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 world’s largest oil companies are presently jockeying for the rights to Iraq’s petroleum reserves, coming closer to a huge payday made possible by the United States’ toppling of Saddam Hussein. Already, ExxonMobil is benefiting from the regime...   read more

Mexico is expected to lose more than 700,000 jobs this year due to a slumping economy that may decline as much as 7.5%. Almost half of the country’s population lives in poverty, and yet, it is managing to reverse a trend of money that has traditio...   read more

The House health care reform plan will do little to curb medical costs or significantly reduce the number of uninsured Americans, writes Harvard Medical School professor Marcia Angell. Substantial changes need to be made to the plan before the Se...   read more

By the time it is completed atop a hill in Senegal, the statue “African Renaissance” will have cost $27 million and stand taller than either the Statue of Liberty or the Eiffel Tower. But the investment is well worth it, argues the county’s presi...   read more

It may not be long before someone in charge of a congressional committee in Washington asks the Treasury Department: “How do you define healthy?” So far in November three banks have collapsed that received federal bailout funds (from the Troubled ...   read more

Republican criticism of the Obama administration’s plan to relocate Guantanamo detainees to U.S. prisons is falling on deaf ears in communities hurting for jobs. From Montana to Illinois, cities are vying for the chance to use empty or underutiliz...   read more

Free press and human rights advocates have been astonished by the United Nations’ decision to allow Egypt, a country that routinely cracks down on human expression, to host a conference about the Internet. The Internet Governance Forum, consisting...   read more

Political cartoonists have long characterized Washington politicians as puppets of special interests, but the recent revelation about the influence of lobbyists for Genentech during the health care debate demonstrates the joke can be all too real....   read more

Federal officials in charge of preventing fraud in the billion-dollar Medicare program ignored dozens of warnings of criminal activity during the Bush administration, according to investigations by the Associated Press and U.S. Senator Charles Gra...   read more

The Convention on the Rights of the Child, established to promote and protect the well-being of children throughout the world, will be officially 20 years old on November 20. On that day nations everywhere will celebrate the landmark treaty—except...   read more

The legislation sounded innocuous enough: The Financial Modernization Act. But proponents, who included almost the entire U.S. Senate and the Clinton administration, were euphoric over the passage of the bill in November 1999 that revoked the Depr...   read more

Nature’s teddy bear, the koala, may soon become extinct, warns an environmental group in Australia. A recent study by the Australian Koala Foundation found that the koala population has fallen from 100,000 to 43,000 in just the last six years, and...   read more

It’s getting to the point where perhaps even the “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” might start making regular appearances someday on network TV. Back when comedian George Carlin first performed his famous bit about the Federal Communic...   read more

Bison by the thousands have been slaughtered by the federal government this decade to appease Montana ranchers, prompting a lawsuit from conservationists. About 3,500 bison have been killed in and around Yellowstone National Park since 2000 becaus...   read more

For those who just can’t get enough of everything related to the Grateful Dead, the University of California, Santa Cruz has the perfect job. The university’s library currently is seeking an archivist to organize and maintain two football fields w...   read more

While military officials deal with the aftermath of the Fort Hood killings, mental health experts warn that the U.S. Army can’t forget about the patients of the gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan. The Army psychiatrist cared for soldiers at Walter Re...   read more