 21 reported consuming at least that many drinks of beer, wine and liquor. "We were floored," said Patricia Rutledge, lead author of the report.
"When Andersson killed himself on March 6, 2007, he became one of at least 16 Army recruiters to commit suicide nationwide since 2000. Five of those suicides occurred in Texas, including three at the Houston Recruiting Battalion, where Andersson worked after serving two tours of duty in Iraq."
The Supreme Court's recent lethal injection ruling was a shot in the arm for prisoners who have waived appeals, fired lawyers and written letters to governors begging for an execution date. These "volunteers" constitute 11% of executions nationwide and will continue to dominate the execution schedules long after this ruling. Eight of the last 16 executions in Florida have asked to die.
As scientific evidence accumulates on the destructive impact of carbon-dioxide emissions, a handful of lawyers are beginning to bring suits against the major contributors to climate change. Read More
A place to discuss the stories that aren't making news, ask questions, complain bitterly about this site and its members, or just screw around. The only rule: Be nice or be funny.
Paul Krugman: We're heading for a prolonged era of scarce, expensive oil, Americans will face increasingly strong incentives to start living like Europeans -- maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of our lives. Read More
