Guardian.co.uk: Assisted-dying advocate and former pathologist who served prison sentence for murder helped 130 people to kill themselves. Jack Kevorkian, a retired pathologist who helped dozens of ailing people to end their lives, has died in a Detroit hospital after a short illness. He was 83. Kevorkian, who claimed he had helped about 130 people [...]
Weekly Standard: Paul Ryan defended America’s role as the leading defender of freedom and liberty in a foreign policy address this evening. Speaking to the Alexander Hamilton Society, Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, laid out a vision that defended America’s exceptional role as a world leader and drew sharp contrast to [...]
LA Times: With Yemeni forces diverted to protect President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s beleaguered regime, U.S. spying and special military operations have suffered. As result, Al Qaeda has had more opportunities to recruit and plot attacks Reporting from Washington— The escalating violence in Yemen is hampering critical U.S. counter-terrorism operations and has given Al Qaeda’s most [...]
BBC: Moody’s has warned it may downgrade the US debt rating if Congress fails to increase the US debt limit in the coming weeks and risks default. The agency warned of political “entrenchment” preventing an increase. Republicans on Wednesday blocked a bill to raise the debt limit, demanding Democrats first agree to spending cuts. The [...]
CNN: Britain’s newest hero is a Nepali. Queen Elizabeth II on Wednesday awarded Britain’s second-highest award for bravery, the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross, to Acting Sgt. Dipprasad Pun of the Royal Gurkha Rifles. While stationed as a lone sentry at a checkpoint in Afghanistan’s Helmand province on September 17, Pun fended off an attack by up [...]
The Globe And Mail: World consumption of cocaine and opiates has shot up in the past decade. Cartel violence rages in Mexico. West Africa has become a cocaine-trafficking hub. A high-powered panel of former heads of states and United Nations officials says it is time for governments to find new ways to deal with the [...]
Reuters: “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski’s personal journals sold for over $40,000 on Thursday in an online auction of his personal belongings, authorities said. The journals fetched the highest bid of any item so far at the auction, which also included his hoodie and sunglasses, along with a typewriter he used to pound out a manifesto against [...]
Real Clear Politics: With a flamboyant downgrade of the outlook for economic growth, jobs and profits, Wednesday’s 280-point Dow plunge to launch the so-called June stock swoon is a warning shot across the bow. The Dow tanked alongside a batch of dismal economic data. The ISM manufacturing index, ADP employment, Case-Shiller home prices and consumer [...]
ABC News: Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will announce today that he’s making his bid for the Republican presidential nomination official, declaring, “Barack Obama has failed America.” In excerpts of prepared remarks obtained by ABC News, Romney rails against the president’s handling of the struggling economy and vows to shrink the size of the government. [...]
Time: It was a delicious inside bit of politics: Bill Clinton and Congressman Paul Ryan having a private, backstage chat about Medicare, captured by an ABC News camera. Clinton says he’s happy that the Democrats won the House special election in New York, but hopes his party doesn’t use it as an excuse to “do [...]
USA Today: There’s an interesting health care/political story involving the Obama administration and one of its key states, Indiana. The administration’s Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday it would prohibit Indiana from carrying out a new state law that cuts off money to Planned Parenthood clinics that serve women on Medicaid; the law [...]
PolitiJax: An executive order signed by Gov. Rick Scott that required state employees to undergo drug testing faces its first legal challenge. The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida announced today that it filed suit to block the implementation of Executive Order 11-58, which mandated testing. The suit, filed in federal court in the Southern [...]
CNN: At least two confirmed tornadoes descended upon towns in western Massachusetts on Wednesday, leaving at least four dead and smashing homes and buildings across a 40-mile stretch, state officials and witnesses reported. One person was killed in Springfield, two in nearby Westfield and one in Brimfield, about 20 miles east, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick [...]
CSMonitor.com: House Republicans failed to pin down President Obama on plans to cut spending and rein in deficits during a meeting Wednesday. But at least some came away heartened by what they saw as a new openness by Mr. Obama to potential points of compromise. In the balance is not only the federal budget for [...]
Reuters: New York Congressman Anthony Weiner said on Wednesday that he did not send a lewd photo over his Twitter account but cannot be sure that the photo was not of him. “It certainly doesn’t look familiar to me, but I don’t want to say with certitude to you something that I don’t know to [...]
