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

The effects of the 2008 bad-mortgage crisis continue to ripple their way through the banking industry, with failures this year in two states alone costing taxpayers $2.5 billion.   In Georgia, 16 banks have been rescued by the Federal Deposit ...   read more

Described as a potential nightmare for pharmaceutical companies, a Texas-based laboratory has been found by the Food and Drug Administration to have falsified data for clinical trials over a period of five years.   The findings by the FDA coul...   read more

The U.S. Air Force is planning to hire a private company to provide wire-tapping capabilities to Iraq.   Iraqi officials will be able to eavesdrop on cellular calls and messages “to assist in combating criminal organizations and insurgencies,”...   read more

Asia has been very good to the American cheese industry, driving up U.S. exports of the product faster than they can gobble up fast food.   The price of wholesale cheddar cheese is up 53% this year because the U.S. shipped more than twice as m...   read more

Well, so much for that “impressive” bit of news.   Last month the National Security Agency (NSA) made a big to-do about declassifying a 200-year-old book on cryptology, to demonstrate that the Obama administration was committed to making gover...   read more

In the 10 years since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, thousands of survivors have settled their lawsuits against the airlines and other parties, and collected awards totaling billions of dollars. But one family has held out so it can ...   read more

Statistically-speaking, a black man is better off behind bars if he wants to live longer, according to a new study out of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.   After examining the health records of African-Americans inside and out...   read more

Federal Judge Richard Bennett made it clear recently just how out-of-bounds the Obama administration was in going after former National Security Agency (NSA) official Thomas Drake for allegedly leaking classified information to the media.   Du...   read more

The authoritarian regime of Belarus, Europe’s last remaining dictatorship, is determined to eradicate all forms of public protest, even those involving people doing nothing but standing around together.   A new law proposed this week would ban...   read more

This month’s most popular stories dealt with the mysterious suspension of a scientist, the Obama administration’s refusal to punish torturers and questions about Michele Bachmann’s husband. There were also two items from our Unusual News Categor...   read more

Five years ago wildlife biologist Charles Monnett made news with his observation of drowned polar bears in the Arctic sea, which helped fuel the debate over global warming. Today, Monnett has made headlines again, this time for being suspended f...   read more

After coming so close last year to becoming the first team from Africa to play in the Little League World Series, players from Uganda had their hopes dashed again this year. But the obstacle had nothing to do with baseball.   Some of the playe...   read more

Making change for simple transactions has become so difficult for merchants in Zimbabwe that the government has reached out to the United States for help. With insufficient currency available, Zimbabwe has agreed to import coins from the Federal...   read more

A Stanford University professor with no prior diplomatic experience but a great deal of experience studying Russia, Michael Anthony McFaul was nominated to be U.S. ambassador to Russia by President Barack Obama in May 2011. However, the Senate h...   read more

A career diplomat with more than 35 years’ experience, Vassilis Kaskarelis has served as Greece’s ambassador to the United States since June 2009.   Born in Athens on November 26, 1948, Kaskarelis holds an economics and political science degre...   read more

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), overseer of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is suing UBS to recover nearly a billion dollars in losses stemming from the mortgage crisis, claiming the Swiss bank committed fraud.   FHFA says Fannie and Fr...   read more