NewsTrust - All Rated Stories

Texas' gay marriage ban may have banned all marriages

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

McClatchy - By Dave Montgomery - Nov. 18 (News Report) - AUSTIN — Texans: Are you really married? Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a Houston lawyer and Democratic candidate for attorney general, says that a 22-word clause in a 2005 constitutional amendment designed to ban gay marriages erroneously endangers the legal status of all marriages in the state.

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Army study: Mental health staff lacking in Afghanistan

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

McClatchy - By Nancy A. Youssef - Nov. 15 (News Report) - An Army task force has found that a growing number of soldiers serving in Afghanistan are suffering from some kind of mental stress and is urging the military to double the number of mental health professionals deployed there.

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Farmers fight climate bill, but warming spells trouble for them

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

McClatchy - Nov. 02 (News Report) - Farm state senators and others soon will get a taste of what their colleagues from Missouri already have piled high on their desks: thousands of letters from farmers urging them to vote against the climate and energy bill. The Missouri Farm Bureau started the letter campaign early, weeks before the bill was fully written and made public. It was followed in October with a pitch from the American Farm Bureau, the nation's largest agriculture lobby, to get farmers to take farm caps, sign their bills and send them to senators with notes that say, "Don't cap our future."

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Women getting short end of health coverage

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Miami Herald - By David Lightman - Oct. 07 (Special Report) - Women of child-bearing age routinely pay more for healthcare because they're women. If they're pregnant, they can be legally denied coverage. Women face other problems in today's insurance market: They tend to need more preventive care and therefore are subject to more co-pays and deductibles, and single heads of households are often women, meaning they're responsible for the family's healthcare bills. Legislation now being considered by Congress to overhaul America's healthcare system would dramatically change the rules, and there's general agreement that this is a problem that needs fixing.

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Eight States Still Allow Insurance Companies To Use Domestic Violence As Pre-Existing Condition

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

McClatchy - By Les Blumenthal - Oct. 04 (News) - Eight states and the District of Columbia don't have laws that specifically bar insurance companies from using domestic violence as a pre-existing condition to deny health coverage, according to a study from the National Women's Law Center.

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Who's behind the attacks on a health care overhaul?

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

McClatchy - Aug. 15 (News Analysis) - Much of the money and strategy behind the so-called grassroots groups organizing opposition to the Democrats' health care plans comes from conservative political consultants, professional organizers and millionaires, some of whom hold financial stakes in the outcome.

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Forging a new path to real health care reform

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

McClatchy - By Dr. Harold S. Luft - Jun. 30 (Opinion) - As specific health care reform proposals begin to emerge, the predictable partisan critiques are appearing. This back-and-forth is a necessary part of the democratic process, but we must agree our system is broken and seize this opportunity for real reform. Two major objectives need to be achieved. First, all Americans should have coverage for at least major health care expenditures. Second, we must bring down the rate of increase in health care expenses. The first is a moral imperative, the second an economic necessity.

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Egyptians worry that Obama will inadvertently bless repression

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

McClatchy - By Dion Nissenbaum - Jun. 02 (News Report) - Cairo prepares to welcome President Barack Obama on Thursday, when he's scheduled to deliver a major speech to the Arab world, politicians such as Nour are growing increasingly concerned that Obama will sacrifice democratic reforms in Egypt to shore up Mubarak in pursuit of the American president's broader Middle East agenda.

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For all the debate about interrogation, little research exists

Sat, 30 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

McClatchy - By Barbara Barrett - May. 30 (News Analysis) - The heated debate in recent weeks about harsh interrogation treatments at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere highlights what some scientists have been warning the U.S. for years: that almost no research exists to tell interrogators the best way to get information out of suspected terrorists.

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America's poor are its most generous donors

Sat, 23 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

McClatchy - By Frank Greve - May. 23 (Special Report) - When Jody Richards saw a homeless man begging outside a downtown McDonald's recently, he bought the man a cheeseburger. There's nothing unusual about that, except that Richards is homeless, too, and the 99-cent cheeseburger was an outsize chunk of the $9.50 he'd earned that day panhandling. The generosity of poor people isn't so much rare as rarely noticed, however.

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Pakistan launches full-scale military assault on Taliban

Fri, 08 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

McClatchy - By Saeed Shah - May. 08 (News Report) - Pakistan declared war on its homegrown Islamic extremists Thursday in a dramatic move that could trigger a wider conflagration.

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Is Obama wrong on Iraq? Baghdad violence worst in year

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

McClatchy - By Corinne Reilly, Hussein Kadhim - Apr. 30 (News Analysis) - President Barack Obama acknowledged Wednesday night that violence has risen in recent weeks, but he said the levels of violence were still below last year's.

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Obama's first 100 days in office haven't been quiet

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

McClatchy - By Margaret Talev - Apr. 27 (News Report) - President Barack Obama's first 100 days on the job exploded with activity on many fronts: the $787 billion economic stimulus, the order to close the Guantanamo Bay prison within a year, a withdrawal plan for Iraq, an expansion of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and outreach to several hostile nations.

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Stimulus funds road projects — especially in Obama's Illinois

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

McClatchy - By David Lightman - Apr. 21 (Special Report) - When President Barack Obama proudly announced last week that the government had approved its 2,000th transportation project under the economic stimulus plan, he hailed it as a moment "when a generation of Americans seized the chance to remake the face of this nation." Many of those Americans apparently live in Obama's home state of Illinois.

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Which way will Roberts court go in racial discrimination case?

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

McClatchy - By Michael Doyle - Apr. 18 (News Report) - The New Haven, Conn., fireman, who's white, was passed over for promotion despite outscoring other applicants, including African-American and Hispanic candidates. On Wednesday, the court led by conservative Chief Justice John G. Roberts, must determine whether Ricci's race impermissibly cost him an officer's badge.

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Do U.S. drones kill Pakistani extremists or recruit them?

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

McClatchy - By Jonathan S. Landay - Apr. 08 (News Report) - Even as the Obama administration launches new drone attacks into Pakistan's remote tribal areas, concerns are growing among U.S. intelligence and military officials that the strikes are bolstering the Islamic insurgency by prompting Islamist radicals to disperse into the country's heartland. Al Qaida, Taliban and other militants who've been relocating to Pakistan's overcrowded and impoverished cities may be harder to find and stop from staging terrorist attacks, the officials said. Moreover, they said, the strikes by the missile-firing drones are a recruiting boon for extremists because of the unintended civilian casualties that have prompted widespread anger against the U.S.

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Most electronic voting isn't secure, CIA expert says

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

McClatchy - By Greg Gordon - Mar. 25 (News Report) - The CIA, which has been monitoring foreign countries' use of electronic voting systems, has reported apparent vote-rigging schemes in Venezuela, Macedonia and Ukraine and a raft of concerns about the machines' vulnerability to tampering.

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Coal industry hopes for a place in Obama's energy policies

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

McClatchy - By Hamilmah Abdullah - Mar. 23 (News Report) - The coal industry - long the lifeblood of mountain-rich but economically poor states like Kentucky - is bracing for a seismic shift as the Obama administration charges ahead with re-envisioned energy policies focused heavily on renewable resources and new ways of storing carbon emissions.

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Media spotlight falls on Sacramento's homeless camp

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

McClatchy - By Cynthia Hubert - Mar. 14 (Special Report) - Sacramento's humble "tent city" has gone international. Across the country and around the world, newspaper readers and television viewers are being introduced to the sprawling campground where 100 to 200 homeless men and women sleep each night.

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It only looks different: Both parties love big government

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

McClatchy - By Steven Thomma - Mar. 08 (Opinion) - Strip away the political finger pointing over President Obama's proposed budget and the fight boils down to a clash of values. Both major parties are really for big government — just big in different places. Republicans say they're outraged that Obama would "borrow and spend" his way to a new behemoth government. But they borrowed and spent their way through the '80s and the current decade. And they love big government — when it's at the Pentagon.

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The worst recession since World War II? Shaping up that way

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

McClatchy - By Kevin G. Hall - Mar. 07 (News Report) - The government's report Friday of an 8.1 percent unemployment rate equals the jobless number that the Obama administration has projected for the entire year. Few economists think that optimistic projection will hold, and many think that more big job losses are likely, with grim implications for the housing and banking crises.

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As economic suffering spreads, so do financial scams

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

McClatchy - By Tony Pugh - Mar. 04 (Special Report) - Researchers say people are more susceptible to investment scams such as Ponzi and pyramid schemes after going through adverse life events — a job loss, foreclosure or some other financial hardship. So it's not surprising that many experts think the nation's deepening economic crisis is creating a whole new universe of potential scam victims every day. In fact, it makes perfect sense.

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Obama effect? Blacks optimistic in spite of economic struggles

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

McClatchy - By William Douglas - Feb. 27 (News Report) - African-Americans are more optimistic about their financial outlook next year than the general population is, even though they say they're struggling more with credit card debt, according to a new poll released Thursday.

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As U.S. lawmakers visit, Mideast ponders what comes next

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

McClatchy - By Dion Nissenbaum - Feb. 20 (News Report) - For the first time in nearly a decade, U.S. lawmakers toured the isolated, battle-scarred Gaza Strip Thursday in a high-profile visit that came as the new Obama administration in Washington is developing its diplomatic priorities for the Middle East.

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Will the stimulus actually stimulate? Economists say no

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

McClatchy - By Kevin G. Hall - Feb. 13 (News Analysis) - The compromise economic stimulus plan agreed to by negotiators from the House of Representatives and the Senate is short on incentives to get consumers spending again and long on social goals that won't stimulate economic activity, according to a range of respected economists.

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