ECONOMY: High Hopes, Mixed Prospects for U.S. Stimulus Package

U.S. legislators struck a deal Thursday aimed at saving the economy from being sucked under in a maelstrom of bad mortgages and financial speculation.

POLITICS-US: Neocons Shaken, But Not Deterred

Almost exactly five years after it reached its zenith with the invasion of Iraq, the influence of neo-conservatives has waned sharply in Washington, as their nemeses, the "realists" in the national security bureaucracy, have increasingly asserted control over U.S. foreign policy.

HEALTH-US: Abortion Rights Groups Say Legal Fights Loom

The 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade - the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that gave women the right to abortion - is being observed this week amid concerns over threats to erode or eliminate a woman's reproductive rights.

POLITICS-US: Dems Spar Over Ailing Economy

With financial markets crumbling around the world and some 3.5 million U.S. homeowners facing the prospect of defaulting on their mortgages over the next three years, how to stave off a major recession is taking centre-stage for voters and politicians of all stripes.

ENVIRONMENT-US: Voyages of the Green Armada

The name of one of the hottest new environmental non-profit organisations in the United States reflects the eternal optimism of its founders.

POLITICS-US: Pentagon and Contractors One Happy Family?

A Pentagon office that claims to monitor terrorist threats to U.S. military bases in North America has just awarded a multi-million-dollar contract to a company that employs a top aide to former U.S. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. That aide, Stephen Cambone, helped create the very office that issued the contract.

POLITICS-US: Muslim American Voters Left Out in the Cold

In an electoral campaign system tactically dominated by "niche politics", major candidates for their party's presidential nominations are running as fast as they can from one potentially influential constituency.

POLITICS-US: Democratic Race Sheds Issues for Identities

"These are race-based questions the two of you are asking," shouted a member of the audience to moderators of the Democratic debate in Las Vegas, Nevada Tuesday night, who had spent the first 20 minutes of the affair asking about the racial controversy that has erupted over the last week on the campaign trail.

ECONOMY: Report Says U.S. Lenders Prey on Minorities

Martin Luther King, Jr., the legendary U.S. civil rights leader, might well turn in his grave on this 79th anniversary of his birth.

CHALLENGES 2007-2008: The Green House Effect

Environmentally-friendly buildings have evolved from hippy habitats to office towers and shopping centres, becoming a far more commonplace presence in city skylines and communities throughout the United States, as well as overseas.

ENERGY: Protests Greet Nuclear Power Resurgence in US South

Residents and environmental activists are in a bitter dispute with large U.S. energy corporations and the federal government over the safety of nuclear power, as more than a dozen corporations plan to, or have filed, paperwork to open new nuclear power plants, primarily in the U.S. South.

POLITICS-US: First Presidential Primary Leaves an Open Race

Defying the predictions of political pundits, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton captured the early primary state of New Hampshire on Tuesday, dispelling the notion of a "coronation" for Sen. Barack Obama and sparking what now promises to be an exciting battle for the presidential nomination in 2008.

ENVIRONMENT: U.S. Groups Sue Shell Over Refinery Pollution

U.S. environmentalists took Shell Oil Co. and several of its affiliates to court Monday in a bid to stop pollution from a refining and chemicals plant in the southwestern state of Texas.

HEALTH: Native Suicide Surge Rooted in Colonial Traumas

When the spotlight hits Canada for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the event will be promoted with a traditional Inuit "inukshuk" - the official logo for the 2010 Olympic Games.

POLITICS-US: Obama, Huckabee Shake Up Race in First Vote

While political pros are still poring over the results, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and former Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee have clearly emerged from Thursday's Iowa caucuses as the big winners in the 2008 race for the White House.

HEALTH-US: A Million Attractions, but Nowhere to Go

When New York City banned cigarette smoking in bars and restaurants several years ago, the sardonic television host Jon Stewart pointed out that forcing smokers into the streets outside would also help mask the city's ubiquitous urine smell.

RIGHTS-US: Styling Hair, and Watching for that Telltale Bruise

When Maria, who asked that her full name not be used, began working as a New York City-area hair stylist almost 26 years ago, she had a client named "Betty" who would often show up to her appointments with serious-looking injuries.

EDUCATION-US: Seminole School Thriving In Florida

Elementary school children in U.S. public schools are preparing for their winter holiday vacations, but at a charter school here on the Seminole Indian Tribe of Florida’s Brighton Reservation, the children are enjoying their education so much that some of them want to keep on attending classes throughout the holidays.

CLIMATE CHANGE-US: Wildfires Rekindle Global Warming Debate

The massive wildfires that roared and twisted their way through southern California in 2007 are a glimpse of what a future of global warming may hold, scientists say.

POLITICS-US: Religious Right Bringing In &#39More Money Than Ever&#39

In 1897, the great American author and humorist Mark Twain, responding to stories that had him lying at death’s door declared, "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." One hundred ten years later, Twain’s rejoinder could be applied to mainstream media reports about the demise of the Christian Right in the United States.

MEDIA-US: Gas Prices, Iraq, Disasters Rated as ’07’s Hottest Stories

While the Iraq war remained the most consistently monitored story by U.S. media consumers through most of 2007, the public found the rise in gasoline prices and various natural and man-made disasters more compelling, according to a new survey released here Wednesday by the Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press.