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He was a well-connected businessman who graduated from Toronto’s York University before moving on to Harvard. She was a real estate agent who told people she studied at McGill in Montreal. Since 1999, the couple has lived in the United States together. If new U.S. allegations are true, the couple’s move was less about any brain drain of Canadian citizens than it was a meticulous Russian plot: “Ann Foley” and “Don Heathfield” were instructed to gather intelligence by insinuating themselves into the U.S. intelligentsia, by stealing nuclear secrets and by making friends in “policy-making circles.”

Court rules for gun rights, strikes Chicago handgun ban In another dramatic victory for firearm owners, the Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional Chicago, Illinois' 28-year-old strict ban on handgun ownership, a potentially far-reaching case over the ability of state and local governments to enforce limits on weapons. A conservative majority of justices on Monday reiterated its two-year-old conclusion the Constitution gives individuals equal or greater power than states on the issue of possession of certain firearms for self-protection. The court, however, said local jurisdictions still retain the flexibility to preserve some "reasonable" gun control measures currently in place nationwide.

The Affordable Care Act passed by Congress and signed by President Obama this year will provide you and your family greater savings and increased quality health care....These are needed improvements that will keep Medicare strong and solvent.

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court ruled Monday that it is unconstitutional to sentence juveniles to life without parole for crimes short of murder, with Justice Anthony Kennedy and the court's liberals agreeing that such sentences were cruel and unusual. The case was the latest in a series of milestone opinions by Justice Kennedy that have broadened the scope of the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits "cruel and unusual punishments." Earlier rulings eliminated the death penalty for juveniles and ended it for crimes short of murder. Chief Justice John Roberts, in a break from fellow conservatives, voted with the majority to reverse the life...

South Korean investigators have all but ruled out an on-board accident or collision with rocks as the cause of a navy ship's sinking. The government is still treating the matter delicately, as suspicions remain that North Korea was involved in the sinking. A multinational investigative team said Friday that the South Korean naval corvette, the Cheonan, split in half and sank earlier this month due to force applied from outside the ship. Yoon says fragments of the hull are bent inward, showing that the explosive force came from the outside. He adds the likeliest possible causes of an onboard accident...

But as Mr. Romney tours to promote his new book, some people have been posing an uncomfortable question: If he opposes Mr. Obama's health-care policy, why did Mr. Romney shepherd a near-universal health-insurance system into law as governor of Massachusetts? *** Mr. Romney also took pains to defend another element common to both plans—the mandate requiring nearly all people to buy coverage—that many conservative activists consider one of the most objectionable elements of the federal law. But he did so by adopting a more GOP-friendly vocabulary, declaring it a matter of "personal responsibility" for all people to buy into insurance...

This week it became impossible in Massachusetts for small businesses and individuals to buy health-care coverage after Governor Deval Patrick imposed price controls on premiums. Read on, because under ObamaCare this kind of political showdown will soon be coming to an insurance market near you.

Hillary Clinton has taken issue with Canada's signature G8 initiative on maternal mortality, arguing that any effort to improve the health of mothers in poor countries must include access to abortion. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is seeking to make maternal health the centrepiece of the G8 summit he is hosting in Ontario in June, was initially reluctant to include contraception as part of the agenda, and he has insisted the plan would leave out abortion. But the U.S. Secretary of State was blunt in her disagreement with this approach yesterday.

Private security guards shot and killed a Somali pirate during an attack on a merchant ship off the coast of East Africa in what is believed to be the first such killing by armed contractors, the EU Naval Force spokesman said Wednesday. The death comes amid fears that increasingly aggressive pirates and the growing use of armed private-security contractors aboard vessels could fuel increased violence on the high seas. The handling of the case may have legal implications beyond the individuals involved in Tuesday's shooting.

If you cannot trust government’s numbers, you cannot trust government’s words. This is the lesson of the House Democrats’ desperate promotion of a phony-baloney Congressional Budget Office analysis of their latest health-care-takeover package. Garbage in, garbage out. Elmendorf’s weary number crunchers know they are just more stage props in the Oba-Kabuki health-care theater. Like the president’s partisan donor-doctors dressed up in their White House–supplied lab coats, the CBO’s statistical authorities are being exploited to lend credibility and solidity to the Democrats’ legislative vaporware.

Danny Williams may be on to something with American health care. A new Angus Reid poll shows 44 per cent of Canadians agree with his decision to head south of the border for heart surgery; 30 per cent disagreed and 25 per cent are undecided. The online poll of 1,001 Canadians was conducted between Feb. 12 and Feb. 13. As well, 40 per cent of those surveyed said they would pay themselves for quicker access to treatment in the United States. The Newfoundland Premier’s illness and reasons for travelling south of the border for treatment are still shrouded in mystery....

"This is my heart, it's my health, it's my choice." With these words, Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams defended his decision to hop the border and go under the knife for heart surgery in Florida. The minimally invasive mitral valve surgery he needed is not available in Newfoundland, he told his province's NTV News channel in the first part of an interview aired last night. "Did some checking, of course, and what was ultimately done to me, the surgery I eventually got ... was not offered to me in Canada," he said. But it is available in his home country, a...

A Malaysian court has fined a man and a woman four buffaloes and a pig after they were found guilty of an extra-marital affair, a local report says. The pair were convicted by the Native Court in Penampang on Borneo island, after the man's wife lodged a complaint last year... She had found her husband wearing shorts at his second home with her colleague, who was wearing a sarong. The court in Sabah state rejected their claim they were just "best friends".

The state of Nebraska is going to do well under the compromise struck by Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson to ensure his support for health overhaul legislation. In the final deal-making, the senator won a commitment that the federal government would pick up Nebraska’s share of the bill’s proposed expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state health program for the poor. ... Mr. Nelson had feared the bill’s proposed expansion of Medicaid would cause financial turmoil for his home state. After the changes, he suggested Saturday that his concerns were addressed. “I’m comfortable it’s taken care of,” he said. ... Five other states,...

[Live interview with Donald Trump] "Obama should force the banks to loan (sic) money. That is the key thing. He has to force them to loan money."

Sen. Mary Landrieu holds off on taking health care stand, while pressing for aid for Louisiana WASHINGTON (Nov. 20) -- Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., remained mum Thursday on whether she will deliver a crucial vote Saturday night to enable the Senate to debate health-care reform when it returns from the Thanksgiving holiday. But Landrieu has already succeeded in adding a provision to the 2,074-page Senate version of the health care bill unveiled this week that would provide Louisiana between $100 million and $300 million in Medicaid funding in fiscal 2011. "Look," said [Louisiana secretary of health and hospitals] Alan Levine,...

What a great election yesterday! It's exhilarating to wake up to headlines of conservative victories in the battleground elections in Virginia and New Jersey. The American people have sent a very strong message to the liberals in Washington, DC that big government is not the answer, and that conservatism is still alive and well. We worked extremely hard on behalf of Bob McDonnell and the entire Republican ticket in Virginia, and helped him close strong with a full day of campaigning in the final week; in New Jersey, we endorsed Chris Christie early and made sure he had the resources...

First returns, Clinton Co: Owens 103 Scozzafava 8 Hoffman 340

Another surprise in the hotly contested special House election in upstate New York: This morning, the Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, suspended her campaign and released her supporters. She hasn’t endorsed either of her rivals, but told her local paper that a Siena Research Institute poll out today showed her too far behind to be a viable candidate.

iccardo Ehrman, a veteran Italian foreign correspondent, and Peter Brinkmann, a combative German tabloid reporter, both claim they asked the crucial questions at a news conference on Nov. 9, 1989, that led East German Politburo member Günter Schabowski to make one of the biggest fumbles in modern history.