Miami Beach police: We don't have Donte' Stallworth's blood test results
by Jennifer Lebovich
Miami Beach police on Friday said they had not received the results of a blood test given to Cleveland Browns wide receiver Donte' Stallworth, who was driving his Bentley last Saturday when he struck and killed a pedestrian in Miami Beach.A source with knowledge of the investigation told The Miami Herald on Thursday that Stallworth's tests had returned and showed that the football player was driving drunk at the time of the crash. |
Vermont Senate panel approves gay marriage bill
by Dave Gram
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — A state Senate committee unanimously approved a gay marriage bill on Friday, moving Vermont one step closer to allowing same-sex couples to legally wed."It provides ... gay and lesbian couples the same rights that I have as a married heterosexual," said Sen. John Campbell, vice chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and chief sponsor of the bill. |
US deficit seen at record 1.845 trillion dlrs
by AFP
The US budget deficit will reach a record 1.845 trillion dollars in fiscal 2009 that ends in September, equivalent to 13.1 percent of economic output, the budget arm of Congress forecast Friday.The Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) latest estimate was far steeper than its prior forecast in January of a deficit of 1.2 trillion dollars. |
Blackwater sued in US court over alleged cover-up
by AFP
The widow of a 32-year-old Iraqi has filed suit in a federal court against private security firm Xe, formerly Blackwater, for allegedly trying to hide that her husband was killed by one of its security agents who was drunk.According to the suit filed in federal court in San Diego, California, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, "on Christmas eve 2006, a highly intoxicated and heavily armed Xe-Blackwater employee named Andrew Moonen, shot and killed a man named Raheem Khalaf Sa'adoon, for no reason." |
Suze Orman: Bush owes American people every penny of his fortune
by John Byrne
Suze Orman, the sharp-tongued CNBC pundit, sounded off in a major way in an article published Friday -- taking President George W. Bush to the woodshed.He's not the only one, though. In a detailed interview with WWD, Orman is said to have railed against a spectrum of financial demigods, among them former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and even the retirees who got hoodwinked by Bernie Madoff. |
The Chicago Boys Go to Iraq
by Jerome Doolittle
In the 1970s and 1980s the tiny country of Uruguay was a military dictatorship ruled by sadists and murderers. Dissenters were tortured for years in military jails. Those who survived were next sent to a nightmare of a prison called Libertad, or Liberty. |
Vatican insiders declare the Pope a 'disaster'
by Nick Squires
Pope Benedict's repeated gaffes and the Vatican's inability to manage his message in the internet era are threatening to undermine his papacy, Vatican insiders have said.The Holy See is struggling to contain international anger over the Pope's claim on his first official visit to Africa that Aids "cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems". |
Intelligence made it clear Saddam was not a threat, diplomat tells MPs
by David Hencke
A former diplomat at the centre of events in the run-up to the Iraq war revealed yesterday that the government has a "paper trail" that could reveal new information about the legality of the invasion.Carne Ross, who was a first secretary at the United Nations in New York for the Foreign Office until 2004, told MPs: "A lot of facts about the run-up to this war have yet to come to light which should come to light and which the public deserves to know." There were also assessments by the joint intelligence committee which had not been disclosed, Ross told the Commons public administration select committee. |
Climate change deniers have media outlets 'everywhere' now
by Rachel Oswald
Despite the success of public awareness efforts on the dangers of climate change by the likes of Al Gore and others, the global warming denial lobby is still going strong, as can be seen by recent polling numbers that show fewer Americans believe climate change is a serious threat. |
ACORN spokesman, Fox host get into shoutfest over 'lies'
by David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
Bill O'Reilly has not announced his retirement from Fox News.However, one could be easily led to think he's considering it, watching America's Newsroom anchor Megyn Kelly seemingly audition for the angry host's traditional role as the network's screamer. |
Ex-Bush Admin Official: Many at Gitmo Are Innocent
by Andrew O. Selsky
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Many detainees locked up at Guantanamo were innocent men swept up by U.S. forces unable to distinguish enemies from noncombatants, a former Bush administration official said Thursday. "There are still innocent people there," Lawrence B. Wilkerson, a Republican who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, told The Associated Press. "Some have been there six or seven years." |
Coping in a World of 'Peak Water'
by Nastassja Hoffet
UNITED NATIONS - As more than 20,000 people meet in Istanbul for a major week-long conference on future management of the world's water supplies, women's groups are working to ensure that policy decisions about this critical natural resource take their concerns into account. |
Now We Can See Why Open Government is the Only Way to Go
by Dave Lindorff
For years, advocates of open government, mostly on the left, but also on the right, have railed against the growing secrecy of the US government. But the focus, particularly of left critics, has been on the Intelligence budget, a $40+ billion "black box" that is completely protected from public and even congressional scrutiny, and on large swaths of the Pentagon budget, which are kept hidden allegedly for "national security" reasons. |
My Body, My Choice, Now What?
by Stacie Adams
In the 2005 book, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, feminist author Ariel Levy posits that female chauvinism entails a celebration of sexuality at the expense dignity. She bemoans women who empower themselves through casual sexual activity and cites soft-core porn offerings, such as the infamous Girls Gone Wild series, as evidence of this collective slide towards debauchery. |
Bernanke’s Hammer
by Cameron Salisbury
If you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.And so it is with Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, Henry Paulson, the entire East Coast financial establishment, innumerable Ivy League economists including Paul Krugman, and people who really should know better, like the media, Congress and the President. |
The Chicago Boys Go to Iraq
by Jerome Doolittle
In the 1970s and 1980s the tiny country of Uruguay was a military dictatorship ruled by sadists and murderers. Dissenters were tortured for years in military jails. Those who survived were next sent to a nightmare of a prison called Libertad, or Liberty. |
