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

The ongoing fight between the United States and Europe over subsidies to the world’s two largest commercial aircraft manufacturers is soaring, now that European officials scored one back with an international trade body.   The World Trade Orga...   read more

Who says you can’t raise taxes during bad economic times, writes physician and consultant Paul Abrams. Conservatives and media pundits have yammered incessantly lately over President Barack Obama’s intention to allow tax breaks for the wealthiest ...   read more

Environmentalists and historians have accused coal companies of pressuring the National Park Service into reversing its decision to list as a historic place the Blair Mountain Battlefield, where unions fought the biggest battle in American labor...   read more

The United States has stepped up its unmanned aerial assaults in Pakistan this month, launching more missile attacks in September than during any other month since the use of drone aircraft began in 2004.   The Associated Press estimates there...   read more

As part of their delaying tactics, BP and the other companies involved in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are claiming that fishermen, restaurant and hotel owners and others harmed by the disaster should not be allowed to sue for damages until they...   read more

America’s expanding waste line is really hitting the wallet, according to researchers Ross Hammond and Ruth Levine. In their recent paper published by Dove Press, the Brookings Institution scholars calculated that obesity is now costing the coun...   read more

Republicans in Congress have accused Amtrak’s board of directors of illegally firing the agency’s longtime inspector general, who uncovered questionable financial decisions made by the passenger railroad service. According to a report issued by ...   read more

Investigators for the Department of Defense have, for the past year, been sitting on a controversial report about the drugging of detainees at Guantánamo and other facilities. The report by the Pentagon’s inspector general was completed in Septemb...   read more

Selling $60 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia is a win-win deal, according to the Obama administration. The largest weapons deal ever by the U.S. would create more than 70,000 jobs for the stumbling U.S. economy, and it would strengthen ties with ...   read more

John Brooks Rice of New Orleans received $18,000 from the federal government to monitor media coverage of the Obama administration’s handling of the Gulf oil crisis for two months. A spokesman for the Coast Guard has said that it expects BP to r...   read more

No state in the nation owes more to immigrants than California, where foreign-born workers play a vital role in the economy. An extensive analysis of census data and other information by the Orange County Register found that one-third of Califor...   read more

Business is booming for the military in these lean economic times. The four major branches of the armed services (Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines) are “far exceeding their recruiting goals,” according to the Dallas Morning News, which reports ...   read more

Black students in middle school stand a much greater chance of being suspended than any other group, especially in parts of Florida and Wisconsin, according to university researchers. Using data from the U.S. Department of Education, researchers...   read more

General Motors, which still is controlled by the federal government since the auto industry bailout, plans to pay its new chief executive officer, Dan Akerson, about $9 million, between salary ($1.7 million) and stock options ($7.3 million).   ...   read more

When income data gathered by the U.S. Census Bureau is released for 2009, it’s likely to show the poverty rate jumped to 15% from 13.2% the year before—the single highest increase since the government began recording such information in 1959.  ...   read more

Homeowners looking to sell their property would be wise to make sure they’re not on the hook for paying the original developer of the home thousands of dollars once the sale goes through. Developers are increasingly adding “resale fee” covenants...   read more