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MONTREAL — In the basement of a public housing complex on the outskirts of downtown Montreal is a large walk-in freezer used solely to kill bed bugs. The freezer is a local solution to a problem that has been haunting the city for years and is not improving, says Melanie Sanche, head of sanitation for the public housing authority. As in many large North American cities, cases of bed bugs have exploded here in the past 10 to 15 years, and the problem is particularly acute in areas with transient populations such as students, as well as in districts with...

I doubt you could find a more apropos contrast than today with Donald Trump campaigning in Tampa Florida and Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, while the insufferable old GOPe represented by Mitt Romney hole up in an exclusive and indulgent mountain top enclave…. while decrying the audacity of the vulgarian insurgency. Here’s the ball cap clad blue collar businessman in Pennsylvania delivering a speech with his plane as the backdrop.  Think about it: “His Plane”, the result of his effort, his acumen, his work ethic and his determination.He’s effectively won the nomination.  The convention still a month away.  It’s mid June, and yet...

Donald Trump's outreach to Christians is bearing fruit, if results of the NBC News/Survey Monkey weekly online tracking poll out Tuesday are any indication. Among white evangelical Republican voters nationally, Trump earned the support of 37 percent, while Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, whose father is a pastor and has played a key role in recruiting faith leaders to support his son, is at 20 percent. In the same survey conducted the previous week, Cruz registered 9 percentage points higher. Below the top two contenders, Ben Carson earned 11 percent among evangelicals, and Marco Rubio took 10 percent. The Manhattan business...

Thanks to a label that reads “Product of the USA,” consumers have been able to find out a package of steaks or pork chops in the freezer section at their local grocery store came from America. But soon meat lovers will be hard-pressed to figure out whether the animals on their dinner plates were raised and slaughtered—in the States or halfway around the world.

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's now harder to find out where your beef or pork was born, raised and slaughtered.</p> <p>After more than a decade of wrangling, Congress repealed a labeling law last month that required retailers to include the animal's country of origin on packages of red meat. It's a major victory for the meat industry, which had fought the law in Congress and the courts since the early 2000s.</p>

NAPLES, FL - They're normally the guys locking people up for marijuana possession, but a group of current and former law enforcement officers will meet in Naples to push for people's right to get high. Not all law enforcement officers are on board, however. Legalizing marijuana, it's a hot-button issue in Florida. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition is pushing for the change to save taxpayer dollars and valuable resources. "Sixty-thousand people get arrested every year for marijuana possession. That's a waste of law-enforcement resources," said Ray Strack of LEAP. The group meets Thursday in Naples. The Florida Sheriff's Association is not...

<p>The World Trade Organization ruled Monday that Canada and Mexico can slap more than $1 billion in tariffs on U.S. goods in retaliation for meat labeling rules it says discriminated against Mexican and Canadian livestock.</p> <p>At issue were U.S. labels on packaged steaks and other cuts of meat that say where the animals were born, raised and slaughtered.</p>

The stars of Starz’s Ash vs Evil Dead – Bruce Campbell, Ray Santiago, Dana DeLorenzo, and Jill Marie Jones – walk the red carpet at the premiere held at the TCL Chines Theatre on Wednesday (October 28) in Hollywood. The show’s star Lucy Lawless was also there, as well as Black Sails‘ Zach McGowan, to celebrate the new series. In the highly anticipated series, Bruce reprises his role as Ash, the stock boy, aging lothario and chainsaw-handed monster hunter who has spent the last 30 years avoiding responsibility, maturity and the terrors of the Evil Dead. Catch the premiere on...

Barack Obama stands apart from other modern American Presidents in many ways. In addition to the obvious bi-racial background, he is the only President to win the Nobel Peace Prize in his first term, and the only one ever designated Advertising Age’s Marketer of the Year. Beyond such specific achievements is his ineffable appeal, the widespread view that he is the coolest President ever. This supernal coolness is not new. In his autobiography, Dreams From My Father, the President wrote that in his teenage years “I tried my best to be cool at all times” (p. 82). However, leaving aside...

Following in the footsteps of the record-setting cool air mass in mid-July, a second blast of air with polar origins will invade the eastern U.S. to close July. Like the original, the sequel will be glorious. This taste of September may not be quite as strong mid-July’s version, but should produce temperatures 10-20 degrees below normal across a large swath of the eastern U.S. by early Tuesday.

THIS AMAZING VIDEO from the Gaza-based Watania news agency shows Israel’s controversial ‘knock on the roof’ air-strike warning in action. The video demonstrates how a small missile strikes the house across the road from where the footage was captured. This is a warning that the house has been targeted for an air-strike. About 15 minutes later the house is completely destroyed by two separate bombs from what the agency says was two F16 fighter planes. Most of this fifteen minute period is edited out of the video. Rubble and debris are thrown into the air but when the dust clears...

X DARPA Director & Google Exec Pushes Microchipping Human Beings

In truth, the most salient fact of contemporary Catholic life in the West is the way it is pervaded by the pattern of saying things and then acting as if something else were true. (I’m learning, slowly. Everything below that is sarcasm or the voice of a liar, heretic or apostate is in GREEN.) Indeed. This sentence, penned earlier this week by a secular columnist almost sums up what pretty much everyone is too cowardly to say. In fact, it is the base premise underlying the derivative statement above that is the real 800 pound gorilla sitting squarely in the...

Who are the REAL kings (and queens) of cool? National Portrait Gallery runs exhibition of the 100 coolest Americans, Elvis, Frank Sinatra and Debbie HarryYears after they first made their mark Steve McQueen, Frank Sinatra, Madonna and Blondie are all still hip enough to have earned a place in the top 100 coolest Americans. The 'American Cool' exhibit is currently on show at the National Portrait Gallery, in Washington, D.C. America, until 7 September. Included in the exhibit are the likes of jazz musicians such as Miles Davis and Billie Holiday, actors such as Johnny Depp, and singers such as...

Murderer first to be executed with controversial 'air hunger' drug after last meal of beef, ice cream and chicken (rest of title) 'One can scarcely conceive of a sequence of crimes more shocking to the conscience or to moral sensibilities than the senseless kidnapping and rape of a young, pregnant woman followed by her murder,

Full Title: The Cool Pastor: An Oxymoron or Just a Regular Moron? The ‘cool’ factor attempts to copy the world and really isn’t cool _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I had to do a double-take when I saw the tour bus.There it was, idling softly in the parking lot, with the pastor’s name and newest book title emblazoned large–in bright yellow letters–across either side. Being advertised on that conspicuous rolling billboard was a “special evening,” (no doubt repeated dozens of times in select cities across the nation) with the newest “it” pastor.His similitude to a rock star was highly intentional. Autograph sessions would soon...

The president visited the Pathways in Technology Early College High School in Crown HeightsPresident Barack Obama praised Brooklyn on Friday for being forever "cool" and noted that it has drawn generations of immigrants seeking better opportunities, which he said should inspire the nation's approach to education. Obama spoke at the Pathways in Technology Early College High School, known as P-Tech, which he praised for graduating students with a high school diploma and an associates degree. The school opened in 2011 in a rough stretch of Crown Heights. "What's going on here at P-Tech is outstanding, and I'm excited to see...

Beachgoers in South America can have a cold Coke and a smile, but unlike other consumers of the world's most popular soft drink, they can drink it directly from a bottle made entirely of ice. The Atlanta-based company says the “cold to the last drop” bottles "continue to make quite a splash in Colombia and throughout the advertising world." Indeed, the cool marketing ploy, began this year, has won Coca-Cola several awards. How does it work?

Explanation: While drifting through the cosmos, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud became sculpted by stellar winds and radiation to assume a recognizable shape. Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is embedded in the vast and complex Orion Nebula (M42). A potentially rewarding but difficult object to view personally with a small telescope, the above gorgeously detailed image was recently taken in infrared light by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope in honor of the 23rd anniversary of Hubble's launch. The dark molecular cloud, roughly 1,500 light years distant, is cataloged as Barnard 33 and is seen above primarily because it is...

Here’s a look at the numbers: The U.S. firearms industry's economic impact is $32 billion. To put that in perspective, that’s about the same size as the U.S. organic industry and more than the budget of Nigeria. It’s grown from a $19 billion business in 2008 and appears to be accelerating at a quick clip. Background checks for gun buyers increased nearly 60% from December 2011 to December 2012. The FBI has already recorded 16.5 million background checks from Jan. 1, 2012 to November 2012 – the most on record. There are 51,000 gun shops in America, according to the...