It has been more than 20 years since a majority of Americans said they were satisfied with the direction of their country, a period that covers the presidencies of two Republicans and two Democrats. The last time a majority of Americans had a favorable view of the Democratic Party was in August 2009. The Republicans? Except for one poll in January 2020, no majority favorable since April 2005.   read more

Plans to build a 709-megawatt solar farm in the Southern California desert have hit a snag after a Native American tribe sued the U.S. government to stop development of the project from proceeding. In its lawsuit directed at the U.S. Department ...   read more

Infant survivors of the Biafra famine in Nigeria during the late 1960s are more likely to be obese and susceptible to certain health problems than other Nigerians, according to a new study published omline by PLoS One. Researchers from the Karol...   read more

Offering what he says may be the first of its kind in the nation, sociology professor Mathieu Deflem of the University of South Carolina plans to teach a course next spring on Lady Gaga that will seek to explain the success of the mega pop star....   read more

In the midst of the political upheaval resulting from the 2010 Congressional election, one aspect that may be overlooked is the extremely unrepresentative nature of the new Senate. Although African-Americans account for 12.9% of the U.S. populat...   read more

Officials in Virginia are upset with the Department of Homeland Security over its refusal to release the results of an investigation into a drunk-driving homicide involving an illegal immigrant and a Catholic nun.   In August, Carlos Martinell...   read more

When the libertarian group Institute for Justice was asked by a New York Times reporter for a copy of its friends-of-the-court brief in the First Amendment case of Siobhan Reynolds, it had to decline, citing the fact that the document had been s...   read more

The U.S. Air Force has warned personnel in Germany about the risk of new Facebook application that can reveal a user’s whereabouts, claiming the application’s features could pose a security risk. “Places I check in to” and “People Here Now” use ...   read more

Google is suing the Department of the Interior, claiming it was unable to compete for an email and messaging contract due to restrictions involving Microsoft software. The Interior Department asked in August for bids from companies to devise a s...   read more

An unnamed school-hearing officer from Ohio thought he was in the clear in 1997 when his criminal record was expunged of a drug trafficking conviction from 1976, clearing the way for his employment with the Cincinnati school system. But when the...   read more

Five of the six top individual contributors this election season have given to one political action committee—American Crossroads—which Republican strategist Karl Rove helped launch to get conservative candidates elected to office.   According...   read more

The majority of the top non-party-affiliated spenders this election cycle have provided no information on the source of their campaign war-chests, according to Public Citizen. These groups have spent millions, and in some cases tens of millions ...   read more

California is not the place to be for Latinos and African-Americans who use marijuana. In city after city, these two minorities have been subject to disproportionately high levels of arrest and prosecution, according to studies produced by the D...   read more

More than 40 physicians have earned at least $200,000 since 2009 by moonlighting for the pharmaceutical industry, giving speeches to doctors about the wonders of a company’s drugs. These findings come from ProPublica, which gathered disclosure d...   read more

It wasn’t the biggest rally Washington, DC, has ever witnessed, but it did set a Saturday record for ridership on the Metro, the city’s underground and aboveground rail system. The event, known as the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, was put...   read more

Claiming that fighting terrorism is more important than protecting human rights, President Barack Obama has allowed four countries to continue receiving U.S. military aid even though they use child soldiers. The decision was made at the same tim...   read more

Oil companies and manufacturers are fighting new rules from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that require businesses to submit data on the amount of air pollution they release into the atmosphere. The EPA intends to publish the det...   read more