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

It took nearly eight hours and a record-setting 53 votes, but the House of Representatives finally approved the first appropriations bill for the FY 2010 budget on Thursday. Although the $64.4 billion bill was not without importance—providing fund...   read more

After years of negotiations with local officials, an off-the-grid collective in Austin, TX, has won approval for the city’s first officially-sanctioned “humanure” toilet—a modern day outhouse that uses no running water. Built by the Rhizome Collec...   read more

The small town of Libby, Montana, home to one of the worst cases of asbestos contamination in the country, has prompted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to declare its first-ever public health emergency. Coming under the Comprehensive Envi...   read more

Although its ruling rejected any constitutional right to DNA testing by prisoners, a U.S. Supreme Court decision on Thursday is not expected to drastically affect efforts by inmates across the country to challenge their convictions through genetic...   read more

Despite President Barack Obama’s pledge to improve the system of processing benefits claims for veterans, and hiring thousands more adjusters, the Department of Veterans Affairs has almost a million unprocessed requests piling up on its desks. A c...   read more

This is one reunion Tom Hayden and the remaining members of the Chicago Seven probably won’t be attending. Next Friday the Fraternal Order of Police is planning a “Chicago Riot Cops Reunion” to bring together and celebrate the men in blue who part...   read more

Twenty-five years after one of the world’s worst chemical accidents, the city of Bhopal is still struggling to get the American corporate owners of the plant that spilled deadly fumes to clean up the mess left behind. A delegation from India, incl...   read more

When the new commander of the war in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, testified before Congress last week, he gave lawmakers the impression that he was not a supporter of the torture methods employed by the military against insurgents in ...   read more

Who would have thought with the arrival of President Barack Obama and his pledge to make government more open and honest, that the most precarious job in Washington would become that of inspectors general (IG)? Since the Obama administration took ...   read more

Medtronic, already under investigation by the Justice Department and Congress for allegedly using illegal marketing practices to promote their Infuse Bone Graft, has admitted to making $788,280 in direct payments and about $64,000 in expense payme...   read more

With things deadlocked 31-31 between Democrats and Republicans in the New York state Senate, newly imposed Senate President Pedro Espada, Jr. (D) announced on Tuesday that he should be given two votes to end the legislative gridlock. Even though E...   read more

With the nation’s prisons bulging with convicts, many of whom wind up back behind bars after being released, isn’t it time to try a different approach to operating correctional facilities, argues writer Pamela Gerloff. The current system just isn’...   read more

It turns out that the United States wasn’t the only government conducting interrogations of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. With the permission of the Bush administration, representatives of the People’s Republic of China were allowed in 2002 t...   read more

The health insurance industry managed to sink to a new low this week when a congressional committee revealed that it is common practice for insurers to pay their employees incentives for canceling the policies of sick patients. Documents obtained ...   read more

After the embarrassing episode last fall when executives of the “Big Three” automakers got blasted for flying private jets to meet with Congress, General Motors tried to use an obscure federal program to block the public from tracking the use of i...   read more

President Barack Obama and many members of Congress oppose the release of photos depicting abuse of detainees at U.S.-run facilities on the grounds that the images would spark a violent backlash by terrorists against American soldiers. “Every phot...   read more