ENVIRONMENT: Oil Production Strains Parched Landscape

Money, energy and water are the three key ingredients that have made it possible to ship a million barrels of oil a day from northern Alberta's oil sands to the United States and other markets. Incredible quantities of those three ingredients have been used so far, and much more will be needed for production to triple in the next 15 years.

ENVIRONMENT-CANADA: Transforming the Northern Landscape

Over much of northern Canada, there is little more than trees, rocks, lakes and wetlands. But in northeastern Alberta, the landscape is changing dramatically as strip mining peels off the forest and soil to reach a molasses-like viscous oil mixed with sand and clay 40 to 60 metres below the surface.

DEATH PENALTY: Blacks with Stereotypical Features Executed Most Often

Juries in the U.S. tend to hand down the death penalty twice as often to black defendants with stereotypically black features like darker skin, bigger noses and fuller lips, than to those perceived to have less stereotypically black features, according to the findings of a new study.

ENVIRONMENT: Mega-Project Scrapes the Bottom of the Oil Barrel

Thousands of square kilometres of tar-laden soil and sand underlying Canada's boreal forests are being gobbled up to feed an insatiable appetite for oil in the U.S. and elsewhere.

DEVELOPMENT-U.S.: Hurricane Katrina Victims Return, But to What?

For the last six months, Dana Montana has been living in a tent on the lawn of his aunt's ruined house in New Orleans. Never a particularly pleasant scenario, now that Louisiana's summer heat has arrived, it has become downright awful.

DEATH PENALTY: Wisconsin to Vote on Reinstatement

For more than 150 years, the people of Wisconsin never approved of laws that would allow state authorities to execute anybody.

POLITICS-US: Signing Away the Constitution?

Last March, the U.S. Congress passed legislation requiring Justice Department officials to give them reports by certain dates on how the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is using the USA Patriot Act to search homes and secretly seize papers.

DEATH PENALTY-U.S.: High Court – Inmates Can Appeal Lethal Injection

The Supreme Court recently ruled in favour of two death row inmates in separate cases that will make it more difficult to execute prisoners in the United States.

DEVELOPMENT-US: Bush’s “YOYO” Budget and Nonprofits’ Angst

According to economist Jared Bernstein, the United States has entered the brave new era of the "YOYO" economy - i.e., "You're On Your Own".

DEATH PENALTY: A Hindrance to U.S. War on Terror, Say Rights Groups

Continued use of the death penalty in the United States is straining its relations with allies and hampering the war on terror, say international human rights and legal experts.

POLITICS: Republican uber-Strategist Takes Canada for a Spin

Last Wednesday, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that he would no longer be giving news conferences to the national media. Speaking to A-Channel in London, Ontario, Harper said that, "Unfortunately, the press gallery has taken the view they are going to be the opposition to the government."

POLITICS-CANADA: The Stealth Man Cometh

Canadian political scientist Daniel Drache has dubbed Prime Minister Stephen Harper "the stealth man" for his ability, so far, to play down his conservative political instincts while steering a minority government among hostile parties on the centre and left.

TECHNOLOGY: Podcasting Politics

After Apple Computer announced its new video-capable iPod, the San Francisco Chronicle's Mark Morford, a controversial and ever-iconoclastic columnist, enthused that the new "sexy" and "delicious" device would usher in a future where pornography would be available at the flick of a finger.

RIGHTS-US: Public Hearings Sought in Phone Record Scandal

Anticipating that the U.S. federal government would invoke the so-called "state secrets" privilege to block any lawsuit calling for the disclosure of details about allegations that phone companies shared customer records with the government's biggest spy agency, a major civil rights group has embarked on an alternate course.

POLITICS-US: Pain Drug Crackdown Hits “Nobodies” the Hardest

Two weeks from now, a South Carolina pain management physician will surrender at the Talladega, Alabama prison to begin serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence for drug trafficking, racketeering and money laundering.

RIGHTS-US: English Amendment Ignores Reality, Migrants Say

With the U.S. Senate poised to vote by the end of this week on its version of a controversial immigration reform bill, many immigrants and their supporters are urging lawmakers to focus more on helping people from other cultures integrate into U.S. society.

DRUGS-CANADA: U.S. in Pursuit of “Prince of Pot”

Canadian Marc Emery, known as the "Prince of Pot", says the U.S. extradition request hanging over him for selling marijuana seeds over the Internet is a "sadistic" move by the George W. Bush administration to silence the drug legalisation movement.

POLITICS-US: The John and Jerry Show (But Who’s Chasing Who?)

In the fall of 2000, Arizona Senator John McCain was battling it out with Texas Governor George W. Bush for the Republican Party's presidential nomination.

POLITICS-US: Cui Bono? Negroponte or Rumsfeld

Monday's nomination by U.S. President George W. Bush of Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden to take over the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from the hapless Porter Goss has predictably intensified speculation over what is really going on behind the scenes.

POLITICS-US: Groups Urge Overhaul of Pentagon Budget

With Congress on the verge of approving yet another record Pentagon budget, a task force of nearly two dozen progressive policy analysts is calling for major changes in the way the United States allocates money for its common defence.

RIGHTS-US: Racially-Charged Rape Jolts Southern City

The case of two Duke University men's lacrosse team players accused of kidnapping and raping an African-American woman has brought to the fore a number of festering economic and social tensions in this southern city.