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BELLEVUE, Wash., Jun 17, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, newly-elected president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, will be using his new position to push an anti-gun agenda at a White House meeting planned later this summer, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms warned today. "Greg Nickels knows he will find a sympathetic ear in the Oval Office for his illegal gun control scheme," said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. "Like Barack Obama, Mayor Nickels is an opponent of legal concealed carry, and he desperately wants the authority to unilaterally ban the lawful...

Federal drug regulators warned consumers to stop using Zicam, a popular homeopathic cold remedy, because it could damage or destroy their sense of smell. The action is an early indication that the Obama administration is likely to take far more aggressive enforcement actions against drug companies than the Bush administration did.

The United States is urging Iran to agree to a meeting with the six key nations trying to ensure that its nuclear program is peaceful in which the US will be a full participant. US deputy ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo said Monday that Iran had not responded to the request from the five permanent council members - the US, Russia, China, Britain and France - and Germany for new talks. The talks would be the first international discussion on Iran's nuclear program since US President Barack Obama took office in January. DiCarlo told the UN Security Council that the United States...

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Joe Biden isn't ruling out his own presidential aspirations. The two-time presidential candidate says the current lineup is the right one, with Biden as President Barack Obama's No. 2. The vice president says he is a close adviser to Obama and is satisfied with his role in the administration. For instance, Biden says he reacted to Supreme Court nominees as a veteran senator. Now, he gets to help pick them. But he says he still has his eye on the Oval Office. Biden is 66 years old and would be 73 on Election Day in 2016....

The Archdiocese of Boston is on track to provide abortion “services” and American Life League is rolling out an aggressive campaign to expose the scandal. Celticare, the joint venture of archdiocesan Caritas Christi Health Care network and Centene Corp., will join Massachusetts’ subsidized health program effective July 1. Celticare lists abortion, family planning and “reproductive services” on their web site. Centene and Caritas Christi both said they would ensure access to all services required by the Massachusetts Connector Authority, including “confidential family planning services.” “We will not allow this scandal to go unnoticed,” said Judie Brown, president of American Life...

Despite his having been feted in liberal bastions such as Columbia University and the UN -- over the objections of American conservatives -- when it comes time to analogize today's Iranian Presidential Elections, NPR's reporters claim that the "conservative" voting blocs supporting hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are akin to Republican Evangelicals.

PRINCETON, NJ -- A new Gallup analysis of almost 150,000 interviews conducted from January through May of this year sheds new light on the substantial gender gap that exists in American politics today. Not only are women significantly more likely than men to identify as Democrats, and less likely to identify as independents, but -- with only slight variation -- this gap is evident across all ages, from 18 to 85, and within all major racial, ethnic, and marital-status segments of society.

When the lefties are replacing a lefty on the Supreme Court with another lefty, the balance is preserved and the downside to the country is somewhat minimized. Sometimes you need to pick your battles. If Obama were filling Scalia's seat for example, this would be a Battle Royale. I figured that the Republicans can't stop this nominee anyway, unless something big and nasty was unearthed. Methinks this is it. Though she says she supports Heller's holding that the 2nd Amendment prevents the Federal Government from banning guns, still undecided is the issue of whether that holding also applies to state...

Wow, look at her go. Michelle Obama, who was in London on a short sightseeing trip with her daughters, didn’t let the small issue of a failing government stand in the way of her sunny style. While the men around her look to be in mourning, Mrs O stands out like a beacon against the night sky. Ok, the appliquéd tunic has the air of Malia or Sasha’s art class about it and sure, it does nothing for her hips – all that extra fluff and detail around the middle adds bulk to her usually smooth lines. But when did...

It looks like the Obama administration has finally found a home for the 17 Uighurs detained at Gitmo. According to the Associated Press, the small Pacific Island of Palau is reportedly taking all 17 Uighurs in exchange for $200 million. If true, this raises a few obvious observations and questions. First, it says much about how poorly the effort to close Gitmo is going that no nation, other than an island resort nation that is heavily dependent on aid from the U.S., is willing to take the Uighurs. The Obama administration considered the Uighurs the easiest bunch of detainees to...

The District ranks highest in the country for cocaine use and alcohol dependence, and has the third-highest percentage of marijuana usage, according to a new study. The study by the federal government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is the result of national drug survey results from 2006 and 2007 of residents of the District and 50 states, compiled through interviews and calculated estimations.

The Boston Globe’s biggest union last night refused to bow to contract concessions demanded by its New York corporate masters in a high-risk slap that dares management to make good on threats to impose a 23-percent pay cut or even shutter the struggling broadsheet. It was a close vote but the Boston Newspaper Guild rejected the company’s contract proposal by a vote of 277-265. Guild members dared management to impose a draconian 23 percent pay cut rather than accepting the company’s 8.4 percent salary cut and drastically reduced benefits.

PARIS | After a whirlwind trip abroad that he capped by taking his family on a private sightseeing tour here, President Obama returned to Washington believing his administration made a down payment on his core goal of helping forge peace in the Middle East. "He feels very, very good about the last four days, and I think he feels it's going to pay dividends in terms of our initiatives in the future," Mr. Obama's senior political adviser, David Axelrod, told reporters at the conclusion of the president's final event at the 65th anniversary of D-Day. The close of Mr. Obama's...

This is nothing short of Americans asking the Judiciary Branch to step in and exercise its check and balance powers to stop an out-of-control Executive Branch. Our Republic is held together by such power, and in this instance, the Supreme Court is the last bulwark against an authoritarian president nationalizing a private company and extinguishing Constitutionally protected contract and property rights to reach his goal of giving the company to his political allies.

Hundreds are expected to turn out this morning under tight security for the funeral service for George Tiller, the Kansas physician specializing in late term abortions who was gunned down in the vestibule of his Lutheran church where he was working as an usher Sunday. The suspect in his death, Scott Roeder, a 51-year-old man with dire financial problems who authorities say flirted with a number of militia-style protests against the government before becoming fixated on the abortion issue, has been charged in Tiller's death.

Primary school children in Broadstairs were given an assembly about homosexuality in which they were played an Elton John song, sparking accusations they had been left "confused". Children as young as four were among the pupils told about same sex relationships as part of the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. During the talk children at Bromstone Primary in Broadstairs, Kent, were played music by Elton John and told he was homosexual.

WASHINGTON—Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., in the middle of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on U.S.-China climate change relations, leaned forward in his chair and asked the expert panel, “What’s the catastrophe?” Lugar, a long-time advocate of emissions reductions and global warming prevention, asked the expert panel to clarify just what the disaster would be if carbon emissions are not reduced. The three members of the panel, all experts on greenhouse gas emissions in China, looked at each other and hesitated. The panel had reached a consensus that the United States and China contribute 40 percent of the world’s greenhouse...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- With companies in no mood to hire, the unemployment rate jumped to 9.4 percent in May, the highest in more than 25 years. But the pace of layoffs eased, with employers cutting 345,000 jobs, the fewest since September. The much smaller-than-expected reduction in payroll jobs, reported by the Labor Department on Friday, adds to evidence that the recession is loosening its hold on the country. It marked the fourth straight month that the pace of layoffs slowed.

LEE COUNTY — The Lee County School District is supported with taxes but is now on the list of property owners who have failed to pay 2008 taxes on time. According to the Lee County Tax Collector Web site, the district has not paid taxes on five of the 126 properties it owns, the largest of which is a $34,000 bill for 2008 taxes on an undeveloped property in Cape Coral. The taxes owed are non-ad valorem taxes — for services such as wastewater treatment — and not the same kind of taxes at the heart of a discussion in...

President Obama’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, 2nd Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor, owes the American people an explanation on her view of the Second Amendment. Most nominees come before the Senate Judiciary Committee and refuse to answer questions about hot-button issues such as abortion, gay marriage, gun rights and the death penalty. But Sotomayor shouldn’t be allowed to skirt the Second Amendment issue, because she cosigned a decision in a case earlier this year that exhibited a dismissive and hostile view of the right to bear arms. … during the past few months the Senate has voted three times...