News aggregator
Changing Terms and Hearts Seen as Key to Immigration Debate
The immediate future looks a bit grim for those who work on trying to improve the lot of immigrants in the United States.
Presidential candidates are trying to outdo each other in espousing harsher approaches to handling illegal immigration.
There's essentially no chance of a comprehensive immigration bill moving through Congress until after the presidential election in November.
Intelligence Chief Speaks Out on 'Waterboarding' in Interrogations
The US head of intelligence has said that the practice of "waterboarding" in interrogations "would be torture" if the subject was forced to take water into his lungs.
But Mike McConnell, in a magazine interview, declined for legal reasons to say whether it categorically should be considered torture.
Waterboarding, as McConnell described it, involves a prisoner being strapped down with a flannel over his face as water is dripped into his nose.
Old Country, New Concern: Immigration
Maria John outran the police. Hawking a dozen handbags stitched with fake Prada labels, the 25-year-old street seller saw the blur of blue-and-white police car just as it rounded a tree-lined street near this city's ornate Justice Building. The officers snatched one man, his hands full of bags, as John scurried under a bridge.
"How can you call this a life?" the university graduate from Senegal said, her head swiveling in fear. "The police are everywhere. In every corner, people are watching us."
Huckabee Offers Prayers in S.C.
Republican Mike Huckabee spoke from the pulpit yesterday, not as a politician but as the preacher he used to be, delivering a sermon on how merely being good isn't enough to get into heaven.
Huckabee is vying for support from the Christian conservatives who dominate the GOP in South Carolina, which will choose a Republican presidential nominee on Saturday. A former Baptist minister and Arkansas governor, Huckabee is competing for their votes with fellow Southerner Fred Thompson.
U.S. Military Chief Would Like Guantanamo Prison Closed
The chief of the U.S. military said Sunday he favors closing the prison here as soon as possible because he believes negative publicity worldwide about treatment of terrorist suspects has been "pretty damaging" to the image of the United States.
"I'd like to see it shut down," Adm. Mike Mullen said in an interview with three reporters who toured the detention center with him on his first visit since becoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last October.
Immigrant Widow Fights to Stay in U.S.
Dahianna Heard's life changed forever when she heard the doorbell ring and learned that her husband, a security contractor in Iraq working with American troops, had been shot in the head and killed in an ambush.
"When I saw them and they told me, 'We're very sorry,' I knew he had been killed. It was horrible. I went crazy," Heard, a native of Venezuela, said, recalling that March 2006 day.
Escalating Ice Loss Found in Antarctica
Climatic changes appear to be destabilizing vast ice sheets of western Antarctica that had previously seemed relatively protected from global warming, researchers reported yesterday, raising the prospect of faster sea-level rise than current estimates.
Death Penalty Opposition Grows
The Vatican intervened to aid those seeking a resolution at the United Nations in favor of a global moratorium on the death penalty. The resolution was sponsored by 10 nations, eight of which are Catholic majority states where bishops and Catholic associations have been in the forefront of the battle against the death penalty.
Huckabee Aims for Evangelicals in Iowa
As in Iowa, where he won the Republican caucuses, the cash-strapped Huckabee is relying on pastors to help get out the vote.His background has given him some advantages. He spoke in early November at a "pastors' policy briefing" similar to those staged in Iowa and New Hampshire, where local pastors can meet with national Christian Huckabee supporters.
Stem Cells Created Without Destroying Embryos
Scientists reported Thursday that for the first time they have made human embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos, a development that the government's top stem cell official said would make the controversial research eligible for federal funding.
Story Landis, who chairs the National Institute of Health's stem cell task force, said that with certain safeguards, the new method appeared to comply with federal restrictions that have largely cut scientists off from the $28 billion the government spends on medical research each year.
