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WASHINGTON — House lawmakers on Thursday blasted a White House decision not to provide money next fiscal year for upgrades to combat-worn equipment, and promised a fight to put billions back into the defense budget. The House version of the fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill already contains about $20 billion for the repair of equipment worn down by desert conditions and purchase of new gear to replace items destroyed in combat. About $11 billion of the total is for the Army alone. But that’s down more than $2 billion from previous years’ requests, and doesn’t include any funds for things...

CHICAGO—A Downers Grove man who purported to offer financial investment services to the public was indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly engaging in a two-year Ponzi scheme that resulted in losses totaling approximately $3.5 million when it collapsed last month. The indictment alleges that David J. Hernandez fraudulently induced some 290 victims to invest approximately $12 million through his business, NextStep Financial Services, Inc., and several related companies. Hernandez was charged with four counts of mail fraud in an indictment that was returned late yesterday and announced today by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern...

GREENBELT, MD—U.S. District Judge Roger W. Titus sentenced Kurt Fordham, age 39, of Ft. Washington, Maryland, today to 10 years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release for conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud in connection with a mortgage fraud scheme that falsely promised to help homeowners facing foreclosure keep their homes and repair their damaged credit, announced United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein. Judge Titus also ordered Fordham to pay restitution of $13,131,287.63, and forfeit three residential properties in Oxon Hill, Capitol Heights and Laurel, Maryland, and three vehicles. According to...

Dairy farmers in Northeast Wisconsin are feeling the pain at the pump...the milk pump that is. Mark Petersen, a third generation farmer ... tells that prices for his milk have plummeted on the market, and he's really feeling the pinch. Petersen says he's only getting around ten dollars per hundred pounds of milk produced right now. He was getting 20 dollars per hundred pounds not too long ago. And his operational costs exceed his revenue. Not good, of course. consumers have seen milk prices at the store come down, but it's not proportionate to what farmers are losing.

BATON ROUGE, LA—United States Attorney David R. Dugas announced that two more Louisiana residents pled guilty in federal court yesterday to fraud charges related to hurricane disaster relief programs. CHERYL M. TAYLOR, age 48, of Greensburg, Louisiana, pled guilty yesterday to a bill of information charging her with forgery against the United States, in violation of 18 United States Code, Section 495. According to the stipulated factual basis in the plea agreement, TAYLOR altered the face of a U.S. Treasury check that had been made out to her for disaster relief benefits in the amount of $1,425 so that it...

Furloughed and fired up, California's largest state employee union announced on Friday it would ask its 95,000 members to authorize a potential strike. Officials with the Service Employees International Union Local 1000 said the union's executive council has approved putting the question to a vote. The union will ask members whether they want to fight further pay cuts. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the state's $26 billion deficit has taken a toll on everyone, from state workers to taxpayers. He asked state workers for their patience. "As soon as our economy comes back ... then we can go and again put...

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration built an unprecedented surveillance operation to pull in mountains of information far beyond the warrantless wiretapping previously acknowledged, a team of federal inspectors general reported Friday, questioning the legal basis for the effort but shielding almost all details on grounds they're still too secret to reveal. The report, compiled by five inspectors general, refers to "unprecedented collection activities" by U.S. intelligence agencies under an executive order signed by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Just what those activities involved remains classified, but the IGs pointedly say that any continued use...

The Massachusetts law, which was championed by former GOP Governor Mitt Romney, imposed an individual mandate, requiring nearly all residents to buy health insurance or else pay a penalty. (The exceptions are those who qualify for the state's public program.) This was supposed to cover everybody and save money too. We've written before about how costs have exploded, but it also turns out that consumers have other ideas.

]-->Army Sgt. Jennifer Watson, non-commissioned officer-in-charge of the Casualty Liaison Team at Joint Base Balad, stands in Hero's Highway. Each patient brought via helicopter to the Air Force Theater Hospital passes through Hero's Highway. Watson, a native of Peru, Ind., is deployed here from Fort Campbell, Ky. Photo by Staff Sgt. Dilia Ayala, 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing. JOINT BASE BALAD — The emergency-room trauma call and the medical staff's immediate action upon his arrival is only a memory to her now; sitting quietly at the bedside of her brother-in-arms, she carefully takes his hand, thanking him for his service and...

TRENT YOUNG, 41, a New York City police officer, pled guilty yesterday afternoon before United States District Judge KENNETH M. KARAS in federal court in White Plains, New York, to transporting three different minors across state lines for purposes of engaging in illegal sexual activity. According to the Indictment to which YOUNG pled guilty and statements made in filings and Court proceedings: Around April 2003, YOUNG drove a 14-year-old minor from her home in Brooklyn, New York, to his home in Middletown, traveling through New Jersey, and engaged in sexual intercourse with her. In spring 2006, YOUNG, who operated a...

I had to run all over the place to find models today, sometimes it's like that. The weather is still cooler than usual, that's a good thing!

Press Releases Contact: Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami 202-226-7616 For Immediate Release 07/10/2009 Pelosi Statement in Response to Inspectors General Report on President Bush’s Warrantless Surveillance Program Washington, D.C. -- Speaker Pelosi issued the following statement today in response to a report by the Inspectors General of the Departments of Defense and Justice, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Office of the Director National Intelligence on President Bush’s warrantless surveillance program: “The Inspectors General FISA report brings to light the disturbing facts and circumstances surrounding President Bush’s warrantless surveillance program. Particularly disturbing was the observation of former Deputy...

THE air force's new-generation Super Hornet fighters will be fully operational by the end of next year, prompting speculation whether they could be deployed to Afghanistan. As the Dutch are due to withdraw their F-16 fighters from Oruzgan province later next year, the Rudd government is expected to examine the option of deploying combat air power to support coalition operations. Air force chief Mark Binskin said yesterday that, although there was not a plan to deploy fast jets to Afghanistan, the RAAF could deploy either the new Super Hornet or the older generation F/A-18s, which will remain in service until...

Friday, July 10, 2009 Email a Friend Email to a Friend ShareThis Advertisement The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 30% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-seven percent (37%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –7 (see trends). The Rasmussen Consumer Index shows that consumer confidence is down again on Friday. That’s the sixth straight daily decline and confidence is now at the lowest level since mid-March. Just 8% rate the economy as good or excellent while 62%...

Spc. Anthony Wilson, 1st Cavalry Division, instructs two Iraqi Army Soldiers on their new single channel ground and airborne radio system on Forward Operating Base Marez, July 8. Photo by Pfc. Sharla Perrin, 1st Cavalry Division. MOSUL — Coalition forces throughout Ninewa are continuing to support their Iraqi Security Force counterparts through integrated training events such as marksmanship and radio communications. Troops with the 1st Cavalry Division’s operations section trained an Iraqi Army (IA) communications team on the installation and operation of their new vehicle radio communication systems on Forward Operating Base Marez, July 8.The single channel ground and airborne...

Without a Doubt Why Barack Obama represents American Catholics better than the pope does. By Kathleen Kennedy Townsend Jul 9, 2009 Tomorrow Pope Benedict XVI and President Barack Obama meet for the first time, an affair much anticipated and in some circles frowned upon by American Catholics in the wake of Obama's controversial Notre Dame commencement speech in May. Conservatives in the church denounced Obama's appearance as a nod by the premier Catholic university to a conciliatory politics that heralds the start of a slippery moral slope.

LUBBOCK, TX—U.S. District Judge Sam R. Cummings sentenced Danny Randell Lott, 46, of Abilene, Texas, to 108 months in prison, following Lott’s guilty plea in April to one count of interstate receipt of child pornography, announced Acting U.S. Attorney James T. Jacks of the Northern District of Texas. In addition, Judge Cummings ordered that Lott serve a life term of supervised release and register as a sex offender. On September 17, 2008, Lott was indicted in this case on four counts of receipt of child pornography, one count of receipt of child obscenity, and one count of possession of child...

ZAPATA COUNTY - Zapata County residents say their backyards are becoming the new stomping grounds for organized crime. "No one should be living here. As bad as it is, no one should be living here," says Angie Botello, who lives in San Ygnacio. The historic town sits on the river's edge in the rolling brush lands of Zapata County. Angie Botello is another one of the 800 people who call San Ygnacio home. She tells us, "There's a lot of smuggling that goes on here. A lot of people that cross all the time. All kinds of drugs. A lot...

7/10/2009 - MALMSTROM AIR FORCE BASE, Mont. (AFNS) -- Two members of the 341st Maintenance Operations Squadron rescued a resident of Belt, Mont., June 26 after his pickup struck a bridge, caught fire, left the road and came to a stop upside down in Belt Creek in Montana. Senior Airmen Christopher Zachary and Kyle Long where driving on Hughsville Road near Monarch when they stopped to tighten their truck's topper that shifted while driving over the dirt road's washboard surface. "We were just finishing up with the topper when he drove past us," Airman Zachary said. "It was a combination...

Would Congress ever pass legislation that would allow the executive to determine at its own discretion whether political opponents had crossed the line into domestic terrorists and build camps in which to keep them? Sounds like something out of 20th-century totalitarian systems or dystopian fiction. Mark Tapscott says it’s not fiction , and he warns readers about an effort by Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) to do just that: Rep. Alcee Hastings - the impeached Florida judge Nancy Pelosi tried to install as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee until her own party members rebelled - introduced an amendment to the...