RIGHTS-US: Calls for Torture Inquiry Aren’t Going Away

A coalition of 19 human rights, faith-based and justice organisations is calling on President Barack Obama to investigate torture they charge was sanctioned by the administration of former President George W. Bush.

POLITICS-US: Momentum Builds for Tougher Hate Crimes Law

The leaders of several of the United States' largest civil rights and faith groups urged the passage of a bill to strengthen protection from hate crimes Tuesday.

EDUCATION-US: Women Reach for Technology Lifeline

When Brunila lost her job as a flight attendant after 10 years on the job, she realised she needed to find a more stable career.

RIGHTS-US: Courts Overrule Govt in Abuse and Detention Cases

As the debate heats up over what to do about recent disclosures of widespread abuse of war-on-terror prisoners, the "third branch" of the U.S. government – the judiciary - continues to assert its independence from the other two branches – the executive and the legislative.

RIGHTS-US: Lawyers’ Group Targets Torture Memo Author

Lawyers who reject President Barack Obama’s decision not to seek prosecution of officials who may have participated in the torture of terror-suspect prisoners are seeking justice through another avenue: Sanctions against government lawyers who created the "enhanced interrogation" policies of former President George W. Bush.

U.S.: Greens Hail Obama’s OK to Regulate Greenhouse Emissions

U.S. green groups hailed Friday's formal finding by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that carbon dioxide and several other greenhouse gases "endanger" public health and welfare as a landmark – if long overdue – step toward slowing global warming.

POLITICS-US: Tax Protests Channel Enmity for Obama

Reports vary about how many people actually showed up at Tax Day Tea Party rallies in dozens of cities across the United States on Wednesday, Apr. 15 - the deadline for paying taxes in the U.S.

RIGHTS-US: No Impunity for Torturers, Groups Urge

Human rights advocates were quick to praise President Barack Obama for Thursday's release of the infamous "torture memos" used by the Bush-era Justice Department to justify cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of war-on-terror prisoners. However, they appear unanimously critical of the president’s decision not to prosecute the Central Intelligence Agency operatives who used these techniques.

ECONOMY-US: Foreclosing on God

The red brick St. Andrews Anglican Church in wealthy Easton, Maryland, was known for its open door. It hosted family movie nights, and weekend spaghetti dinners. Most people had no idea anything was amiss, until the bank took the key, and the church building was foreclosed and sold at auction.

POLITICS-US: Help Wanted, Some Travel to Guantanamo…

U.S. President Barack Obama has ordered the Navy’s prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by next January, suspended military commission trials, and assigned Attorney General Eric Holder to conduct case-by-case reviews of the 241 prisoners still detained there to determine which ones should be prosecuted, released or sent to other countries.

RIGHTS-US: Local Police Increasingly Target Migrant Communities

Alleged abuses of a little-known section of U.S. immigration law have triggered charges of racial and ethnic profiling and diverting local law enforcement from their crime-fighting mission.

POLITICS-US: Let Spy Laws Fade into the Sunset, Group Urges

One of the nation’s leading legal rights groups is calling on the U.S. Congress to make major changes in the USA Patriot Act to reverse parts of the hurriedly passed law that have been found unconstitutional or have been abused to collect information on innocent people.

ECONOMY: Entwined with U.S., Canada Tries to Minimise Exposure

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has no choice but to project optimism about his nation's ability to pull out of the economic recession by next year, although various economists and a former central bank chairman have all offered grimmer forecasts that the downturn will persist for a longer period.

POLITICS-US: Bailout Bitterness Tainting Obama’s Broader Agenda

Two months into his term, U.S. President Barack Obama’s ambitious campaign programme for sweeping "change" has been whittled down to a bid for incremental change, with opposition to some of his proposed broad reforms coming from unlikely places.

LABOUR-US: The Daddy Dilemma

More men are taking advantage of paternity leave or even quitting their jobs entirely to raise small children while their wives go to work, but the social stigma attached to fathers who take on roles traditionally viewed as female has been far slower to diminish.

RIGHTS-US: Obama Faces Spate of “Terror War” Lawsuits

Human rights lawyers are proving to be a major headache for the new administration of President Barack Obama, stepping up court challenges on issues of prisoner abuse to test the reality of the president's pledge to create a "an unprecedented level of openness" in government.

POLITICS-US: Neo-Con Ideologues Launch New Foreign Policy Group

A newly-formed and still obscure neo-conservative foreign policy organisation is giving some observers flashbacks to the 1990s, when its predecessor staked out the aggressively unilateralist foreign policy that came to fruition under the George W. Bush administration.

MIGRATION-US: Strained Detention System a Virtual Black Hole

The U.S. government has failed to uphold international human rights standards in its detention of immigrants and asylum seekers, Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) said in a report released Wednesday.

POLITICS-US: Obama Bailout Plan Not the Right’s Cup of Tea

In December of 1773, colonists in Boston - then a town in the British colony of Massachusetts - protested against the British government after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain.

POLITICS-US: Veils of Secrecy Lifting in Washington

As President Barack Obama’s Justice Department issued sweeping new guidelines to reverse the secrecy policies of former president George W. Bush, a federal judge ordered the Central Intelligence Agency to produce unedited summaries of some 3,000 documents related to its admitted destruction of 92 videotapes of prisoners being subjected to extremely harsh interrogation techniques.

ENVIRONMENT: Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables

Brooklyn's historic Fort Greene Park lures locals each Saturday with a year-round vegetable and produce market. But it's not just a place for consumption. Locals come bearing plastic containers and buckets filled with squash skins, used tea bags and expired asparagus. It's all fodder for compost.