Top Stories
Why Did Lockerbie Bomber Have $2.9 Million In a Swiss Bank
If Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber freed because he’s dying of cancer, was merely a low-level airline employee, then how did he come into possession of £1.8 million ($2.9 million) in a Swiss bank account? The revelation that... read more
Obama’s First Year: Promises Kept and Broken
With his first year coming to a close, President Barack Obama finds himself with an impressive score of 75-9…when it comes to promises kept vs. promises broken. The scorecard has been compiled by PolitiFact, a project of the St. Petersburg Times t... read more
ACLU Honors Michigan as a Model for Safely Reducing Prison Populations
If state governments are interested in revising their prison systems, not just to save money but also to return convicts to society and keep them there, then Michigan should be a model to follow, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (AC... read more
More Troops Needed to Stop Taliban Entering Afghanistan from Pakistan
Imagine the Taliban arrived in Connecticut, ready to attack the surrounding Northeast, and the government sent only a few hundred troops to patrol the state’s borders to keep the enemy at bay. That is comparable to what a small detachment of U.S. ... read more
Banks Squeezing Money from Unemployed
Banks are making profits off those collecting unemployment benefits. Here’s how: instead of printing unemployment checks, states are increasingly contracting with big banks (Citibank, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America) to issue jobl... read more
IRS Tells Citigroup to Keep $38 Billion in Tax Breaks
To help get Citigroup out from under government control, the IRS has decided the bank can keep $38 billion in tax breaks—an amount that is likely to turn the government’s bailout investment into a financial loss. When Washington made the decision ... read more
Congress Funds Defense Programs Obama Doesn’t Want
Dr. Frankenstein would be proud.
When it comes to bringing the dead back to life, Congress is dogged in reviving defense programs that the Pentagon wants to kill. The 2010 defense budget, like others before it, was submitted to lawmakers witho... read more
Human Rights Situation in Arab World Getting Worse
Efforts to improve the human rights situation in Arab countries have amounted to little more than broken promises since Sept. 11, according to the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies. Arab and Western governments pledged beginning in 2004 to ... read more
Monsanto Muscles Out Competition in Seed Business
With a near monopoly over the biotech gene market covering soybeans and corn, Monsanto has been able to dictate the terms of business for rivals who use the agribusiness’s genetically modified seeds. After obtaining confidential contracts, the Ass... read more
House Financial Reform Bill: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
House Democrats narrowly passed a Wall Street reform plan on Friday, sending to the Senate a mixed bag of changes that was both praised and criticized by consumer advocates. Detractors of the financial industry were happy with the idea of creating... read more
U.S. Prison Population Larger Than That of 12 States
Even though growth in the U.S. prison population has been declining this decade, the total number of people behind bars still is greater than the number of Americans living in almost one quarter of the states. From 2007 to 2008 the prison populati... read more
Nurses Unite to Increase Voice in Healthcare Debate
Nurses from one end of the United States to another have formed the largest nurses union to date to give them a greater voice in the health care debate and expand their ranks. The new National Nurses United will represent about 150,000 nurses foll... read more
Rejected Meat Ends Up in School Lunch Programs
American children stand a better chance of getting a safe meal at Jack in the Box than they do from their school lunch program. An investigation by USA Today found the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which provides meat and poultry to schoo... read more
Obama Administration Unveils Open Government Initiative
To demonstrate President Barack Obama’s commitment to making the U.S. government more transparent and accessible to Americans, the White House has issued an Open Government directive which spells out how various federal agencies will make certain ... read more
Warning that Saddam Hussein Could Launch WMD in 45 Minutes Came from Cab Driver
Taxi drivers can be a source of valuable information, from how to get to an important meeting on time to where to stay when in town. But relying on them for military intelligence that helped start the decade’s most controversial war?
According... read more
IRS Auctions Off 7,100 Acres of Sioux Land in South Dakota
When it comes to collecting back taxes, nothing is too sacred for the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS last week auctioned off more than 7,000 acres of land in Central South Dakota belonging to the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, which owed $3.1 million ... read more