Breaking News

As people in Montana and beyond struggle to come to grips with a massive federal raid of Montana medical marijuana businesses , the question that comes up is Were these businesses violating state law that allows medical marijuana, or were they raided because they are in violation of federal law, which prohibits the use and possession of marijuana. This memo from a U.S

At its annual meeting yesterday, ExxonMobil rejected 17 measures, including proposals for the company to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and invest in renewable

Dan Weiss, senior fellow and director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress, says Ryan Lizza’s much-talked-about New Yorker story on why the

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin reacted positively to news Friday that an appellate court overturned a ban of federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research, noting that it protects the ability of scientists to continue to explore possible medical advances.

Congress is still fighting over how to fix the federal budget, and as a form of inspiration, perhaps, conservative taxpayer watchdog group Citizens Against

Rep. Barney Frank has become a key point man in negotiating a Wall Street bailout.

Arizona GOP Rep. John Shadegg became the latest casualty of Washington’s changing political tides, announcing Monday that his seventh term will be his last. The

Florida is one of a handful states rejecting grants from the federal health care reform law, a key strategy suggested in literature provided at this year’s American Legislative Exchange Council conference, a conference many Florida legislators attended. # The Legislative Exchange Council (referred to as ALEC ) is a conservative nonprofit made up of state legislators and business leaders that writes model bills and resolutions aimed at helping businesses and weakening government entities

SEARSBORO — A summer rainstorm wasn’t enough to prevent a few hundred of Iowa’s most active gun enthusiasts from gathering on the grounds of the Big Springs Range Complex Saturday for a small trade show, firearms training, range shooting and speeches from state and national lawmakers.

According to new data, the Affordable Care Act helped 1 million additional young adults obtain health insurance in 2011. The National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today reports that “in the first quarter of 2011, the percentage of adults between the ages of 19 and 25 with health insurance increased by 3.5 percentage points, representing approximately 1 million additional young adults with insurance coverage compared to a year ago.” In all other age groups, the rate of uninsured stayed statistically the same .

Dana Goldstein points out that the White House has its new site up, complete with a blog!

Enbridge Energy Partners, a Canadian oil company responsible for the July 2010 rupture of the Lakehead Pipeline 6B which spewed an estimated one million gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River, is providing two Calhoun county programs with cash and services for improvements of parks and river access. On Thursday night, the Calhoun County Commission voted to accept a proposal from Enbridge which will result in upgrades to Historic Bridges Park — which has been closed since the rupture

Enbridge Energy Partners has notified the EPA that it has not completed the cleanup of an estimated 200 acres of submerged oil along the bottom of the Kalamazoo River. The oil company, whose pipeline ruptured at the end of July 2010, spewing between 800,000 and a million gallons of tar sands oil into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River in Calhoun county, had been ordered earlier this year to complete the submerged oil removal no later than Aug. 31

Residents of Benton Harbor should not lose their democratic rights or their city parks just because the city is poor, Rev. Jesse Jackson said yesterday, and he called for people to speak out against Michigan’s Emergency Manager law. In an op-ed to the Chicago Sun Times Jackson wrote: Benton Harbor’s finances are a mess

While journalistic accolades can come in many forms — awards, peer recognition, a paycheck — here’s a new one to us: A bull calf born during Tuesday’s snowstorm was named after Minnesota Independent Senior Reporter Andy Birkey. According to rancher Barbra Peterson, who has a 92-head herd in Sandstone, Birkey’s reporting on reproductive health and social justice issues prompted the move

Former Vice President Al Gore is publicly urging President Obama to deny a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, arguing that the increased greenhouse gas production from the use of tar sands oil will only make the planet’s climate problems worse. On his blog, Gore says : The leaders of the top environmental groups in the country, the Republican Governor of Nebraska, and millions of people around the country—including hundreds of people who have bravely participated in civil disobedience at the White House—all agree on one thing: President Obama should block a planned pipeline from the tar sands of Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico. The tar sands are the dirtiest source of fuel on the planet.

Well, at least there are bales of hay in the background. But the scariest thing about this vaguely Halloween-themed rally in Columbus, Ohio, wasn’t anything

Between 2005 and 2009, the nation’s 14 leading natural gas drilling service companies used hydraulic fracturing fluids containing 29 different chemicals regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) as potential human carcinogens, according to a new congressional report released Saturday.

The fallout from the revelation that Target, Best Buy, and other corporations made independent expenditures on behalf of Minnesota GOP gubernatorial candidate

The obvious thorn in the side of Republicans -- who’ve made a habit of blasting the deficit spending of the Democratic majority under President Obama -- is that

CEDAR RAPIDS — America is facing some massive problems, said Herman Cain, and it’s time for politicians and elected officials to be honest about the magnitude of what is before the nation. Cain highlighted seven separate areas that need to be addressed — a moral crisis, an economic crisis, an energy crisis, an entitlement spending crisis, an immigration crisis, a national security crisis and a deficiency of leadership crisis in Washington, D.C. “Now, we have other problems, but those are our seven crises — and I stopped at seven because it has sort of a Biblical significance.

It was only a matter of time before somebody pushed back against assertions by staff for the national oil spill commission today that there is no evidence that

<div class="mini gray">photo credit: Lauren Burke, wdcpix</div> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Immigration was to be the