Rumors are spreading that the U.S. Supreme Court will vote 5-4 to rule that a U.S. president cannot be prosecuted for anything he does while he is president. Some Democrats are suggesting that Joe Biden bring a gun to his first debate with Donald Trump. If he shoots Trump, he would be immune, but if Trump shoots Biden he would be prosecuted because he is not a sitting president.   read more

Scientists in Australia have created what they say is the world’s first index listing those species most in danger of becoming extinct.   The Species Ability to Forestall Extinction (SAFE) index was established in the hopes it will save some a...   read more

Affter 10 unsuccessful tries, U.S. Senator Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) is hoping this year will be the one to pass legislation that expands protection for whistleblowers. But one senator is secretly standing in his way.   The “secret hold” is a pr...   read more

“A king is a mouth that does not lie.” -Swazi saying   The next pro-democracy uprising in Africa may take place in Swaziland, the small landlocked nation surrounded by South Africa. There, King Mswati III has ruled for decades, amassing wealt...   read more

Having given up years ago on mining its own rare earth minerals, leaving it vulnerable to Chinese imports, the United States now finds itself in a potentially precarious position of not having the necessary materials for important military weapo...   read more

National Public Radio (NPR), accused of having a liberal bias and threatened with losing its federal funding, has received less money from Washington than Liberty University, the evangelical school founded by the late Reverend Jerry Falwell.   ...   read more

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wants oil and mining companies doing business overseas to reveal payments (read: bribes) they’re making to foreign governments. Not surprisingly, the industry is fighting the new federal requirement, ...   read more

Accused of bribery and providing kickbacks, Johnson & Johnson has agreed to pay the U.S. government $70 million to settle charges brought over its illegal activities in Europe and Iraq.   From 1998 to 2006, Johnson & Johnson, the world’s secon...   read more

A physicist and longtime member of the nation’s premier research laboratory, Peter B. Lyons was nominated to be the Department of Energy’s assistant secretary for nuclear energy in December 2010. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee i...   read more

The U.S. Coast Guard was not prepared and struggled with its crisis communications during last year’s massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to an internal review of the agency’s performance.   The report concluded that Coast Guard...   read more

Rather than being a quiet facilitator for the media, the Food and Drug Administration’s press office has been the subject of unflattering news because of its hiring and firing practices and its attempts to control FDA employees’ interactions wit...   read more

A member of the Senior Foreign Service, Ronald Lewis Schlicher serves as the Principal Deputy Assistant Coordinator of Counterterrorism in the State Department, a position he assumed on September 2, 2008.   The son of a boilermaker with the Te...   read more

Prior to becoming South Africa’s ambassador to the United States in July 2010, Ebrahim Rasool was in the thick of his country’s politics. The Muslim leader spent years fighting the apartheid government and eventually rose to become a regional go...   read more

Elkanah Odembo began serving as Kenya’s Ambassador to the United States in June 2010.   Odembo earned his Bachelor’s degree in Biology and Sociology at Bowdoin College in 1980 and was a member of the soccer team. He went on to add a Master’s d...   read more

The federal agency charged with ensuring the nation’s security against disasters admitted last year in a confidential report that the United States is ill-prepared to deal with a significant release of radiation.   Coming on the heels of Japan...   read more

Apparently even the best American soldiers need to be guarded in the dangerous realm of Afghanistan.   The Department of Defense’s Special Operations Command is seeking local security contractors to guard commando encampments, with arrangement...   read more

Farmingdale, New York, is being sued by Latino residents who claim the Long Island village has been trying to kick them out of the community.   The predominantly white town allegedly had developers tear down an apartment building largely occup...   read more