Month: October 2020

In keeping with recent moves across the country to chip away at local control over fracking operations, a Louisiana state judge ruled Monday that St. Tammany Parish, located on the northern shore of Lake Pontchartrain, cannot use its zoning regulations to block a proposed oil drilling and fracking project within parish borders. Helis Oil &…

Progressives reacted with dismay as the U.S. Senate on Thursday approved a motion to begin debate on the Fast Track authority President Barack Obama needs to advance controversial trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The measure passed 65-33. Senate Democrats blocked the first attempt to proceed on the trade legislation on Tuesday, but backtracked…

The U.S. Department of Defense announced on Tuesday that it is indeed planning to bring tanks and other heavy weaponry to Russia’s doorstep, in a move observers say is likely to further stoke Cold War tensions as NATO regional war games commence. Speaking in Tallinn, Estonia, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said the Pentagon…

A Democratic super PAC is launching a second wave of digital ads urging GOP Sens. Dean HellerDean Arthur HellerOn The Trail: Democrats plan to hammer Trump on Social Security, Medicare Lobbying World Democrats spend big to put Senate in play MORE (Nev.) and Jeff FlakeJeffrey (Jeff) Lane FlakeGOP lawmakers stick to Trump amid new criticism…

In the wake of Thursday’s revelation that the U.S. government, specifically the CIA, killed one American and one Italian hostage held by al-Qaeda in a drone attack in Pakistan earlier this year, will a renewed and possibly elevated debate on the Obama administration’s so-called “kill list” or assassination campaign finally break into the mainstream? In…

U.S. counterterrorism agencies have long been preoccupied with the threat posed by the recruiting successes of the Somali terrorist group al Shabaab in Western countries. The group has managed to lure hundreds of foreign fighters — including some 40 Americans — to Somalia through online propaganda videos and word-of-mouth in disaffected immigrant communities. In recent…

A Kansas district judge on Thursday temporarily blocked a state law from taking effect that would ban a common abortion procedure—a measure opponents have called “an unprecedented attack on women’s health.” Judge Larry Hendricks of the Shawnee County district court granted the injunction against Senate Bill 95 (SB95) while he considers a lawsuit filed by…

As threats of a debt default, potential ‘Greek exit,’ and stock market crash loom, both sides appear to be digging in their heels after negotiations between Greece and European lenders collapsed on Sunday. Greece’s leftist leader, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, slammed his creditors for their “insistence” on austerity, which he described as a “pillaging” of…

Federal data released Thursday shows that the infant mortality rate in the United States remains one of the worst in the developed world, at three times the rate of Japan, Norway, and Sweden and double that of Ireland. The report from the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and…

Affirming what environmentalists have long charged, a new study finds that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, may be polluting the air, water, and wildlife in California—and scientists say state leaders are not doing enough to protect residents from the toxic side effects of the controversial drilling practice. The California Council on Science and Technology on Thursday…