Brewer began by blanking out during her introductory statement — there was this horrible 16-second interval where she went silent, stared down at her notes and giggled. The evening ended when...

Ms. Escobar is one of 16 janitors who were laid off from their jobs at a luxury complex in Los Angeles that houses some of the wealthiest tenants imaginable. JPMorgan Asset Management, a unit of the...

What were they thinking? The state budget is more than 60 days late, and legislators seem to lack a sense of urgency about it. But state Assembly leaders felt that it was urgent to enforce a...

T he fear among many congressional Democrats about a pending vote on tax hikes is growing palpable. Those already on the endangered species list are having second thoughts about committing political...

The middle of the Pirates order combined for its most RBIs since opening day, and former failed Nationals closer Joel Hanrahan shut the door on his former Washington employers in an 8-5 Pirates...

TOKYO, Sept. 4 (AP) - (Kyodo)—Selected editorial excerpts from the Japanese press: NUCLEAR PACT WITH INDIA (IHT/Asahi as translated from the Japanese- language Asahi Shimbun's editorial...

TOKYO, Sept. 4 (AP) - (Kyodo)—(EDS: FIXING ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED DATE IN PARENTHESES) Selected editorial excerpts from the Japanese press: KAN, OZAWA TAKE ALARMING POSITIONS ON SECURITY...

Pet project There's an old saying among actors that you never want to share a scene with kids or dogs, because you're sure to be upstaged. People generally not only want to watch children and...

The resumption of direct peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians this week was auspicious, despite a long history of failed attempts that fosters justifiable pessimism about the ultimate chance...

ON Sept. 1, 1945 — 65 years ago this week — I arrived in Leyte Gulf, the Philippines, aboard a Navy transport ship. Along with other newly commissioned ensigns in the Navy Civil Engineer...

This is the first part of a five-part series, “War and the City,” by the Iraq war veteran, Roy Scranton, chronicling his path from unemployed youth to soldier to civilian writer in New...

food security project on the cards, there's urgent need to rethink the PDS's centrality in the distribution edifice since an estimated two-thirds of PDS grain get diverted to the open market....

India the issue could open up a can of worms. Having a policy or legislation that compels people to promote certain surnames is not only discriminatory but also infringes freedom of choice. Parents...

Barack Obama conceives his presidency. The great recession and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the unavoidable problems he inherited; more instructive are the problems he's chosen for himself....

La Jornada for five hours, during which he raved about the profound impact of the Web. "Do you know what this means, comrade?" he asked, like some sort of Rip Van Winkle waking up in the 21st...

Zev Yaroslavsky 's been a big presence in this town since he was elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 1975, and then to the county Board of Supervisors in 1994. Before then, in his impetuous,...

The real problem, Democrats say, is that Republicans have refused to allow timely confirmation votes on the Senate floor — even for district judges, the foot soldiers of the federal judiciary...

A recent survey of Consumer Reports' subscribers finds that lesser-known fast food chains such as In-N-Out and Five Guys have better tasting hamburgers than McDonald's or Burger King. Erica Hill...

An 11-year-old boy was fatally shot in rural Westmoreland County this evening, a county dispatch supervisor said. Someone called 911 at around 6:50 p.m. sounding "hysterical" and saying that the boy...

U, MET COUNCIL AGREE "This was a very, very difficult and protracted negotiation; there were legitimate issues on both sides, including the U's concerns over protecting their research facilities...

• • • THE GOOGLE AND VERIZON STATEMENT, which was roundly criticized when it was released, is unlikely to be the only proposal we'll see from the big boys. A couple of weeks ago,...

I am embarrassed to be collecting unemployment. I am embarrassed about it because my husband has a good job. I am more embarrassed about it because I have a new car. I feel like Ronald Reagan's...

There was an interesting confluence of articles on Aug. 30, with Peter Bell writing about the achievement gap between white and black children ("An idea: Bring back the orphanage") and...

Regardless, at least the city of St. Cloud tried for some public accountability of a Waite Park man who violated a city ordinance when he put up posters last December that expressed his hatred of the...

Last week our biking group took a ride to check out the two recently installed artist-designed drinking fountains that adorn our city. I was inspired by the high quality of the artists' works and by...

Applaud his stand against dependency Much is being said of Gov. Tim Pawlenty's "no" on health care reform as crafted by the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress ("Pawlenty...

Its Scottish business is now focused on engineering design in East Kilbride and some servicing and maintenance work in Aberdeen and Alloa. Post the sale of its iconic Glasgow pumps business to the...

Scottish football sells newspapers, fills the airwaves and carries a resonance way beyond the football field. It contributes economic benefits, social capital, the occasional feel-good factor, and...

FORGIVE ME for sounding a little on the sober side, but so far as I can see, this has not been a slow week for major political news. The Middle East peace process has restarted, after years of...

By addressing Palestinians in a markedly warm and dignified way, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu emerged with his standing enhanced at this week's relaunch of Israeli-Palestinian peace...

Highland Council is therefore to be congratulated for beginning the search for radical solutions to our current financial difficulties by examining the feasibility of unifying the police, fire and...

Scotland's capital city is facing financial problems of some magnitude. Spending cuts of £90 million are looming over the next three years, and there are fears that this could rise to £140 million....

Are "gap" years and extended holidays a vital part of the new work-life balance? An opportunity to broaden our minds and expand our experience of other lands and cultures? Or are they just a glorious...

A: Crash worthiness B: Fuel economy and emissions C: Overall comfort D: Amount of parts made in the U.S. 2 Cuba may loosen the rules to lure what kind of...

Back in January, US vice-president Joe Biden offered up a huge hostage to fortune. Talking to fellow Democrats about the Obama plan for the economy, he promised: "You're going to see, come the...

(AP) WASHINGTON (AP) - "It's still the economy, stupid."And there's virtually nothing Democrats can do to change that reality before Nov. 2.Time has all but run out for President Barack Obama and his...

(AP) KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The new top commander in Afghanistan is talking up a weapon that has been kept in the shadows for years - special operations missions to kill or capture key insurgents...

(AP) WASHINGTON (AP) - Israel's prime minister and the Palestinian president have set off on a yearlong peace journey, taking to a well-trod road that has led only to failure for nearly two decades....

Here's a paradox for you. Most ecologists would agree that we're ravaging the Earth's natural resources at an unsustainable rate-and pushing up against some dangerous thresholds in the biosphere....

The Palin Effect on Primaries Sarah Palin may not be running for office right now, but she's made the biggest single impact on this year's mid-term races. Democratic Strategist Jamal Simmons and GOP...

(Financial Times) Suppose that the US presidential election of 1932 had, in fact, taken place in 1930, at an early stage in the Great Depression. Suppose, too, that Franklin Delano Roosevelt had won...

President Obama's Address on Iraq The president will visit troops in Texas before addressing the nation from the Oval Office about the withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq. Bill Plante...

When I teach law students how to analyze a constitutional case, I drill into them one lesson: always start with the facts. So when I was asked to opine on TV last week about the proposed...

(AP) KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - Since the war began, this southern city and surrounding countryside have been marked as the heartland of the Taliban, the insurgents' springboard to retake all of...

(CBS) You can measure the cost of Katrina in lives and treasure. But there is another cost of that disaster, less obvious, but in one sense, just as damaging: What it did to America's sense of what...

Schieffer's Plea for Stem Cell Research Being a cancer survivor himself, Bob Schieffer knows the importance of scientific research in the medical field. He comments on the federal injunction placing...

The owner of the former Hilton Pittsburgh is facing foreclosure. Lender BlackRock Financial Management Inc. filed a complaint in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court today seeking to foreclose...

The Heinz Endowment is funding a $2 million, three-year project involving a consortium of local universities to create a baseline survey of the ecosystems where drilling for natural gas in the...

Sept. 8 is the Republic of Macedonia's 19th birthday. Since 1991, Macedonia has worked its way through the painful transition from a socialist state born out of Yugoslavia to the point where it is...

One of my children's favorite bedtime stories was "The Little Red Hen." The simple tale follows the hen as she prepares a loaf of bread. At each step of the process, she asks for help from barnyard...