HEALTH-US: Tiny Town Demands Justice in Dioxin Poisoning

A U.S. health agency has made research subjects of people in tiny Mossville, Louisiana by repeatedly monitoring dangerously high levels of dioxin in their blood while doing nothing to get the community out of harm's way, residents say.

BIODIVERSITY: “Wildways” Would Bridge a Fractured Continent

Before deforestation and sprawl fragmented North America's wilderness into isolated islands of bio-homogeneity, the largest of carnivores and smallest of rodents roamed the expansive continent at will.

HEALTH-US: Vets Sue Gov’t for “Shameful Failures”

Two veterans' groups sued the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in federal court in San Francisco Monday for alleged "shameful failures" to help tens of thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

DISARMAMENT: Will U.S. Finally End Cluster Bomb Exports?

At the end of June, a few members of the U.S. Congress made a discreet move to limit this country's exports of cluster bombs, a weapon that has been used around the world since the Second World War to devastating humanitarian consequences.

DEATH PENALTY-US: Inmate Gets Rare Last-Minute Reprieve

Troy Anthony Davis, a death row inmate in the U.S. state of Georgia whose guilt has been challenged by new evidence, won a 90-day stay of his sentence Monday, just hours before his scheduled execution.

FINANCE-US: Congress Reins in Foreign Investors

The U.S. Congress passed legislation this week that strengthens the vetting system for foreign purchases of companies in the U.S., a measure that observers say will mostly likely lead other countries to tighten their rules as well.

Q&A: "Climate Change Will Be Important for Years to Come"

This week, Florida's Republican governor announced that he would set a target of cutting the state's greenhouse gas emissions to 20 percent of 1990 levels by 2050, boost energy efficiency standards in new construction and require utilities to produce 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources.

ENVIRONMENT-US: The Lessons of the Levees

Despite mounting data that storms coming out of the Gulf of Mexico could bring catastrophic flooding to the U.S. Gulf Coast, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) failed to implement a proposed barrier plan in New Orleans that would have used floodgates to keep storm surge out of Lake Pontchartrain and the canals leading into the city.

Q&A: Voices for Abolition Grow Louder

In May 1985, Bill Pelke's beloved grandmother was brutally murdered in her Indiana home by four teenage girls. The court found Paula Cooper to be the leader and she was sentenced to die in the electric chair. Pelke was pleased with the verdict. But as the date of her execution drew near, Pelke realised that her death would not heal the pain he felt about losing his grandmother.

POLITICS-US: Wolfowitz – Return to Sender?

Recently forced out as president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, one of the primary architects of U.S. President George W. Bush's Iraq war, is heading back to familiar surroundings. And the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute (AEI), one of the United States' premier conservative think tanks, is more than pleased to welcome him back.

HEALTH-US: Troubled Soldier Gets Demoted, Not Treated

Cody Miranda joined the U.S. Marine Corps when he was 17 years old. He loved the military and hoped to spend his entire career in the service.

THEATRE-US: Class Dismissed? Not by These Playwrights

The United States is famous as a country that denies the validity of class. But you'd get a different idea at theatres across New York, where two new plays and a revival look head-on at the way wealth, status and power affect people's lives.

ENVIRONMENT-US: Growing Oases in the Sky

An industrial park seems an unlikely location to find a native plant garden.

RIGHTS-US: High Court Ruling Could Mean More Death Sentences

A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the disqualification of a juror who expressed doubts about the death penalty, combined with an increasing number of U.S. citizens who say their moral convictions make them ineligible to serve as jurors in capital trials, could mean future juries will be less representative of the country's diversity and more likely to hand down convictions, death penalty opponents say.

POLITICS: U.S. Social Forum Forges Common Ground

In all, the crowds were huge, the workshops passionate and inspiring, and participants made ideological, relational and personal gains, both large and small.

RIGHTS-US: Native Americans and Immigrants Share Common Struggle

One group has lived here for millennia, while the other has just arrived. But Native Americans and immigrants have much in common, particularly the alienation and oppression they experience in U.S. society, activists and community leaders said on day three of the U.S. Social Forum (USSF) Friday.

CANADA: Day of Action Highlights Native Frustration

A day of action by Canada's aboriginal community has led to nationwide protests across the country and some transportation closures in Ontario.

POLITICS-US: "We&#39re Living a Nightmare Called Katrina"

Under the banner, "If another world is possible, another U.S. is necessary," 10,000 civil society activists gathered in Atlanta, Georgia Wednesday for the beginning of the first U.S. Social Forum.

RIGHTS-US: Good Enough to Serve, Not to Stay

The wife of a U.S. soldier missing in action in Iraq remains in legal limbo this week, even after the Department of Homeland security dropped deportation proceedings against her.

DEATH PENALTY-US: High Court Won’t Revisit “Dubious” Conviction

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear the appeal of Troy Anthony Davis, convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Georgia, thereby removing one of the final obstacles to his execution.

CANADA: First Nations Step Up Pressure on Land Claims

After facing heated criticism in recent weeks from First Nations groups, the Canadian government has committed to passing legislation to overhaul the Indian Claims Commission, a federal body that was set up to make recommendations on longstanding disputes.