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Two women are charged after a video showing a brutal attack on a teenage girl at a Baltimore-area McDonald's restaurant surfaced on the internet Friday. According to the Baltimore Sun, police have charged a 14-year-old girl as a juvenile, and charges are pending for her 18-year-old accomplice. The attack reportedly occurred April 18 at the 6300 Kenwood McDonald’s location. The Sun is also reporting that State’s Attorney Scott D. Shellenberger says that the assault may be classified as a hate crime because the attackers were both black, and the victim white.

Minnesota DOT looking at a road use mileage tax.

Ever since Donald Trump began soaking up media attention around his possible 2012 presidential run, he's faced plenty of detractors claiming that he's simply using all the 2012 speculation to shore up his celebrity brand. The latest turn in the Trump political saga isn't exactly going to silence that line of criticism.

New claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, bouncing back above the key 400,000 level, while core producer prices climbed faster than expected in March, government reports showed on Thursday.

A Democratic senator is preparing to introduce legislation that aims to end the golden era of tax-free Internet shopping. The proposal--expected to be made public soon after Tax Day--would rewrite the ground rules for Internet and mail order sales by eliminating the ability of Americans to shop at Web sites like Amazon.com and Overstock.com without paying state sales taxes.Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second most senior Senate Democrat, will introduce the bill after the Easter recess, a Democratic aide told CNET. "Why should out-of-state companies that sell their products online have an unfair advantage over Main Street bricks-and-mortar businesses?" Durbin...

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer argued Tuesday that judges need to apply the Constitution's values with an eye toward the changing times The 72-year-old Breyer, considered one of the court's more liberal justices, believes that the court should apply the Constitution's values with a pragmatic view toward present circumstances, rather than focusing only on the document's historical meaning.

Appearing on MSNBC, Monday, to promote his new special on Barack Obama, Chris Matthews attacked "older white people" for still holding bigoted feelings against the first African American President. Lavishing praise on younger Americans, he added, "And I think that's a generalization and I'll stick with it. I think younger people do not see race as an obstacle." He then touted the "non-judgmental" attitude of Obama voters, fawning, "In fact, they say [race is] irrelevant and don't even notice it, whereas older people notice it all the time."

On the heels of the fatal shooting of an Omaha-area school administrator by a despondent student, Sen. Mark Christensen of Imperial introduced a bill Tuesday to allow teachers, administrators and school security guards to carry concealed guns.

The general anti-Obama rage out there is palpable. But it’s no more virulent than the anti-Bush sentiment that has pervaded the country for much of the past decade—although this being America, there’s an attendant hatred for Obama that has more to do with race than anything else. What makes today’s fury more worrying is the fact that angry right-wing extremists tend to carry guns in disproportionate numbers to their liberal counterparts. A distinguished colleague of mine likens the wiggy mood of the nation to that of a hormonal teenager. What do you call an electorate that seems prone to acting...

...omit procedures such as abortions and positive HIV tests from the electronic health records (EHR) that every American is supposed to have by 2014 under the terms of the economic stimulus law that President Barack Obama signed last year.

"To have the same chance of gaining admission as a black student with a SAT score of 1100, a Hispanic student otherwise equally matched in background characteristics would have to have 1230, a white student a 1410, and an Asian student a 1550."

This burst of economic activity fed by government spending and near-zero interest rates will soon peter out. El-Erian oversees nearly $1 trillion in assets. What heÂ’s saying: â– Stocks will drop 10 percent in the space of three or four weeks, though heÂ’s not predicting when. â– The unemployment rate will be hovering above 8 percent a year from now. â– US gross domestic product will grow at an average of 2 percent or so for years - a third slower than weÂ’re used to. El-Erian says people are fooling themselves if they think all the bullish data of late mean a strong...

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, considered a possible 2012 Republican presidential candidate, is calling for strict spending limits as states and the federal government confront enormous deficits...At a Republican fund-raiser in New Hampshire on Dec. 16, the governor also pushed the idea of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would force Congress to pass, and the president to sign, a balanced budget.

But it's interesting that when Massachusetts Democrat Michael Capuano, fresh from a second-place finish in the primary for Edward Kennedy's Senate seat, was asked to tell the Democratic caucus what he had learned on the campaign trail, he replied in two words: "You're screwed." How many of those listening decided that it would be a good idea to spend more time with the family after 2010?

I concluded the talk by emphasizing that fiscal policy is on an unsustainable path to an extent that cannot be solved by minor tinkering. The country faces a fundamental disconnect between the services the people expect the government to provide, particularly in the form of benefits for older Americans, and the tax revenues that people are willing to send to the government to finance those services. That fundamental disconnect will have to be addressed in some way if the budget is to be placed on a sustainable course.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said Friday that a victory by Doug Hoffman, the third-party candidate in the Nov. 3 New York special election, is a win for the GOP. “You’ve got two Republicans running in that race. My upside is that one of them will likely win,” Steele said. “We want to be supporting the one that wins.”

The most important fact about the "opt out" scheme allegedly allowing states to decline government health insurance is that a state can't "opt out" of paying for it. All 50 states WILL PAY FOR IT. A state legislature can only opt out of allowing its own citizens to receive the benefits of a federal program they're paying for. It's like a movie theater offering a "money back guarantee" and then explaining, you don't get your money back, but you don't have to stay and watch the movie if you don't like it. That's not what most people are thinking when...

A 19-year-old folk singer from Toronto has died after being attacked by two coyotes in Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

No law, including the Credit CARD Act that has started to take effect, prevents banks from closing down credit accounts without warning. Credit card issuers all maintain the right...

"You heard the mantra, 'Tax the rich, tax the rich,'" Paterson said. "We've done that. We've probably lost jobs and driven people out of the state."