President Donald Trump gleefully announced that, under his direction, U.S. military troops had swooped down on the Governor’s Mansion in Sacramento and kidnapped California Governor Gavin Newsom. “We’re charging Newscum with fraud.” When a reporter asked for specifics about the fraud charges, Trump pointed to Attorney General Pam Bondi. Bondi, clearly taken by surprise, said, “We’re looking into it and will let you know the details as soon as we’ve created them.”   read more

Based on votes submitted by 88,000 people worldwide, Brazilian mining company Vale has been named the world’s worst corporation for 2011. Sponsored by Berne Declaration and Greenpeace, since 2000, the Public Eye Award has highlighted corporate abu...   read more

North Carolina’s teachers union is suing the legislature after lawmakers met late at night in special session to approve legislation that will prevent union members from voluntarily choosing to have union dues automatically deducted from their pay...   read more

The Great Recession may have a silver lining for motorists: budget woes have forced at least two municipalities known as “speed traps” to disband their police forces, and one has voted to dis-incorporate entirely. Meanwhile, the town of Heath, Ohi...   read more

Nancy Jo Powell, President Obama’s choice to be the next U.S. ambassador to India, has been a career member of the Foreign Service for 34 years and holds its highest rank, Career Ambassador. She has already served as ambassador to two other South ...   read more

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is creating a spy system that will allow it to monitor social media websites, including Facebook and Twitter.   FBI analysts are hoping to pick up tips about future terrorist threats by examining “public...   read more

At the urging of First Lady Michelle Obama, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has adopted the first substantial changes to school meals in 15 years.   The new standards, set out in a 280-page document, call for adding more vegetables and...   read more

Since 1970 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has lost 517 Moon rocks, meteorite samples and other “astromaterials.”  Some were loaned to researchers but never returned, while others were given as gifts to dignitaries, and st...   read more

Just weeks before his administration was due to submit a federal budget for Fiscal Year 2013, President Barack Obama on January 17 named Jeffrey Zients Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which is the primary budget offic...   read more

The U.S. Ambassador to Botswana, a lightly-populated nation in Southern Africa which is the world’s leading producer of diamonds and suffers the world’s second highest HIV/AIDS infection rate, is a relatively young foreign policy expert who has sp...   read more

The federal government is responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars being spent each year by the largest American corporations. But it’s not tax dollars they’re spending. Rather, this sum represents the amount big business is allocating on l...   read more

 The arrests of more than two dozen journalists during the “Occupy” protests of 2011 are among the reasons why the United States saw its free-press ranking drop significantly in the latest report from Reporters Without Borders.   In the group’s ...   read more

A feed additive given to pigs is considered so bad that officials in China—producer of harmful toys, building materials and other suspects exports—has banned it. But ractopamine hydrochloride, a drug used to keep pigs lean and boost their growth, ...   read more

Florida State Senator John Thrasher believes professors from public universities and colleges should not be able to serve in the legislature, citing a potential conflict of interest whenever lawmakers take up bills impacting these institutions. So...   read more

A three-judge appellate court panel in Washington, DC, has revived a lawsuit brought by families against two district police officers accused of using excessive force against children.   While observing the Caribbean Carnival Parade on Georgia A...   read more

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) has accused the Obama administration of deliberately misleading the public about how much oil gushed from the ruptured BP well in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.   Using the Freedom of Informa...   read more

Democrats in Congress were threatened last week by one of their former colleagues, ex-senator Christopher Dodd, who warned lawmakers they had better support controversial anti-piracy legislation or else risk losing Hollywood’s bounty of campaign c...   read more