newsdesk.org: Nation Archives

A Big Year for (Democratic) Drug Deals

The pharmaceutical industry spent $168 million lobbying Congress in 2007 -- a record sum that helped influence legislation and prevented...

Philly Police Raid Raises Hackles

After four residents of a North Philadelphia home passed out petitions criticizing surveillance cameras in the neighborhood, police raided their...

Pa. Militia Allegedly Threatens Blacks, Candidates

A self-professed militia member in Pennsylvania has allegedly threatened to shoot African Americans and public officials, and said that if...

When is 'Voter Fraud' a Fraud?

Willie Ray, a Texas grandmother and Democrat, says had been helping elderly shut-ins to vote for years when she was...

Will Pond Scum Save the Planet?

With corn-based fuels being blamed for the global food crisis, biofuel supporters are looking for non-food crops to be the...

Local Music Thrills to New Community Radio

A new, noncommercial FM radio station -- one of the first to be approved nationwide in 15 years -- is...

Where'd All the Dead Bodies Go?

You might think that if there's one product that will never be in short supply, it's dead bodies. Though there's...

Olympic Stadium Mobile Home

The Olympic Torch makes a world tour, why not an Olympic stadium? The Guardian is reporting that organizers of the...

Household-Name Republican Fighting for Her Political Life

With congressional elections coming up this fall, many Republican incumbents are looking vulnerable even in states where their party previously...

New Wind-Power Projects Becalmed

With oil prices setting new highs nearly every day, wind power is getting another look. But, like most weather reports,...

Where Have all the Songbirds Gone?

Songbirds fly thousands of miles to return to the northern hemisphere every spring, just as regularly as the sun comes...

Look, up in the Sky! Urban Farming Puts Down Roots

UPDATE: According to the Las Vegas Sun, the NextEnergryNews story about a proposed agricultural skyscraper in Las Vegas is not...

Not Your Father's Hate Groups

A national survey has found the number of active hate groups in the United States has increased by 48 percent...

Global Warming: Something to Sneeze at

As if deadlier storms, new diseases, compromised agriculture, rising sea levels and endangered polar bears weren't enough to worry about,...

Rhode Island: Secrecy Affirmed for Cable TV

Rhode Island's lead cable TV regulator has agreed to keep secret previously open data about the business operations of the...

An Investor's Guide to Presidential Candidates

Pondering a donation to a presidential candidate? Looking for the right choice given the needs of your special-interest group? Friends...

Windmills and Foul Air in the Navajo Nation

To much environmentalist acclaim, the Navajo Nation has announced plans to create a new wind-power plant on a reservation in...

U.S. Guest Workers Kept Like "Pigs in a Cage"

Almost 100 Indian guest workers at a Mississippi shipyard stormed off from their jobs one day earlier this month, claiming...

Who Wants to Buy a President?

Bucking the trend of "horse race" campaign coverage, the Center for Public Integrity's latest edition of "The Buying of the...

Hunting Animals Who Hunt Humans

With mountain lion attacks are on the rise in rural Washington, and many residents feel the answer is more hunting....

News Outlet Seeks Reader Donations to Fund Iraq Trip

An Oregon news service has come up with an unusual way to help pay for a reporter's trip to Iraq:...

Short-Changed by the Labels? Musicians Dispute Napster Settlement

The recording industry may have netted hundreds of millions of dollars in settlement money from lawsuits targeting Napster, Kazaa and...

Infants and International Incidents

With regulations tightening in China, Western couples are increasingly looking to Vietnam for overseas adoptions. But the trend is creating...

Radiation on the Reservation

As the market booms for uranium mining in the American West, a Seattle newspaper took a new look at what...

A "Complicated Truth" About Obama Donations

Although Barack Obama has publicly disavowed campaign donations from lobbyists, the candidate, along with his rival Hillary Clinton, has received...

Wikileaks Shutdown Thwarted

Infoworld technology guru Robert X. Cringley said the attempted shutdown of the Wikileaks Web site by a U.S. judge at...

Wealth Gap Widens in Silicon Valley

The information economy may be firing on all cylinders, but in Silicon Valley more than 60,000 "midwage" jobs -- defined...

"Dodgy Collateral" Fuels New Bank Borrowing

U.S. banks have borrowed almost $50 billion in the last month from the Federal Reserve, using an expanded government program...

Great Lakes Toxics Data Suppressed?

Millions of people in the Great Lakes region may face health problems from toxic pollution, but a study on the...

New York Targets Nonprofit Fraud

New York City investigators are looking into more than 30 cases of potential nonprofit fraud, the New York Post reports....

Housing Crash Takes Down Renters, Too

Among the 11,000 San Francisco Bay Area homes repossessed in 2007 are hidden statistics -- the number of renters quickly...

Sea Cow Stymies Navy's Okinawa Plan

The endangered dugong, a type of "sea cow" similar to Florida's manatee, threatens to put the brakes on a huge...

Erosion Takes a Toxic Toll in Alaska

It has been widely reported that global warming threatens to sweep scores of coastal Alaskan towns into the sea. Now,...

California Marijuana Law Takes a Hit

The California State Supreme Court found that employers can fire workers for using doctor-approved marijuana, despite a voter-approved state law...

Transplant Shortage Hits Minorities

Doctors all over the world are having difficulty finding matching donors for bone marrow transplants - a lifesaving operation for...

Free After 20 Years on Death Row

A Scottish man who spent 20 years on Ohio's death row has been freed following a new plea. Kenny Richey...

Iraqi Officers AWOL in U.S.

At least five and as many as a dozen Iraqi officials have deserted U.S.-based military training, and are at large...

Corruption Roils Alaska Politics

With two oil executives headed to jail for giving hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal payments and "benefits" to...

A Man, a Dam and a Salmon Plan

A federal judge has rebuked the government for its latest plan to restore salmon runs along the Columbia and Snake...

Here Comes the Flood

Heavy weather the world over is raising concerns about the potential of a flood-prone future, and what that means for...

Data Snooping and its Discontents

The limits of data privacy are being tested in Western democracies, as governments and corporations push for greater access with...

Families Asunder over International Adoption Woes

Several countries are tightening their adoption laws to avoid kidnapping scandals, such as the recent confrontation in Chad over a...

No Safe Haven: Oklahoma Shuts out Illegal Immigrants

A new Oklahoma law targeting undocumented workers is among the most punitive in the nation, making it illegal to "hire,...

FCC Tries to Sneak Through Looser Media Rules, Protesters Say

Among the 200 people who signed up to speak at an FCC hearing on media consolidation in Seattle last week...

Anti-Gay Russian Churches Growing in U.S.

The beating death of a gay man by a group of Russian-speaking men in Sacramento this summer highlighted the growing...

The Persistence of Rendition

When President Bush publicly acknowledged the existence of secret CIA jails, he also said they would be vacated -- temporarily....

Whistle-Blowers Muted by Bureaucracy

Whether speaking out about violations of national security or tainted meat, precious few government employees receive protection for their whistle-blowing...

Activists Seek Labels for Biotech Foods

Environmental groups in the U.S. and abroad continue to argue that food products containing genetically modified ingredients ought to be...

Offshoring Meets "Onshoring" in the Quest for Cheap Labor

Some major American companies like Northrop Grumman and IBM are finding they can save money by keeping their IT and...

Wildfires in Context: Why California Must Burn (reprise)

As the flames spread through San Diego County, Newsdesk.org looks back at our 2004 article on California wildfire ecology, why...

U.S. Leads in Weapons Trade -- For Now

The United States still dominates the global arms trade, but its modus operandi has come under increased scrutiny, even as...

Genocide Resolution a Threat to Turkey's Jews?

Turkey's Foreign Minister issued a cryptically threatening remark in response to a non-binding resolution before the U.S. Congress that would...

Inter-Agency Spying a U.S. "Intelligence Nightmare"

A Marine at San Diego's Camp Pendleton pleaded guilty to passing top secret documents along to L.A. police and counterterrorism...

The Death Sentence on Trial?

Support for capital punishment may be on the wane, as the Supreme Court ponders a Kentucky case that pivots on...

Day Labor Camp Divides in Texas

A Christian church in Houston is part of an interfaith coalition that has drawn the ire of anti-immigration activists by...

Agribusiness Gets Another Record Harvest -- of Subsidies

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the latest federal farm bill would spend $280 billion on traditional subsidies for corn,...

Labor Day Highlights Immigrant Dilemma

This Labor Day, different corners of America were confronted with fallout from the debate over illegal immigration and the jobs...

The FBI's Just a Mouseclick Away

New details on the FBI's domestic wiretapping program reveal it to be far more technologically sophisticated than experts believed. FBI...

Thousands Still Sick from Cold War Radiation

Government records show 36,500 Americans were sickened from exposure to uranium, plutonium and beryllium since 1945, most from building or...

Mexico's Drug War Crosses Borders

Driven by America's insatiable appetite for cocaine, marijuana and other narcotics, Mexican drug cartels have increasingly transformed U.S. border towns...

Hate Crimes and the Homeless

Violent street attacks on the homeless have multiplied across America in recent years, prompting lawmakers in six states, including California,...

Security State's Brave New Tech

The U.S. and Britain have been developing elaborate new tools to identify and subdue would-be terrorists at home and abroad....

Your Words Betray You

Marc Shultz couldn't quite recall what he brought into the coffeeshop that Saturday morning, the day the last Harry Potter...

For a Soldier's Father, Deportation

When Pfc. Armando Soriano was killed in Iraq, his mother benefited from a loophole on immigration law that allows soldiers'...

Democratic Congress: A High Pork Diet

A report from the Center for Investigative Reporting exposes the hypocrisy of Democratic claims that the $463.5-billion spending bill they...

Schwarzenegger: on the Wings of Charity

Government watchdogs are concerned that a shadowy nonprofit that finances Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's lavish international trips may also allow special...

Minimum Wage An Elusive Promise

South Africa introduced its first-ever minimum wage July 1 in a bid to improve the state of its hospitality industry,...

A Photo-Free NYC

A post-9/11 requirement that tourists and other casual photographers get a permit before taking pictures in New York City has...

Polygamy Bans Proliferate Everywhere But ...

Utah reckons it's home to thousands of polygamists, all following their interpretation of Mormon religious teachings, but in contravention of...

Homophobia, as a Policy, Gets Personal

Intolerance of gays and lesbians worldwide seems to be digging in, as the public and private lives of homosexuals come...

Civil Rights, Security, and One Man's Solution

Even as President George W. Bush authorized a controversial plan to centralize government powers in the White House following any...

Lupus Linked to Petroleum Exposure

Scientists in Boston and New Mexico have shown that exposure to petroleum is linked to the deadly auto-immune disease lupus....

Newspapers Sell the Farm, Give up the Goat

Across the country, falling newspaper circulation and the flight of ad dollars to the Web have caused publishers to fire...

Little Progress for Gun Opponents

Lawmakers raced to propose tougher gun control laws following the Virginia Tech and Montreal school shootings, but each has drawn...

Domestic Spying Expansion Would Exonerate AT&T

The Justice Department wants to further loosen domestic spying laws under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to permit the monitoring...

Packed Into Prisons, With No Relief in Sight

Crowded jails from the Mexican border to North Carolina have prisoners packed into cells, sleeping in day rooms and struggling...

Affirmative Action Foe Has New Targets

The man who led a successful 1996 ballot-initiative campaign to ban affirmative action in California is turning his attention to...

Between America and Mexico, a Broken Border

A heavy crackdown in immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border has resulted in more arrests, but has not deterred Mexicans from...

The EPA Under Pressure

The Environmental Protection Agency has come under fire from activists and state officials for not enforcing laws to protect the...

Unions, Schools Tackle Outsourcing Boom

Enrollment is down at computer engineering schools because of a perception that IT jobs can all be outsourced to India....

Conflict of Interest Claims Follow Feinstein

Senator Dianne Feinstein has resigned as chair of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, where she served from 2001 to 2005....

Immigration Officials in the Spotlight

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency's "Operation Return to Sender" has arrested 18,000 undocumented immigrants since June, provoking an inquiry...

Muslim Discrimination, From Massachusetts to Mindanao

Four Muslim truck drivers for FedEx in Massachusetts are suing over claims that upper management ignored racist verbal abuse and...

Immigrant Labor: California's Undocumented Economy

The coastside town of Pescadero worries that new immigrant restrictions will stifle the economy, and cost its schools as much...

Nation: Jan. 18-24

Redwood Protections Run Deep Protections woven into the deeds on 200,000 acres of old-growth redwood trees in Northern California may...