Trump ordered that the term Homo sapiens be changed to Hetero sapiens. In history books and on websites, the airplane from which the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima will no longer be identified as the Enola Gay, but rather the Enola Straight. Trump also ordered billionaire Mark Cuban, who supported Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, to change his name to Mark American. If he does not do so, he will be charged with terrorism.   read more

If the United States stays on its present course of military spending increases, the Department of Defense’s annual budget would reach $1 trillion—that’s “t” for trillion—by 2030.   Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said the Pentagon’s ‘cultu...   read more

As part of its economic stimulus plan, the Obama administration awarded federal contracts to known polluters and exempted them from environmental laws, says The Center for Public Integrity.   The watchdog organization uncovered nearly 180,000 ...   read more

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has downsized the amount of Alaska wilderness that should be considered critical habitat for polar bears, after complaints were raised by the oil industry over the agency’s original proposal.   In Octob...   read more

The Obama administration is in the final stages of approving new rules requiring hospitals that accept Medicare and Medicaid to grant visitation rights to same-sex partners. The regulations, developed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Servi...   read more

No, not that Harry Potter. This Harry Potter, of Birmingham, England, served in the British Army and was stationed in Israel, where he was killed, at the age of 18, on July 22, 1939, during an ambush by anti-colonial Arab rebels. Despite not bei...   read more

Adopted with the blessing of conservatives like President Ronald Reagan and Democrats in Congress, the Tax Reform Act of 1986 equalized taxes on income from investments and income from wages. It ended the practice of lower taxes on income from w...   read more

To hear the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) tell it, the reason why it is conducting far fewer audits these days is because of an emphasis on quality over quantity. Whatever the rationale, DCAA’s productivity has really dropped in the last ...   read more

A presidential panel’s bipartisan recommendations for reducing the budget deficit could save the government a couple hundred billion dollars—but at the risk of losing millions of jobs.   The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Ref...   read more

Terry Vermillion, the Food and Drug Administration’s top criminal investigator, has abruptly retired after allegations surfaced that he abused his position of power. Vermillion, a former Secret Service agent who established the FDA’s Office of C...   read more

The European Union’s bailout of bankrupt Ireland is pricey, coming in at 85 billion euros, or about $111 billion. But the rescue of an entire European country is still less than just one segment of the American bailout from 2008.   In addition...   read more

Large manufacturing companies are using the weak economy as leverage to force organized labor into accepting different levels of wages for workers that would last long into the future, even after a recovery kicks in.   Use of two-tier labor sy...   read more

Having a Democrat in the White House has not been the salvation environmentalists had expected for protecting endangered species. After watching the Bush administration drag its feet in using the Endangered Species Act, environmental groups thou...   read more

Johnson & Johnson continues to have troubles with its pharmaceutical plant in Puerto Rico, where subsidiary McNeil Consumer Healthcare had to recall millions of bottles of Tylenol, Motrin and other products in January. The latest bad news for Jo...   read more

Unable to earn as much as they once did on overdraft fees because of new federal rules, banks are offering fewer free-checking accounts and raising fees on noninterest-bearing accounts to make up for lost revenues.   A survey by Bankrate.com f...   read more

Other than the fact that both were lobbyists, in choosing Thomas E. Donilon to take over as national security adviser, President Barack Obama could not have selected someone more different in terms of background from his predecessor, James L. Jo...   read more

Suspicion has surfaced over the timing of a multi-billion-dollar arms sale to Israel following the country’s tacit agreement to a temporary halt of new settlements in the West Bank.   A week after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton worked out ...   read more