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

James F. Entwistle’s first chance to be a U.S. ambassador, after a career in the Foreign Service, has brought him to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a nation with a long history of exploitation, violence and repression and no shortage ...   read more

Doctors Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen will enjoy a legal defense paid for by the U.S. government if they stand trial for creating the CIA’s torture program used during the Bush administration.   Mitchell and Jessen not only were paid $1,000 a ...   read more

Fed up with their living and working conditions, prisoners across the state of Georgia last week staged a six-day mass peaceful protest that transcended racial boundaries.   Black, Latino and white inmates at least six prisons, including Hays ...   read more

Was it a dying man’s last (literal) words, or just a little repartee? That’s the question surrounding the final remarks of veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke before he passed away last week from heart problems.   Holbrooke, the Obama administr...   read more

Christopher J. McMullen, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, has been a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to his overseas postings, having served in U.S. embassies in South America, Asia and Africa, where his latest stint as ambassador...   read more

A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Daniel L. Shields III was nominated on November 15, 2010, to be the U.S. ambassador to Brunei.   Originally from Pennsylvania, Shields received his Bachelor of Science degree in international rela...   read more

Nine months after the worst coal mining disaster in decades, the U.S. House of Representatives has squandered an opportunity to strengthen federal regulation of mine operations.   The Robert C. Byrd Mine Safety Protection Act, named after the ...   read more

Special interests ranging from NASCAR track owners to rum distilleries in Puerto Rico will benefit from the $858 billion tax bill that passed in the U.S. Senate 81-19 and in the House of Representatives 277-148. About $55 billion in tax breaks a...   read more

Before this year’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, a similar blowout involving another BP operation, in Azerbaijan, took place in 2008 that the company tried to keep secret.   Classified cables from State Department officials...   read more

The relatives of a 7-year-old girl shot dead in May by Detroit police are suing the A&E Television Network, claiming its involvement in the raid on the family’s home played a part in the girl’s death.   Aiyana Stanley-Jones was shot once throu...   read more

Nearly 50 million Americans contract food poisoning each year and 3,000 die, according to new research published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That amounts to one-sixth of the entire U.S. population coming down sick annually...   read more

If the government wants to see your emails stored by an Internet service provider, they first will have to get a warrant. The government used to skip getting a warrant, based on a 1986 law, the Stored Communications Act, granting such power. But...   read more

Unlike other branches of the military, the U.S. Air Force has decided to block all of its personnel from accessing media websites that published classified documents exposed by WikiLeaks. The Air Force says it is preventing computer users from v...   read more

Little did Sandra Stosz realize when she began serving in the U.S. Coast Guard 30 years ago that her first voyage at sea—aboard the icebreaker Glacier in Antarctica—would foreshadow a career of breaking through barriers.   Next summer, Stosz w...   read more

Men not only dominate films for the general populace, but those for families and children as well. After studying G, PG and PG-13 rated movies over a 20-year period (1990-2009), researchers at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journ...   read more

A dozen individuals were extradited over the past week to the U.S. from Mexico to stand trial, be sentenced or serve sentences for narcotics-related crimes. The 12 extraditions included Oscar Jacobo Rivera Peralta , Ricardo Valdez Torres and Alf...   read more