News Hound - Religion, Culture and Intelligent Design News

News Hound - Bones to Chew On - Religion, Culture and Intelligent Design News

Muslims apparently angered because a Christian man driving a tractor reportedly tried to pass a Muslim on a motorcycle have rampaged in one village in Pakistan, destroying Christians' homes and throwing acid on women and children as they fled, according to a new report from Barnabas Aid.
worldnetdaily.com - posted 7/4/09

Taliban militants attacked a U.S. coalition base in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday with an explosives-laden truck that blew up outside the gates, sparking a two-hour gunbattle and killing two American troops, officials said.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/4/09

The lawyer for a detained Iranian employee of the British embassy in Tehran says his client has been charged with "acting against national security."
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/4/09

North Korea fired seven ballistic missiles off its eastern coast Saturday, South Korea said, a violation of U.N. resolutions and an apparent message of defiance to the United States on its Independence Day.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/4/09

It's been almost a year since mobs of Hindu nationalists attacked Christians in Orissa, India. Now it may be happening again. Gospel for Asia reports that a group of believers in Orissa, India, was attacked on June 30 by 40-50 weapon-toting individuals after refusing to participate in a Hindu festival. Villagers demanded that the Christians make donations and cooperate in the festival.
mnonline.com - posted 7/4/09

Suresh Tendulkar, an economic adviser to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said he is urging the government to diversify its $264.6 billion foreign-exchange reserves and hold fewer dollars.
www.bloomberg.com - posted 7/4/09

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin made a surprise announcement Friday that she is resigning from office at the end of the month without explaining why she plans to step down, raising speculation that she would focus on a run for the White House in the 2012 race.
www.breitbart.com - posted 7/4/09

Opinion by Time: Why Sarah quit - Sarah Palin's decision to resign as Alaska governor raises more questions than it answers.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/4/09

A civil rights group advised by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor in the 1980s brought several discrimination lawsuits that sought to scrap the results of job tests because too few Hispanics scored well, according to new documents that are fueling GOP criticism of the judge.
online.wsj.com - posted 7/4/09

A civil rights group on whose board Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor served filed racial bias lawsuits over employment examinations that resemble a Connecticut case in which she ruled...
www.breitbart.com - posted 7/4/09

Opinion: New evidence on the foreclosure crisis; zero money down, not subprime loans, led to the mortgage meltdown. What is really behind the mushrooming rate of mortgage foreclosures since 2007? The evidence from a huge national database containing millions of individual loans strongly suggests that the single most important factor is whether the homeowner has negative equity in a house -- that is, the balance of the mortgage is greater than the value of the house. This means that most government policies being discussed to remedy woes in the housing market are misdirected.
online.wsj.com - posted 7/4/09

Last November, more than 60 percent of voters on the San Francisco Peninsula supported a $9.9 billion bond measure to help pay for a high-speed rail line between San Francisco and the Los Angeles area.As planning accelerates, some of the area's residents are raising concerns about the project. They fear it could take out trees, homes and businesses and split their communities with elevated trains flashing between San Francisco and San Jose.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/4/09

The Vatican newspaper Friday praised influential French Protestant John Calvin, a critic of the Roman Catholic Church, hailing him an "extraordinary" figure.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/4/09

The head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) said this week that he has “deep confidence” that the unity within the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination will not be lost amid concerns that a “church-dividing decision” might result from next month’s churchwide assembly.
www.christianpost.com - posted 7/4/09

A federal judge on Thursday rejected a request from lawyers seeking to suspend enforcement of a California same-sex marriage ban.
www.christianpost.com - posted 7/4/09

After years of discussion, the Baptist and Roman Catholic bodies in Italy signed an agreement on "interchurch" marriage this week.
www.christianpost.com - posted 7/4/09

Michael Jackson’s funeral will be held next Tuesday at the Los Angeles Staples Center is to be the biggest funeral in history, and the pop icon family will reportedly have a traditional Muslim burial for him, media reports said Thursday.
www.alarabiya.net - posted 7/4/09

The candidacy of Mario Anguiano, running for governor in Mexico, shows how blasé some voters have become about allegations of ties between their politicians and the drug underworld.
online.wsj.com - posted 7/3/09

President Dmitry Medvedev and US counterpart Barack Obama next week plan to sign a framework declaration on replacing a key Cold War-era missile treaty,
www.breitbart.com - posted 7/3/09

A Kremlin aide says Russia will allow the U.S. to ship weapons across its territory to Afghanistan.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/3/09

U.S. Marines moved into villages in Taliban strongholds in southern Afghanistan on Friday, meeting little resistance as they tried to win over local chiefs on the second day of the biggest military operation here since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/3/09

U.S. missiles struck a training facility operated by Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud and a militant communication center Friday, killing 17 people and wounding 27 others, intelligence officials said.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/3/09

In a tactical shift, troops in Afghanistan will stay and hold the ground they take rather than fight and withdraw.
www,nytimes.com - posted 7/3/09

A top Iranian cleric said Friday that some of the detained Iranian staffers of the British Embassy in Tehran will be put on trial, and he accused Britain of a role in instigating widespread protests that erupted over the country's disputed presidential election.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/3/09

An Israeli submarine sailed the Suez Canal to the Red Sea as part of a naval drill last month, defense sources said on Friday, describing the unusual maneuver as a show of strategic reach in the face of Iran.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/3/09

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Friday that Myanmar's junta chief rejected his initial request to meet jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a rocky start to what he has called "a very tough mission" to win her freedom.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/3/09

Nearly a year after the outbreak of anti-Christian violence in Orissa, India, the state government finally handed out its first conviction.
www.christianpost.com - posted 7/3/09

An interim government in Honduras warned ousted President Manuel Zelaya to stay away but indicated it could be more conciliatory in talks on Friday with the Organization of American States over the country's crisis.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/3/09

The Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic, killing all 228 people aboard, did not break up in the air but rather hit the water intact, investigators said.
www.nytimes.com - posted 7/3/09

General Motors heads into a critical bankruptcy hearing where it will seek permission to sell off most of its assets to a new company unburdened by old debts and supported by massive...
www.brreitbart.com - posted 7/3/09

First you paid to insure your car. Soon you may have to add health insurance premiums to that stack of monthly bills as well.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/3/09

Some Congressman have proposed law would require proof of future White House candidates
worldnetdaily.com - posted 7/3/09

Congress is once again considering a constitutional amendment to ban the desecration of the American flag. The proposal, introduced this spring in the Senate by David Vitter (R., La.), and cosponsored by 20 other Republicans and Democrat Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, probably won't get enough votes. Yet even if it doesn't, one longstanding misunderstanding about the First Amendment is likely to live on.
online.wsj.com - posted 7/3/09

President Barack Obama defended affirmative action programs by casting this week's Supreme Court decision in favor of white firefighters as a narrow case that nevertheless allows employers and educators to take race into account in hiring, promotions and admissions.
www.onenewsnow.com - posted 7/3/09

Opinion: So much for transparency - the EPA silences a climate skeptic, the professional penalty for offering a contrary view to elites like Al Gore is a smear campaign.
online.wsj.com - posted 7/3/09

Opinion: President Obama is calling the climate bill that the House passed last week an "extraordinary" achievement, and so it is. The 1,200-page wonder manages the supreme feat of being both hugely expensive while doing almost nothing to reduce carbon emissions.
online.wsj.com - posted 7/3/09

Simply doing what other presidents did, the Obama Administration posted on its White House blog a detailed list of who makes what at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. According to the WhiteHouse.gov, every administration since 1995 has been required to "deliver a report to Congress listing the title and salary of every White House Office employee."
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/3/09

The head of an ethics watchdog organization is skeptical of the claim by Congressman John Conyers (D-Michigan) that he didn't know his wife was taking political bribes.
www.onenewsnow.com - posted 7/3/09

Several states are facing the prospect of government shutdowns and program cuts as they enter the first weekend of the fiscal year and July Fourth holiday without a budget in place.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/3/09

A prayer has been rejected by the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives because it mentioned “Jesus.”
www.onenewsnow.com - posted 7/3/09

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder says a homosexual activist who is attacked following a Christian minister's sermon about homosexuality would be protected by a proposed new federal law, but a minister attacked by a homosexual wouldn't be.
worldnetdaily.com - posted 7/3/09

Planned Parenthood is facing criticism for alleged false advertising.
www.onenewsnow.com - posted 7/3/09

A conservative military watchdog group is pleased that a military board has recommended that an Army National Guard officer be discharged after admitting he was homosexual.
www.onenewsnow.com - posted 7/3/09

A Tucson hospital’s health-care package promises affluent Mexican women the chance to have their babies in posh surroundings with access to the latest medical equipment; but the marketing materials leave out a key draw in the arrangement: U.S. citizenship for the newborn.
www.svherald.com - posted 7/3/09

Emboldened by what they see as a kindred spirit in the White House, liberal Christians are stepping up their political activism in a big way.
online.wsj.com - posted 7/3/09

A new Zogby poll shows that a majority of Americans support intelligent design.
www.onenewsnow.com - posted 7/3/09

A pro-family advocate says home schoolers in Europe are becoming marginalized.
www.onenewsnow.com - posted 7/3/09

Federal judges have approve the distribution of pornography if it is down by a fellow judge. A high-ranking federal judge who made sexually explicit material available on his Web site was cleared with an admonishment Thursday by fellow judges.
www.chron.com - posted 7/3/09

President Barack Obama says he gets a prayer every morning on his BlackBerry. But is his life changed?
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/3/09

In a quiet act of defiance, gay and lesbian “Mennonites” dressed in bright pink gathered outside the church's official convention in Columbus on Thursday and criticized its leaders for trying to push them out.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/3/09

Episcopal leaders are preparing for homosexuality debates.
www.christianpost.com - posted 7/3/09

The Vatican is quietly conducting two sweeping investigations of American nuns, a development that has startled and dismayed nuns who fear they are the targets of a doctrinal inquisition.
www.nytimes.com - posted 7/3/09

Offering a new perspective on the reality of aging denominations, The United Methodist Church studied the death rates of Methodists and the general American population and found that the church is dying faster.
www.christianpost.com - posted 7/3/09

Britain warned it could face more than 100,000 daily cases of swine flu and the United States called a meeting of top officials as governments grappled on Friday with a resurgent swine flu pandemic.
www.breitbart.com - posted 7/3/09

Japan's near-silent hybrid cars have been called dangerous by the vision-impaired and some users, prompting a government review on whether to add a noise-making device,
www.breitbart.com - posted 7/3/09

Hong Kong's health department said on Friday it had detected a case of human swine influenza virus that was resistant to Tamiflu, the main antiviral flu drug.
www.reuters.com - posted 7/3/09

Dutch coffee shops that sell cannabis should should cater mainly for local people and not bulk-buying drugs tourists from abroad, a government commission proposed Thursday.
www.breitbart.com - posted 7/3/09

North Korea test-fired two short-range missiles Thursday, South Korea's Defense Ministry said, a move that aggravates already high tensions following Pyongyang's recent nuclear test and U.N. sanctions imposed as punishment.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/2/09

North Korea test-fired a third short-range missile on Thursday, a South Korean defense ministry spokesman said.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/2/09

Opinion by Alan Dershowitz: Many American supporters of Israel who voted for Barack Obama now suspect they may have been victims of a bait and switch. Jewish Americans voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Obama over John McCain in part because the Obama campaign went to great lengths to assure these voters that a President Obama would be supportive of Israel. This despite his friendships with rabidly anti-Israel characters like Rev. Jeremiah Wright and historian Rashid Khalidi. Now, some within the Jewish community apparently have voters' remorse.
online.wsj.com - posted 7/2/09

Thousands of U.S. Marines poured from helicopters and armored vehicles into Taliban-controlled villages in southern Afghanistan on Thursday in the first major operation under President Barack Obama's strategy to stabilize the country.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/2/09

US military spokeswoman says insurgents have captured an American soldier in eastern Afghanistan.
www.google.com - posted 7/2/09

The Islamic Republic has been busy in three main ways since the presidential elections of June 12. Rejecting charges that the result - a 63% vote for incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - was the result of fraud, the regime organized a partial recount, which on June 29 reconfirmed Ahmadinejad's victory, a finding the opposition continues to reject. Simultaneously, the regime worked to put down the widespread street demonstrations that followed the disputed poll, sending in police and pro-government militiamen to beat up and disperse demonstrators. Now, with the street protests dying down, the regime has attempted to rescue its legitimacy by casting the unrest as the work of "foreign instigators."
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/2/09

Forgetting who started the fight, Amnesty International said on Thursday Israel inflicted "wanton destruction" in the Gaza Strip in attacks that often targeted Palestinian civilians during an offensive in December and January in the Hamas-run enclave.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/2/09

International pressure on the coup leaders in Honduras could force them to accept leftist President Manuel Zelaya back into the country under a political arrangement in which he promises not to circumvent a Supreme Court ruling against changing the Constitution to allow him to run for another term.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/2/09

An Ariane rocket has launched from French Guiana on Wednesday the TerreStar-1 satellite, billed by the Arianespace rocket launch company as "the largest commercial communications satellite ever launched".
www.reuters.com - posted 7/2/09

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) received $50 million from the United States government this year, despite its involvement in China, where the government's population program, according to the U.S. State Department, includes a "coercive birth limitation policy" that in some cases results "in forced abortion or forced sterilization."
cnsnews.com - posted 7/2/09

The Justice Department is again delaying the release of an internal CIA report on the agency's secret detention and interrogation program during the Bush administration. The report had been expected to be made public two weeks ago but was held back over debates about how much of it should be censored. The government published a version of the report in 2008, but its contents were almost entirely blacked out.
online.wsj.com - posted 7/2/09

Following a testy exchange during today’s briefing with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas told CNSNews.com that not even Richard Nixon tried to control the press the way President Obama is trying to control the press.
cnsnews.com - posted 7/2/09

Spending by lawmakers on taxpayer-financed trips abroad has risen sharply in recent years, a Wall Street Journal analysis of travel records shows, involving everything from war-zone visits to trips to exotic spots such as the Galápagos Islands. The spending on overseas travel is up almost tenfold since 1995, and has nearly tripled since 2001
online.wsj.com - posted 7/2/09

Employers cut a larger-than-expected 467,000 jobs in June, driving the unemployment rate up to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent, suggesting that the economy's road to recovery will be bumpy.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/2/09

Opinion: Obama’s fuel standards may be killing GM. General Motors can survive bankruptcy far more easily than it can survive President Barack Obama's ambitious fuel economy standards, which mandate that all new new vehicles average 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016.
online.wsj.com - posted 7/2/09

Cost-effective medical practices deployed in developing nations are delivering good results, prompting many in the U.S. to ask whether the same solutions can be done here.
online.wsj.com - posted 7/2/09

President Barack Obama, after picking fights with rivals over health care during the election campaign, is signaling flexibility on many of his previous stances as he tries to put a health-care deal together. As a candidate, Mr. Obama criticized Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton for proposing that all Americans be required to get health insurance. Now he says he is open to the idea.
online.wsj.com - posted 7/2/09

Obama is rationing specialist care: The Obama administration said Wednesday that it plans to cut Medicare payments for imaging services and specialists, and will use the savings to increase payments to physicians providing primary care.
online.wsj.com - posted 7/2/09

Opinion: The White House made a big show last week about "turning the heat up" on Medicare fraud, as Jane Friday -- er, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius put it. The dragnet resulted in 53 indictments in Detroit for a $50 million scheme to submit bills for HIV drugs and physical therapy that were never provided, as well as busting up a Miami ring that used fake storefronts to steal some $100 million. As welcome as this is, the larger issue is what such plots say about President Obama's plans for a new government-run insurance program.
online.wsj.com - posted 7/2/09

The three biggest car makers in America called a bottom to the long decline in U.S. auto sales as the industry reported its smallest monthly sales drop this year.
online.wsj.com - posted 7/2/09

States in possible financial meltdown: California isn't the only state on the verge of a major financial meltdown.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/2/09

New York City officials scrambled Wednesday to re-create a system of school governance that hasn't existed in seven years after a deadlocked state Senate failed to renew the mayor's control over public schools before a Tuesday deadline.
online.wsj.com - posted 7/2/09

Opinion: The “Hate Crimes Bill” will federalize criminal law. Among its many defects, the proposed federal hate crimes bill virtually ensures that some defendants will face double jeopardy, whatever the outcome of their cases. It all depends on the whims of the folks occupying the Attorney General's office, who may want to score political points at a defendant's expense.
www.onenewsnow.com - posted 7/2/09

Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut (D) published an editorial in a Connecticut newspaper on Sunday where he announced that he has changed his mind on same-sex marriage. The editorial, which has also been published in full on Dodd’s senate web site, enumerates his reasoning for having opposed same-sex marriage in the past and why he’s changed his mind.
www.planetout.com - posted 7/2/09

The co-founder of the National Education Association (NEA) Conservative Educators Caucus says the NEA will consider adoption of a resolution supporting homosexual "marriage."
www.onenewsnow.com - posted 7/2/09

News coverage of a Duke University official accused of raping his adopted 5-year-old son and offering the child to someone else is apparently lacking what some say is a key piece of information: the fact the alleged perpetrator is a homosexual who lives with another "gay" man.
worldnetdaily.com - posted 7/2/09

A black evangelical Christian pastor and former NFL linebacker says there was "absolutely no truth in anything" President Obama said in his speech to homosexuals in the East Room of the White House Monday.
www.onenewsnow.com - posted 7/2/09

A decision to allow a lesbian couple to testify during the annual meeting of Mississippi United Methodists has caused widespread controversy. The couple spoke at the June 12 worship service at the Mississippi Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, held in Jackson. The two women spoke of their desire to see the denomination formally accept homosexuals.
www.onenewsnow.com - posted 7/2/09

Seventy-two years ago Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger visited El Paso, Texas, delivered a speech proclaiming the need for the acceptance of birth control and helped found the city's first family planning clinic. But last week, Analinda Moreno, Planned Parenthood of El Paso's interim executive director, announced all seven of the organization's clinics in the El Paso area would permanently close today. She cited financial reasons.
wnd.com - posted 7/2/09

Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar's politics have become the subject of blog commentary because the web auction site over the last week repeatedly scrubbed an offering of an allegedly genuine copy of President Barack Obama's birth certificate – from Mombasa, Kenya.
worldnetdaily.com - posted 7/2/09

A hard-hitting piece on Sarah Palin in the new Vanity Fair has touched off a blistering exchange of insults among high-profile Republicans over last year’s GOP ticket – tearing open fresh wounds about leaks surrounding Palin and revealing for the first time some of the internal wars that paralyzed the campaign in its final days.
www.politico.com - posted 7/2/09

After a three-year lobbying effort, the City Council overwhelmingly passed a resolution Tuesday calling for school to be closed on the two holiest Muslim holidays. But Mayor Bloomberg said he would not make the change called for in the resolution, which is nonbinding.
www.nydailynews.com - posted 7/2/09

The circumstances surrounding Michael Jackson's death have become a federal issue, with the Drug Enforcement Administration asked to help police take a look at the pop star's doctors and possible drug use.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/2/09

Two of Michael Jackson's former confidantes, medium Uri Geller and ex-bodyguard Matt Fiddes, say they tried in vain to keep the pop superstar from abusing painkillers and other prescription drugs suspected of leading to his death — but others in the singer's circle kept the supplies flowing.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/2/09

"Love is something that is cultivated in the trenches of living a day-to-day relationship," says Bartowski. "That is not a Hallmark moment." So while there are countless romantics out there urging North Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford to follow his heart, he can expect mostly tough love from his own spiritual community.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/2/09

Pastor Rick Warren is to address American Muslims.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/2/09

The senior pastor of Riverside Church, the renowned bastion of liberal theology and social activism on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is resigning after just nine months on the job.
cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com - posted 7/2/09

America's biggest megachurches.
www.forbes.com - posted 7/2/09

Hundreds of Christians have gathered in Boston this week for a four-day event commemorating the influence of the Reformation on Western Civilization over the last half a millennium.
www.christianpost.com - posted 7/2/09

Faith-based organizations that subscribe to conservative social values have banded together to redefine the way the Church engages in culture and politics.
www.christianpost.com - posted 7/2/09

The pastor of one of America’s largest churches is taking a two-month sabbatical following a surgery he underwent last month and kept private until last week. “It is perfect timing to begin that sabbatical now for the continued healing of my body, soul and spirit,” reported Jack Graham this past week to the more than 26,000 members of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas.
www.christianpost.com - posted 7/2/09

Redefining Christ commitment: Home is where the heart is. And according to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, a church home is where a person formally joins, not where they regularly attend services.
www.christianpost.com - posted 7/2/09

A pet Burmese python measuring more than 8 feet long broke out of a terrarium and strangled a 2-year-old girl in her bedroom Wednesday at a central Florida home, authorities said. Shaiunna Hare was already dead when paramedics arrived at about 10 a.m., Lt. Bobby Caruthers of the Sumter County Sheriff's Office said.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/2/09

Rwanda has strongly denied reports that its parliament is considering a draft law which would forcibly sterilise people who are mentally disabled.
news.bbc.co.uk - posted 7/1/09

Less than a month after President Obama -- in a speech to the world’s Muslims -- urged governments to maintain power “through consent, not coercion,” a body representing parliaments in Islamic nations has congratulated Iran for its recent presidential election while condemning foreign countries for “interference.”
www.cnsnews.com - posted 7/1/09

The Pentagon said Wednesday it has suspended joint military operations with Honduras to protest a coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya, a move that suggests the U.S. could further curtail dealings with the new Honduran government.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/1/09

A federal judge wants a trial on California's same-sex marriage ban to proceed quickly but says he likely won't suspend the voter-approved ban in the meantime.
www.sacbee.com - posted 7/1/09

A Puerto Rican legal advocacy group late Tuesday sent a trove of documents from Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's past to the Senate panel considering her nomination.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/1/09

White House reporters bicker over “planted” questions.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/1/09

The 1,400-page cap-and-trade legislation pushed through by House Democrats contains a new federal policy that residential, commercial, and government buildings be retrofitted to increase energy efficiency, leaving it up to the states to figure out exactly how to do that. This means that homeowners, for example, could be required to retrofit their homes to meet federal “green” guidelines in order to sell their homes, if the cap-and-trade bill becomes law.
www.cnsnews.com - posted 7/1/09

President Obama apparently is trashing his oft-repeated campaign promise that middle income Americans with annual pay of $250,000 or less would see no tax increases under his administration. There are the new energy taxes under cap-and-trade that would hit every American resident, plans for taxes on health benefits and a wide range of other proposals being developed. The results are that even mainstream reporters have begun grilling Obama's chief spokesman, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, on the issue.
worldnetdaily.com - posted 7/1/09

In the end, there’s only one person who really matters when it comes to getting a health care overhaul done this year – President Barack Obama – and he’s been maddeningly vague about what he can live with in a plan.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/1/09

Critics of President Barack Obama’s health care reform plan believe he is backtracking on his campaign pledge not to tax health benefits. The administration, meanwhile, is not giving a strong reassurance to the contrary.
www.cnsnews.com - posted 7/1/09

Planned Parenthood Federation of America is advising teens that taking part in "sex play" and "outercourse" can greatly reduce their risk of getting a sexually transmitted infection.
www.cnsnews.com - posted 7/1/09

Federal agents hunt for guns, one house at a time
www.chron.com - posted 7/1/09

Michael Jackson has left his entire estate to his family - but has not provided for ex-wife Debbie Rowe, his will shows.
news.bbc.co.uk - posted 7/1/09

Hindu hardliner and chief of the Rashtriya Hindu Sena, Pramod Muthalik, has criticized a India's top government official for apologizing to the victims of last year's anti-Christian violence.
www.christianpost.com - posted 7/1/09

Vladimir Putin gambling law banishes Russian casinos to Siberian exile.
www.timesonline.co.uk posted 7/1/09

France's transport minister says one of the black boxes of the Yemeni jetliner that crashed in the Indian Ocean has been found.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/1/09

A bruised teenage girl clung to the wreckage of a Yemeni plane for more than 13 hours before rescuers found her floating in the Indian Ocean, a French official said Wednesday.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/1/09

Al-Qaeda's North Africa wing threatened on Tuesday to take revenge on France for its opposition to the burka, calling on Muslims to retaliate against the country, the US monitoring service SITE Intelligence reported.
www.breitbart.com - posted 7/1/09

Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. This report is based on the accounts of witnesses reached in Iran and official statements carried on Iranian media.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/1/09

Democrat Al Franken, a satirist turned politician, was declared the winner of a Senate seat in Minnesota on Tuesday, clearing the way for President Barack Obama's party to secure a critical 60-seat majority in the Senate.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/1/09

Gay rights and the Obama administration: Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday he wants to make the law prohibiting gays from serving openly in the armed forces "more humane" until Congress eventually repeals it. He said he has lawyers studying ways the law might be selectively enforced.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/1/09

In a major break with most other large companies, Wal-Mart told the White House that it supports requiring employers to provide health insurance to workers.
online.wsj.com - posted 7/1/09

Liberal-leaning religious groups are launching radio ads in five states this week in which local pastors urge senators to back efforts to overhaul the nation's health care system.
news.yahoo.com - posted 7/1/09

The nomination by President Obama of 2nd Circuit Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court is more than alarming to an innocent man who was convicted of murder and spent 16 years in prison before being cleared and released. Jeff Deskovic, whose pursuit of freedom has been chronicled by the New York Times and others, told WND that the last six of those years are directly attributable to decisions endorsed by Sotomayor.
worldnetdaily.com - posted 7/1/09

The Bible calls the Church "the Body of Christ." Today, that body is bleeding profusely, says a Christian author and sought-out speaker. "The next generation of believers is draining from the churches, and it causes me great personal and professional concern," said Ken Ham, founder and president of Answers in Genesis and a Young Earth creationist.
www.christianpost.com - posted 7/1/09

The White House on Monday denied a report that President Obama has decided to make the Camp David presidential retreat his church home.
www.usatoday.com - posted 7/1/09

Fans from all over gathered to pay tribute to Michael Jackson at Harlem's historic Apollo Theater on Tuesday, where more than 40 years ago, the Jackson Five launched its career, and effectively, a new era in pop music with the introduction to Michael.
wcbstv.com - posted 7/1/09

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford said Tuesday that he "crossed lines" with a handful of women other than his mistress—but never had sex with them.
www.breitbart.com - posted 7/1/09

Taking a page from JFK and Ronald Reagan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended her plan to cut taxes despite the country's soaring budget deficit as she introduced her conservative alliance's manifesto ahead of national elections in September, Lower incomes taxes would "provide motivation" and encourage economic growth, Ms. Merkel told a conference of her party, the Christian Democratic Union, and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/30/09

Democrats in Congress and media reports have been claiming that "almost" 50 million Americans lack health insurance. But the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau say there are in fact 45.65 million uninsured people in this country and that 9.7 million of those are not U.S. citizens.
www.cnsnews.com - posted 6/30/09

Nineteen pro-life House Democrats signed a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) last week, expressing their opposition to any health care reform that includes abortion funding. “Plans to mandate coverage for abortions, either directly or indirectly (are) unacceptable,” they wrote.
www.cnsnews.com - posted 6/30/09

The EPA did not publicly release a March report that raised questions about the validity of the agency's conclusions that carbon emissions were a cause of global warming and a danger to human health--primary assumptions behind the cap and trade bill that passed the House on Friday. Critics--including eight congressmen--say the document was suppressed in spite of an Obama administration pledge to bring greater transparency to government.
www.cnsnews.com - posted 6/30/09

A federal judge in California has issued an injunction to stop a proposed wage reduction for the state’s home-care workers, reductions that are part of efforts to cut a state budget shortfall of $24 billion. In response to a lawsuit filed by the Service Employees International Union, the judge ordered the state to keep paying the workers up to $12.10 in wages and benefits.
www.cnsnews.com - posted 6/30/09

The California Citizens Compensation Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to cut state legislators' monthly car allowances, fringe benefits and their per diem allowance by 18 percent.
www.sacbee.com - posted 6/30/09

China's decision to delay implementation of a controversial Web-filtering scheme is good news for PC makers, which faced big challenges in meeting the original deadline of Wednesday.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/30/09

Republican Norm Coleman conceded to Democrat Al Franken in Minnesota's contested Senate race on Tuesday, hours after a unanimous state Supreme Court ruled the former "Saturday Night Live" comedian should be certified the winner.
www.sacbee.com - posted 6/30/09

Iraq security is on high alert as the US withdraws its troops from Iraqi cities.
cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com - posted 6/30/09

Four U.S. soldiers were killed in combat shortly before the American military completed a withdrawal from Iraq's cities, and the prime minister assured Iraqis that government forces taking control of urban areas on Tuesday were more than capable of protecting the country.
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/30/09

A senior hardline Iranian cleric Tuesday demanded an end to protests over the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president after Iran's top legislative body slammed shut the last door for a legal challenge.
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/30/09

Opinion: Obama's obsolete Iran policy - the audacity of hope gives way to the timidity of realism.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/30/09

North Korea appears to be enriching uranium, potentially giving the state that has twice tested a plutonium-based nuclear device another path to making atomic weapons, South Korea's defense minister said on Tuesday.
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/30/09

Honduras' interim government battled on Tuesday against a tide of international support for ousted President Manuel Zelaya who vowed to return home after troops toppled and exiled him in a coup.
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/30/09

President Barack Obama said he is confident the U.S. "can strike a deal" with Colombia on a free-trade agreement, but signaled Monday concerns linger about violence against Colombian union organizers.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/30/09

The U.S. Secret Service plans to unveil Tuesday plans for a pan-European task force charged with preventing identity theft, computer hacking and other computer-based crime.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/30/09

The U.K. economy shrank more than previously estimated in the first quarter in the biggest contraction since 1958 as the recession choked industries from construction to services.
www.bloomberg.com - posted 6/30/09

Federal authorities are pressing a probe of 10 associates of Bernard Madoff despite a sentence that means the mastermind of one of the biggest financial frauds in history will spend the rest of his days behind bars, The Associated Press has learned.
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/30/09

Obama hopes to persuade all Americans to accept homosexuality. Barack Obama says that while he's dedicated to expanding homosexual rights, many Americans still cling to what he calls "worn arguments and old attitudes."
www.onenewsnow.com - posted 6/30/09

President Barack Obama, under fire from the gay-rights community over slow action on its priorities, promised to deliver by the time he leaves office.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/30/09

As the summer begins, White House watchers have spotted a new look by President Obama: The Evil Eye!
www.drudgereport.com - posted 6/30/09

After lawmakers had devoured the last of the Kalua Pig at last Thursday night’s White House Luau, Nancy Pelosi summoned her team back to the Capitol — to ensure the climate change bill wasn’t the next thing roasted on the spit.
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/30/09

Sonia Sotomayor, the New York appellate judge President Barack Obama has nominated to the Supreme Court, has credited her success in part to postwar America's efforts to correct centuries of racial discrimination. If, as expected, her nomination is confirmed, the self-described "affirmative-action baby" will join a court divided on that very topic.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/30/09

The Supreme Court closed an otherwise unremarkable term on a high note yesterday, rejecting the notion that one kind of racial bias can be remedied by another. On the last day of opinions before the Court is potentially joined by Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the Justices overturned one of her most closely scrutinized cases on workplace discrimination. The effect was to take an important step away from the practice of divvying up jobs by race.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/30/09

The Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal from Christian students whose proposed Bible club was denied official recognition and funding at their high school. This means that schools may be able to dictate beliefs to Christian student groups.
www.onenewsnow.com - posted 6/30/09

A midnight deadline loomed Tuesday as California lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger dueled over ways to cut into a $24.3 billion budget deficit or face having to issue IOUs to cover the state's bills.
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/30/09

Though a pay gap persists -- women's earnings remain stalled at around 80% of men's -- women are finding the jobs that pay them the most, and some may surprise you. Based on a U.S. Department of Labor Women's Bureau 2008 analysis, this article ranks women's median weekly earnings as full-time wage and salary workers to uncover the highest-paying jobs for women.
finance.yahoo.com - posted 6/30/09

A Jewish cemetery has been desecrated in the eastern part of the Czech Republic, members of the community there said Tuesday.
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/30/09

A harassed gay minority in a conservative suburb in otherwise tolerant Amsterdam has found a guardian angel in the local Muslim mayor.
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/30/09

Conservative teachers within the NEA will call for the union to drop its support of abortion.
www.onenewsnow.com - posted 6/30/09

Comoran activists say the air crash of a Yemeni Airbus A310 jet was predictable. The plane was carrying 153 people when it crashed into rough seas as it came into land in the Comoros islands early Tuesday.
cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com - posted 6/30/09

Rockets center Yao Ming's broken left foot could be a "career-threatening" injury. Dr. Tom Clanton, the Houston Rockets' team physician, told the Houston Chronicle on Monday that Yao's injury "has the potential for him missing this next season and could be career-threatening."
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/30/09

The first-ever scientific test on what are believed to be the remains of the Apostle Paul "seems to confirm" that they do indeed belong to the Roman Catholic saint, Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday.
www.heraldnet.com - posted 6/30/09

Cash-strapped states are considering raising taxes on oil production to plug yawning budget gaps, but they face strong resistance from oil companies, which warn the moves could lead to lost jobs and higher energy prices.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/29/09

The government's plan to enable banks to dump troubled assets is facing troubles of its own. Markets initially rallied when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner announced in March a two-pronged plan to offer favorable government financing to entice investors to buy bad loans and toxic securities from banks. But that initiative -- called the Public-Private Investment Program, or PPIP -- has lost momentum.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/29/09

Opinion: A bipartisan congressional commission, headed by some of our most experienced national security practitioners, recently concluded that a nuclear deterrent is essential to our defense for the foreseeable future. It also recommended that urgent measures be taken to keep that deterrent safe and effective. Unfortunately, President Barack Obama has adopted an agenda that runs counter to the commission's recommendations.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/29/09

A military coup has divided Honduras between two leaders — one recognized by world bodies and another backed by the country's congress, courts and military.
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/29/09

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday put troops on alert after a coup in Honduras and said he would respond militarily if his envoy to the Central American country was kidnapped or killed.
www.reuters.com - posted 6/29/09

Opinion: Honduras Defends Its Democracy even though Fidel Castro and Hillary Clinton object. Hugo Chávez's coalition-building efforts suffered a setback yesterday when the Honduran military sent its president packing for abusing the nation's constitution. It seems that President Mel Zelaya miscalculated when he tried to emulate the success of his good friend Hugo in reshaping the Honduran Constitution to his liking.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/29/09

Opinion: The Pentagon recently announced that it is repositioning ground-to-air radar and missile defenses near Hawaii in case North Korea decides to launch another long-range missile, this time toward the Aloha State. So at least 1.3 million Hawaiians will benefit from defenses that many officials in the current Administration didn't even want to build.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/29/09

Obama tells Jews to stop building homes – in Israel! 'The positions of the U.S. and Palestinian Authority are closer than ever'
worldnetdaily.com - posted 6/29/09

Israel has said it has approved the construction of 50 homes in a settlement in the occupied West Bank, despite weeks of pressure from its closest ally Washington.
www.breitbart.com - posted 6/29/09

President Hamid Karzai accused Afghan guards working for U.S. coalition forces of killing a provincial police chief and at least four other security officers during a gunbattle outside a government office Monday.
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/29/09

The Air Force says it has successfully launched an unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile from a California base, firing it to targets in the Pacific Ocean.
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/29/09

President Barack Obama is facing his first open clashes with congressional Democrats over spending, as the White House tries to curb lawmaker demands for big-ticket items in the military and transportation budgets. As pressure grows on Mr. Obama to show he is working to curb deficits, he has made his first formal veto threat, opposing a pair of military fighter jets.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/29/09

The Obama Justice Department is going some constitutional rights to foreign terrorist detainees. The conclusion has created divisions among the agencies that oversee the commissions.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/29/09

The Council on American-Islamic Relations intends to launch a nationwide campaign to distribute copies of the Islamic Quran to 100,000 local, state and national leaders, a campaign the organization's public relations department claims was inspired by President Obama's speech to Muslims earlier this month.
worldnetdaily.com - posted 6/29/09

'Gays' in the military - bad idea then, bad idea now. In general court-martial orders dated March 14, 1778, General George Washington, through his designs, addressed the disposition of a homosexual soldier "tried for attempting to commit sodomy": "[We] do sentence him to be dismiss'd [from] the service with infamy.
www.onenewsnow.com - posted 6/29/09

Oxymoronic 'homosexual Christians' focus of report - Christian activist Peter LaBarbera is questioning some of the conclusions Christian researcher George Barna reached in his "Spiritual Profile of Homosexual Adults."
www.onenewsnow.com - posted 6/29/09

A recent poll indicates that Americans are not as supportive of homosexual "marriage" as they once were.
www.onenewsnow.com - posted 6/29/09

Some Republican members of Congress want the U.S. Census Bureau to end a 2010 Census partnership with Acorn, the community organizing group that was hit by accusations of voter-registration fraud in the 2006 and 2008 elections.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/29/09

A coalition of groups opposing the expansion of the radical Islamic Saudi Academy in Fairfax, Virginia, has filed a complaint with the Virginia attorney general's office concerning the county government's involvement in promoting the school.
www.onenewsnow.com - posted 6/29/09

A public school teacher has been reinstated after being fired for his conservative views.
www.onenewsnow.com - posted 6/29/09

The Supreme Court has handed down a mixed decision involving a case in which a 13-year-old girl in Arizona was strip-searched at school after a false report that she had prescription strength pain pills. The court ruled that the girl's Fourth Amendment rights were violated.
www.onenewsnow.com - posted 6/29/09

The Internet giant YouTube has spiked a video that revealed Planned Parenthood telling a prospective abortion patient that those online images of mangled bodies aren't real.
worldnetdaily.com - posted 6/29/09

For the past five months, White House aides and friends of the Obamas have been quietly visiting local churches and vetting the sermons of prospective first ministers in a search for a new — and uncontroversial — church home. Obama has even sampled a few himself, attending services at 19th Street Baptist on the weekend before his inauguration and celebrating Easter at St. John's Episcopal Church. Now, in an unexpected move, Obama has told White House aides that instead of joining a congregation in Washington, D.C., he will follow in George W. Bush's footsteps and make his primary place of worship Evergreen Chapel, the nondenominational church at Camp David
www.time.com - posted 6/29/09

Communist Chinese authorities continue to harass a registered church in one province. According to China Aid Association (CAA), the Chengnan Christian Church -- a registered Three-Self Patriotic Movement church -- has faced harassment by government officials and real estate developers.
www.onenewsnow.com - posted 6/29/09

Pope Benedict XVI signed his latest encyclical Monday, a text on ways to make globalization more attentive to meeting the needs of the poor amid the worldwide financial crisis.
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/29/09

A newly uncovered artwork in the catacombs of Rome has some experts believing it's the oldest image of the Christian apostle Paul.
worldnetdaily.com - posted 6/29/09

There are as many as 85 sharia courts operating in Britain, according to a new report.
www.guardian.co.uk - posted 6/29/09

If recent trends are any guide, many Church of England parishes will have been cheered by higher attendances at Easter services. The last published statistics for 2006/7 show rises of 7 and 5 per cent in church going at Christmas and Easter. But these figures are just about the only signs of hope for the church and certainly not the first green shoots of a revival. Other statistics make for gloomy reading. Annual decline in Sunday attendance is running at around 1 per cent.
www.themalaysianinsider.com - posted 6/29/09

Egyptian authorities have released from custody all suspects who were arrested earlier this week following attacks targeting Coptic Orthodox Christians in a small Egyptian village.
www.christianpost.com - posted 6/28/09

Lebanon's president appointed parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri Saturday to become prime minister after his pro-Western coalition defeated a Hezbollah-led alliance in this month's election.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/28/09

Somali pirates released the entire crew of a Belgian ship kidnapped two months ago after a ransom was paid, the government said Sunday.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/28/09

ID cards for India: 1.1billion citizens will go into second largest citizens' database
www.dailymail.co.uk - posted 6/28/09

Britain's foreign secretary described the detention of British Embassy employees in Iran as "harassment and intimidation."
online.wsj.com - posted 6/28/09

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed Saturday to make the U.S. regret its criticism of Iran's postelection crackdown and said the "mask has been removed" from the Obama administration's efforts to improve relations.
www.newsmax.com - posted 6/28/09

Opinion: Solidarity with Iran - Reagan's Polish lesson for Obama and the American left.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/28/09

Opinion by Dick Morris: Hit Iran where it hurts – in the fuel pumps; additionally how President Barack Obama has disarmed us in the war on terror and excoriate him for giving Hamas almost $1 billion in foreign aid funneled through the United Nations relief agency in Gaza that takes orders from Hamas. But now, the Administration's weakness in supporting human rights in Iran writes a sad chapter in the history of our foreign policy.
www.newsmax.com - posted 6/28/09

The House passed legislation on Friday intended to address global warming and transform the way the nation produces and uses energy, even though it will lead to job losses and higher prices.
www.nytimes.com - posted 6/28/09

The U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill yesterday that is intended to influence the Earth’s climate by limiting the emission of carbon and other designated “greenhouse gases” within the United States thus imposing costs on American families.
cnsnews.com - posted 6/28/09

Opinion by Joseph Farrah: 'Cap and trade' your freedom.
worldnetdaily.com - posted 6/28/09

Mounting jobless claims force many states to borrow funds to pay the unemployed.
www.cnbc.com - posted 6/28/09

U.S. stocks fell, giving the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index the first two-week decline since March, after the highest American savings rate in 15 years spurred concern that consumer spending will slow and oil retreated. The dollar dropped after China’s central bank reiterated a call for a worldwide currency.
www.bloomberg.com - posted 6/28/09

Don't look to the Supreme Court to set school rules, only to clarify them when officials have abdicated that responsibility, Chief Justice John Roberts said Saturday. At a judicial conference in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., Roberts was asked how school administrators should interpret seemingly conflicting messages from the court in two recent decisions, including one Thursday that said Arizona officials conducted an unconstitutional strip-search of a teenage girl. In 2007, the justices sided with an Alaska high school principal, ruling that administrators could restrict student speech if it appears to advocate illegal drug use.
www.newsmax.com - posted 6/28/09

Attorney General Eric Holder urged Congress on Thursday to expand federal protections to gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals, a move conservatives say would criminalize those who simply speak against homosexuality.
www.christianpost.com - posted 6/28/09

In one of the largest gatherings of critics since the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky opened two years ago, six dozen paleontologists in the area for a conference this week took a field trip to get a glimpse of the marketing tactics used by the other side of the evolution debate.
www.msnbc.msn.com - posted 6/28/09

Southern Baptists are facing a membership decline that could shrink the nation's largest Protestant denomination by nearly half in 40 years, its convention president said this week.
www.tulsaworld.com - posted 6/28/09

What is being billed as the first-ever Atheist Film Festival and featuring a large number of films that largely address religion will be held in San Francisco Sunday – and it lumps Jesus along with Zeno, Flying Saucers, The Flying Spaghetti Monster and Eden.
wnd.com - posted 6/28/09

An eBay seller who previously promised to deliver a certified copy of President Obama's actual birth certificate – from a hospital in Mombasa, Kenya – has twice had his listing removed from the popular auction website.
worldnetdaily.com - posted 6/28/09

Opening in select theaters today, "The Stoning of Soraya M." is a movie based on a true story, depicting how women behind the Muslim curtain are victimized by corrupt forces wielding Shariah law to justify and cover their tyranny.
worldnetdaily.com - posted 6/28/09

The leader of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church today backed off on a much-anticipated announcement about the Ark of the Covenant -- the ancient container holding the Ten Commandment -- which he claims to have seen.
www.wnd.com - posted 6/28/09

Fears of an impending massacre has gripped the Christian Copts in the village of Ezbet Boshra, El Fashn, which was scene to Muslim mob attacks on Copts on Sunday.
www.aina.org - posted 6/26/09

Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. Iran's ruling clergy has widened its clampdown on the opposition since a bitterly disputed June 12 presidential election, and scattered protests have replaced the initial mass rallies.
www.breitbart.com - posted 6/26/09

Editorial: With the Tehran regime distracted by growing opposition protests, is now a good time for Israel to strike Iran's nuclear sites?
worldnetdaily.com - posted 6/26/09

The dollar weakened and stocks pared their advance after China’s central bank reiterated a call for a “super sovereign currency” and said the country’s financial institutions face a tougher environment this year.
www.bloombeg.com - posted 6/26/09

Opinion: President Obama has bet the economy on his program to grow the government and finance it with a more progressive tax system. It's hard to miss the irony that he's pitching this change in Washington even as the same governance model is imploding in three of the largest American states where it has been dominant for years -- California, New Jersey and New York.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/26/09

California's budget problems evolved into a game of political chicken Thursday, as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and GOP state senators took an all-or-nothing stance that could lead to issuing IOUs to pay the state's bills.
www.sacbee.com - posted 6/26/09

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D- Nev.) will not commit to giving senators and the public a full week to read and review the final version of a health-care reform bill before he holds a final vote on it.
cnsnews.com - posted 6/26/09

Opinion: The Dangers of Fannie Mae Health Care - A public plan would have certain advantages. That's precisely the problem.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/26/09

Lawyers for President Obama are quietly drafting first-of-their kind guidelines barring workplace discrimination against transgender federal employees, officials said Tuesday.
www.msnbc.msn.com - posted 6/26/09

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said that he has not read any of Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s legal opinions, and that if her confirmation goes through, he hopes he will not have to read any of them.
cnsnews.com - posted 6/26/09

The Judicial Confirmation Network (JCN) says Judge Sonia Sotomayor failed to disclose to the Senate Judiciary Committee a controversial document arguing that the death penalty is “racist” and a violation of the present “humanist” thinking of society.
cnsnews.com - posted 6/26/09

Obama Suggests Health-care Reform Will Mean Rationing for Some, but Admits He Would Pay Out-of-Pocket for His Own Family
cnsnews.com - posted 6/26/09

The U.S. House of Representatives was poised to approve on Thursday a $550.4 billion defense authorization bill for fiscal 2010 that has drawn a veto threat from President Barack Obama because it contains money for fighter jets he does not want, even though it means the loss of actual jobs.
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/26/09

Opinion about the High Court: The commentariat can't decide whether Chief Justice John Roberts's majority opinion this week upholding a core provision of the Voting Rights Act is rooted in statesmanship or overcaution. What is certain is that the 8-1 ruling creates new openings for states and cities to escape from Section 5 of the Act, which requires all or part of 16 mainly Southern states to get advance federal approval before making any changes to election procedures. This is progress.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/26/09

California's median price for an existing single-family house rose for the third straight month, a sign that the state's battered real-estate market may be bottoming out.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/26/09

Felony charges have been filed and an arrest warrant issued for a well-known California, Latino, political activist suspected of committing election and voter registration fraud, the California secretary of State's office announced Wednesday.
latimesblogs.com - posted 6/26/09

The world mourns the death of the “King of Pop.” Michael Jackson was due to make his triumphant return to the stage in London next month - but instead his sudden death has left millions of fans feeling they've lost a lifelong friend.
apnews.myway.com - posted 6/26/09

Farrah Fawcett, the 1970s "It Girl" who was known for her cascading golden hair and bombshell body, died at 62 in a Santa Monica hospital.
abcnews.go.com - posted 6/26/09

A "copycat" of San Francisco's infamous "Folsom Street Festival" homosexual event that features nudity and public sex acts has been held in New York City, apparently in violation of state public decency and exposure laws, according to an activist organization.
worldnetdaily.com - posted 6/26/09

Health officials estimate that as many as 1 million Americans now have the new swine flu. Lyn Finelli, a flu surveillance official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, voiced the estimate at a vaccine advisory meeting Thursday in Atlanta.
www.breitbart.com - posted 6/26/09

Ark hunters and Bible enthusiasts are buzzing about a report that the Ark of the Covenant, the ancient container that holds the Ten Commandments, is expected to be unveiled in Rome today. The patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia says he will announce to the world the unveiling of the Ark, which he says has been hidden away in a church in his country for millennia, according to the Italian news agency Adnkronos.
worldnetdaily.com - posted 6/26/09

Thousands of Christian teenagers have convened in Los Angeles for the 2009 DCLA celebration, which started Thursday with a “sweeping narrative of God's epic story” delivered by megachurch pastor Francis Chan.
www.christianpost.com - posted 6/26/09

Southern Baptists passed a resolution Wednesday, celebrating the election of Barack Obama as the first African-American president while at the same time denouncing some of the president's recent actions on such issues as homosexuality and abortion.
www.christianpost.com - posted 6/26/09

No separation of church and state as British court dictates religious beliefs to Jews. Britain's Jewish faith schools may have to revise their admission policies after the Court of Appeal ruled that the widely used criteria for selecting pupils breached the Race Discrimination Act.
www.independent.co.uk - posted 6/26/09

Seven members of Bolivia's Mennonite Christian community have been detained over the alleged rape of 60 women or girls from their own community. Alleged victims in the Manitoba colony, which is in Bolivia's eastern lowlands, include girls as young as 14, a prosecutor said.
news.bbc.co.uk - posted 6/26/09

Iran's opposition leader pledged Thursday not to withdraw his election challenge despite what he said were attempts to isolate and discredit him, while the declared winner of the vote, hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, accused President Barack Obama of meddling in Iran's affairs.
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/25/09

Clashes between security services and demonstrators erupted again late Wednesday in central Tehran, even as state media said one unsuccessful presidential candidate dropped his objections to the June 12 elections, dealing a significant blow to the opposition's so-far united front.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/25/09

Two years after the U.S. military's deployment of additional troops in Iraq went into full effect in June 2007, a dramatic and sustained fall in the number of combat fatalities among American service personnel can clearly be tracked back to the implementation of the "surge" strategy.
cnsnews.com - posted 6/25/09

President Barack Obama sits down this week with German Chancellor Angela Merkel under a cloud of disagreement over the way out of the global financial crisis and Germany's role in the U.S.-led Afghan war.
apnews.myway.com - posted 6/25/09

As a result of the government naming the Council on American-Islamic Relations an unindicted co-conspirator in a major terrorism case, the Muslim community is withholding contributions and distancing itself from the group, a new report reveals.
worldnetdaily.com - posted 6/25/09

Opinion: Pro-life activists and members of Congress said President Barack Obama’s claim that he wants to seek “common ground” with people who morally object to abortion and find ways to reduce abortions contrasts his actions, including his recommendation to revise an amendment in the 2010 budget for the District of Columbia and thus allow federal funds to pay for the procedure.
cnsnews.com - posted 6/25/09

Opinion by Karl Rove: ObamaCare isn't inevitable - Americans are increasingly concerned about the cost -- in money and personal freedom -- of the president's nanny-state initiatives.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/25/09

Opinion: Hillary is wrong about the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Despite fervent denials by Obama administration officials, there were indeed agreements between Israel and the United States regarding the growth of Israeli settlements on the West Bank. As the Obama administration has made the settlements issue a major bone of contention between Israel and the U.S., it is necessary that we review the recent history.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/25/09

Warren Buffett to CNBC: the U.S. Economy is in "shambles" - there are no signs of recovery yet
www.cnbc.com - posted 6/25/09

The number of people filing new jobless claims jumped unexpectedly last week, and the total unemployment benefit rolls rose to more than 6.7 million.
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/25/09

GMAC is suspending wholesale financing for certain dealers it considers to be too risky to lend to, a move that could push some dealers out of business and hurt Chrysler sales.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/25/09

American International Group Inc. reached an agreement with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that to pay back $25 billion in debt owed to the bank through the initial public offerings of two international life-insurance units.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/25/09

Bernanke is set to testify as new B of A details emerge.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/25/09

Opinion: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has put cap-and-trade legislation on a forced march through the House, and the bill may get a full vote as early as Friday. It looks as if the Democrats will have to destroy the discipline of economics to get it done. Despite House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman's many payoffs to Members, rural and Blue Dog Democrats remain wary of voting for a bill that will impose crushing costs on their home-district businesses and consumers. The leadership's solution to this problem is to simply claim the bill defies the laws of economics.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/25/09

Increasing taxies on the middle class; with lawmakers trying to crunch the numbers on a $1 trillion health care overhaul, President Barack Obama is leaving the door open to a new tax on employer-provided health care benefits.
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/25/09

Opinion: Government health plans always ration health care - Europe offers a glimpse of the future if President Obama and congressional Democrats have their way.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/25/09

Here we go again: Two U.S. Democratic lawmakers want Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to relax recently tightened standards for mortgages on new condominiums, saying they could threaten the viability of some developments and slow the housing-market recovery, the Wall Street Journal said.
www.reuters.com - posted 6/25/09

As unemployment soars, some are giving up family life for a paycheck -- an echo of the itinerants who roamed the country for work during the Depression.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/25/09

Job hunters' stock may be rising on Wall Street. Large and midsize financial-services institutions are hiring again, albeit modestly. Recruiters cite improving financial markets and increasing investor confidence as catalysts. They say some firms that laid off too many workers at the start of the recession now want to take advantage of the large amount of talent available. Most desired are proven performers skilled in areas such as credit, refinancing, wealth management and restructuring.
online.wsj.com - posted 6/25/09

California Democrats' budget-balancing plan crashes and burns.
www.sacbee.com - posted 6/25/09

Poison control at risk in California, other states
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/25/09

South Carolina's Republican governor once cited "moral legitimacy" when he was a congressman voting for President Bill Clinton's impeachment. He became a darling of fiscal conservatives over his ideological opposition to federal stimulus cash.
apnews.myway.com - posted 6/25/09

Silvio Berlusconi has survived corruption allegations, a playboy reputation and his wife's wrath to become Italy's longest-serving prime minister. Now come allegations from a high-end prostitute that she spent the night at his residence and can prove it.
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/25/09

Analysis: What is it with philandering politicians? Why do men in power — the ones on pedestals — think they are above us and can get away with cheating on their spouses, particularly when media scrutiny is so intense and peccadilloes are arguably more politically damaging?
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/25/09

Court: A judge in California has scheduled a July 13 hearing in a case challenging Barack Obama's eligibility to be president in which the plaintiffs' attorney, Orly Taitz, says the commander-in-chief is in default.
worldnetdaily.com - posted 6/25/09

Slain football coach was pillar of tiny Iowa town. When a fatal tornado ripped through the rural Iowa town Ed Thomas called home, the local football coach became the driving force behind rebuilding. As a trusted and active church member, he encouraged the tiny community to have faith.
apnews.myway.com - posted 6/25/09

Mysterious space blobs aren't infant galaxies as astronomers once thought. Scientists say they mostly consist of galaxies going through puberty, all hot and bothered. A new study using NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory and other space and ground telescopes comes up with an...
news.myway.com - posted 6/25/09

EPA's own research expert 'shut up' on climate change; a government analyst has been silenced after he critiques CO2 findings.
worldnetdaily.com - posted 6/25/09

Opinion: The stimulus law enacted in February promoted the purchase of plug-in electric cars by the federal government and the broader market, but a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released this month says that the use of plug-in electric vehicles will not by itself decrease greenhouse gas emissions. To do that, the report argues, the United States would have to switch from coal-burning plants to lower-emission sources to generate electricity such as nuclear power.
cnsnews.com - posted 6/25/09

Signals from the flight data recorders of the Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic killing all 228 people on board have been been located.
economictimes.indiatimes.com - posted 6/25/09

A 1973 conversation between President Nixon and evangelist Billy Graham about Jews, laden with critical references including a Biblical verse on the "synagogue of Satan," has put the aging, frail Graham back in unwelcome headlines.
www.usatoday.com - posted 6/25/09

The Rev. Ken Pagano knows what Andy Warhol said about fame, but he has learned firsthand that it can last decidedly longer than 15 minutes. Pagano, pastor of New Bethel Church, an Assemblies of God congregation here, has spent the past few weeks inside an international media maelstrom over his church's upcoming "Open Carry Church Service," which is set for this Saturday, June 27. That's when he expects Christians who are both pious and the gun-loving to heed his invitation to bring their weapons to church to give thanks for the right to bear arms.
news.yahoo.com - posted 6/25/09

A Connecticut church has outraged gay rights advocates by posting a video of members performing an apparent exorcism of a teen's "homosexual demons."
www.breitbart.com - posted 6/25/09

The National Association of Evangelicals has named Galen Carey as director of Government Affairs. He replaces Richard Cizik who was forced to resign after making controversial remarks on same-sex unions.
www.christianpost.com - posted 6/25/09

China accused Google Inc. on Thursday of spreading pornography after Chinese users were unable to connect to the search giant's Web site, while Washington called on Beijing to scrap its order for personal computers to be equipped with Internet-filtering software.
apnews.myway.com - posted 6/25/09

The First Lady who demands substance - Michelle Obama wants to be part of events that have purpose and a message -- and that parallel the President's agenda.
www.washingtonpost.com - posted 6/25/09

last updated July 4, 2009