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Fewer Americans Content with Speaker PelosiJuly 02, 2009 (Angus Reid Global Monitor) - The approval rating of House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi has significantly slipped in the United States, according to a poll by TNS released by the Washington Post and ABC News. 38 per cent of respondents approve of Pelosi’s performance, down 15 points since April 2007. American voters renewed the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate in November 2006. In January 2007, the Democratic Party took control of the lower house for the first time since 1994, with 233 lawmakers. Pelosi, a Democratic California congresswoman,...

KANSAS CITY, MO—Matt J. Whitworth, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Bucyrus, Kan., woman pleaded guilty in federal court today to her role in a wire fraud conspiracy related to a scheme between two women who hired a man to physically and sexually assault them. The women were hoping to force a higher settlement of their sexual harassment lawsuit against a former employer. Julie R. Bernet, 39, of Bucyrus, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Ortrie D. Smith this morning to the charge contained in a Feb. 4, 2009, federal indictment. Bernet admitted...

Turkey attacks China 'genocide' In Istanbul, Turkish protesters burned the Chinese flag at a rally Turkey's prime minister has described ethnic violence in China's Xinjiang region as "a kind of genocide". "There is no other way of commenting on this event," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. He spoke after a night-time curfew was reimposed in Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, where Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese clashed last Sunday. The death toll from the violence there has now risen from 156 to 184, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reports. More than 1,000 people were injured. Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country, shares linguistic and...

WASHINGTON, July 10, 2009 – Afghan and coalition forces detained several suspected militants yesterday during operations to disrupt Haqqani terrorist network activity in Afghanistan, military officials reported. Afghan and coalition forces searched two compounds last night in Khowst province in an effort to disrupt the flow of weapons, suicide bombers and foreign fighters into the region. The force detained six suspected militants, including two suspected Haqqani commanders. One of the commanders is believed to be involved with rocket attacks against the Kuchi tribe and the smuggling of weapons, suicide bombers and foreign fighters into Afghanistan. The force also confiscated two...

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POQUOSON -- A 22-year-old woman is accused of having sex with two teen brothers she was caring for last July. A family friend says that would be out of character for Ariel Monroe, who was 21 at the time. Poquoson authorities claim the incidents occurred at a Poquoson Avenue home she no longer lives in. The investigation started when the teens’ parents talked with police. Monroe faces two counts each of taking indecent liberties with a child, having carnal knowledge of a juvenile and contributing to the delinquency of a minor by having consensual sex with someone 15-years-old or younger....

The news of Sarah Palin not only not seeking re-election, but resigning from office at this time (actually later this month so that her Lt. Governor can not only serve out her term, but can run for two terms of his own) shook the media and political worlds (knocking Michael Jackson out of first place, and Mark Sanford clear out of the park). Pundits from the Democratic side, as well as the major media, expectedly, piled on and condemned her move as leaving her job undone, QUITTING under pressure, unable to take the political heat, and committing political suicide. However,...

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the health-care reform bill now pending in Congress would garner very few votes if lawmakers actually had to read the entire bill before voting on it. “If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes,” Hoyer told CNSNews.com at his regular weekly news conference. Hoyer was responding to a question from CNSNews.com on whether he supported a pledge that asks members of the Congress to read the entire bill before voting on it and also...

BAGHDAD, July 10, 2009 – Army Spc. Russell Madden crunches numbers, but not just any numbers. He makes sure the important figures on his computer screen translate into mission-essential equipment, and sees that it gets to the proper places in a safe and hasty manner, and he keeps track of sensitive items. Army Spc. Russell Madden, 46th Engineer Combat Battalion, 225th Engineer Brigade, goes over a sensitive-items inventory sheet, July 8, 2009. Madden received his battalion’s first battlefield promotion during his deployment to Multinational Division Baghdad. U.S. Army photo by 1st Lt. Janeene Yarber  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available....

Sarah Palin's rambling abdication speech was hard to follow, let alone acclaim, but in her abrupt announcement that she is withdrawing from public office, the Republican governor of Alaska was hardly the only player in a 10-month drama who demonstrated a lack of self-awareness. Democrats scoffed at her "politics of personal destruction" line, but it's a maxim they originally popularized, and one they will undoubtedly trot out again the next time it happens to one of their own. But the true villains in this political morality play may have been the press.

Lunch with the FT: Larry Summers By Chrystia Freeland July 10 2009 Larry Summers, director of the US president’s National Economic Council, usually eats at his White House desk or sitting around a nearby table with other members of the economic team. But today, for Lunch with the FT, Summers’ aides have persuaded him to walk down the stairs to the Ward Room, a windowless alcove near the White House mess. The dark-wood panelling and nautically themed paintings are meant to evoke a naval officer’s dining room but these grace notes are muted by the plastic cutlery, paper plates and...

CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE BASRA, Iraq, July 10, 2009 – Army Pfc. Dustin Clark was manning the night shift when he heard the warning system go off. Army Pfc. Dustin Clark calibrates the sights on a radar system at Contingency Operating Base Basra, Iraq, June 28, 2009. Clark and other members of Echo Battery, 4th Battalion, 5th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, out of Fort Hood, Texas, detect mortar and rocket attacks. U.S. Army photo by Pfc. J. Princeville Lawrence  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Clark -- a counter rocket, artillery and mortar, or C-RAM, systems operator -- has watched the...

Fifteen years after the end of the Cold War, many remain surprised that a coalition of states has not formed to balance the power of the United States. Authors such as Randall L. Schweller of Ohio State University continue to offer theories towards explaining the supposed state of affairs and attribute much of the unbalance to domestic political factors that discourage the necessary efforts to ultimately challenge American primacy. But the last decade has witnessed something quite different as two powerful states have emerged to present the fist post-Cold War challenge to a United States centered unipolar world. Both Russia...

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, whose bilious hatred of conservatives and Republicans oozes from every proverbial pore of his spirit, had some interesting things to say yesterday about these objects of his daily derision. Specifically, he cited conservatives’ “pervasive immorality and holier-than-thou hypocrisy” as the wellspring of “the reeking pile of manure that is the right wing media and right wing commentary.” “The right wing,” Olbermann added, “thinks that the only thing that might ever interest a voter about a woman is sex”—an assertion that led him to conclude, quite logically, that such primitive sexism “certainly would explain why the GOP nominated...

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, July 10, 2009 – Airmen here hit a major milestone July 8 when they completed their 2,000th combat mission in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jose Rodriguez, right, assists Air Force Staff Sgt. Andres Jaramillo in securing bolts during a function check on the EC-130 Compass Call at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, July 6, 2009. Both are members of the 41st Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Unit and are deployed from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Felicia Juenke   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. An EC-130H Compass Call...

....Peel away that thin layer of overt partisan spin, however, and it becomes clear that unease related to Franken's legendary personal baggage remains as strong as ever. Worse, his recent words and actions have generated new anger, this time from the left. Leading the charge on that front is MSNBC / syndicated radio libtalker Ed Schultz, who has been outspoken this week in airing grievances against a politician whose candidacy he strongly supported. Schultz believes Franken has already sold out his beliefs in exchange for Beltway-style good 'ol boys acceptance. From Tuesday's radio program, here's the exclusive audio and transcript:...

WASHINGTON, July 10, 2009 – To honor the military and provide a little fun and excitement over the summer months, the rock group Def Leppard and Raven Drum Foundation have started giving away 100 free concert tickets to military members and veterans with military ID for each show in the 2009 Def Leppard summer concert tour. Military members and veterans with military ID can get free tickets for rock band Def Leppard’s summer concert tour. Band members, left to right, are Rick Savage, Phil Collen, Joe Elliott, Rick Allen and Vivian Campbell. Courtesy photo by Andrew MacPherson   (Click photo for...

Obama’s visit to fort a ‘full-circle experience’ Ghana's coastal castle was departure point for African slaves On Saturday, President Barack Obama and his family will visit this coastal castle in Ghana that was Britain's West Africa headquarters for the shipment of millions of slaves to Europe and America. July 10, 2009 CAPE COAST, Ghana - From the rampart of a whitewashed fort once used to ship countless slaves from Africa to the Americas, Cheryl Hardin gazed through watery eyes at the route forcibly taken across the sea by her ancestors centuries before. "It never gets any easier," the 48-year-old pediatrician...

McLEAN, Va. - The Bureau of Prisons says it reversed course months ago to allow some of the country's most dangerous prisoners to read two books written by President Barack Obama. Court papers filed Thursday show that prison officials twice rejected requests by inmate Ahmed Omar Abu Ali to read "Dreams from my Father" and "The Audacity of Hope."

On the heels of his discovery in Montana of the first trace fossil of a dinosaur burrow, Emory University paleontologist Anthony Martin has found evidence of more dinosaur burrows – this time on the other side of the world, in Victoria, Australia. The find, to be published this month in Cretaceous Research, suggests that burrowing behaviors were shared by dinosaurs of different species, in different hemispheres, and spanned millions of years during the Cretaceous Period, when some dinosaurs lived in polar environments. "This research helps us to better understand long-term geologic change, and how organisms may have adapted as the...