Wallace Public Library

Abortion-rights backers want quick action from the president-elect, although they may not press for sweeping changes. Obama has said he is looking to find common ground on reproductive health issues.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

People born and raised in Suffolk County, N.Y., complain about dozens of people living in single-family homes; immigrants complain that they are victimized by locals. An Ecuadorean day laborer was murdered last year, allegedly by teenagers who said they regularly looked for immigrants to bash.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Recovery will accelerate next year due to "substantial improvements" in financial markets and fast-growing Asian countries, but is likely to remain fragile, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said. The OECD more than doubled its estimate for 2010 growth in its 30 member countries to 1.9 percent, from the 0.7 percent forecast in June.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

New jobless claims were unchanged last week at 505,000, matching analysts' expectations, but the four-week moving average of claims dropped to its lowest in almost a year, the Labor Department said Thursday.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Afghan President Hamid Karzai was inaugurated in Kabul on Thursday for a new term amid tight security and ceremonial flourishes. But his second term is already beset by severe doubts that he will be any more effective at tackling the country's rampant corruption.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

The Republican Governors Association is holding its annual meeting this week in Austin, Texas. Thanks to recent election victories in Virginia and New Jersey, Republicans are feeling good again. They plan to use those wins to help the party rebound in 2010.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

California faces a budget deficit of nearly $21 billion. That's according to a report released Wednesday by a non-partisan budget analyst. The study was released less than four months after legislators patched together a budgetary compromise.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

A firestorm erupted this week after an expert panel released recommendations that yearly mammograms aren't necessary for all women under age 50. The criticism isn't surprising, given the emotional valence of breast cancer. But not everyone thinks the panel is wrong.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

The uproar over a new mammogram recommendation came at an inconvenient time politically speaking. The Senate is about to take up a health care bill that Democrats don't yet have the votes to pass. Republicans say the study reinforced their nightmare scenario about health care rationing.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Attorney General Eric Holder spent hours testifying on Capitol Hill Wednesday. He defended his decision to send the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and four other men to New York to face a criminal trial. Senators spent much of the hearing telling Holder why they think he's wrong.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Documents obtained by NPR show that psychiatrists at Walter Reed Army Medical Center put their concerns about the accused Fort Hood shooter in writing. Two years ago, a top official there wrote an evaluation that harshly criticized Maj. Nidal Hasan's incompetence and unprofessional behavior.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Afghan President Hamid Karzai was sworn in for another five-year term Thursday. Watching with a critical eye were foreign dignitaries who are pressing Karzai to make his second term in office far better than his first. Karzai promised to prosecute corrupt officials.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

A group of Cuban Americans has had unusual success getting House members to change their positions and vote against closer ties with Cuba. New analysis shows some political contributions from the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Pac reached lawmakers within days of them switching their vote.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has unveiled the Democrat's bill overhauling health care. It costs less than the health care bill the House passed earlier this month, and its expansion of insurance coverage is somewhat more limited.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

The 60th annual National Book Awards were handed out Wednesday night in New York. Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin, a novel about daring, luck and mortality in 1970s New York, won the fiction prize. T.J. Stiles' biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt, The First Tycoon, was the nonfiction winner and Keith Waldrop's Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy won for poetry.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Five residents and a business have won a lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers over flood damages from Hurricane Katrina. A federal judge in New Orleans ruled Wednesday that the Army Corps' shoddy oversight of a navigation channel contributed to massive flooding of New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward and neighboring St. Bernard Parish. The case has been watched closely by other Katrina victims seeking compensation from the government.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

The professed Sept. 11 mastermind's North Carolina college years are recalled by a chemistry professor and a former classmate. The CIA claims those college years helped propel Mohammed on a path to terrorism. Though described as jovial, he also maintained a self-imposed isolation.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world. But what is widely being called the government's "shoot-to-kill" policy is being blamed for the recent murders of innocent bystanders, including the shooting death of a 3-year-old boy.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

You may not ever take a flight to a place like Hot Springs, Ark. — but you're paying part of the cost for people who do. Under a decades-old government program, federal money is used to subsidize commercial air service for small communities that can't support it on their own.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

The 70-29 vote limited debate over the qualifications of U.S. District Judge David Hamilton of Indiana, and assured his elevation to the Chicago-based appeals court. Sixty votes were needed to end the filibuster, but confirmation requires only a simple majority of the 100-member Senate.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us