While Tuesday's elections haven't gotten nearly the attention that a candidate for next year's presidential election has, voters across the country were casting ballots on races that mattered to them locally and had implications nationally.
Even as Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain was holding a nationally televised news conference to rebut sexual harassment allegations from the 1990s, a measure in Ohio to overturn the anti-collective bargaining measure that Republican Gov. John Kasich signed into law earlier this year was being interpreted as a barometer of next year's presidential election.
Ohio Issue 2: Controversial Anti-Union Law Defeated By Voters
UK High Court: Catholic church liable over actions of priests
Victims of sexual abuse by clergy are a step closer to winning compensation from the Catholic Church after the High Court ruled today that dioceses are responsible for the actions of their priests.
In a landmark ruling that could prove financially costly for the Catholic Church, Mr Justice Macduff ruled that the diocese of Portsmouth was “vicariously liable” for the acts of a priest who was accused of repeatedly raping a seven year old girl in the 1970s.
Midnight Explosion Rocks PA County; Residents Evacuated When Compressor Station Explodes
Compressor stations are scary. They emit benzene, toluene, formaldehyde, and other toxic chemicals at an alarming rate. They emit volatile organic chemicals and fine particulate matter which creates ground-level ozone, harming human health and animal health.
They’ve made people in Pennsylvania, like Pam Judy, sick. They are unregulated because they are treated as individual sources of pollution rather than aggregate sources of pollution. They also explode.
Chris Hedges’ Speech in Front of Goldman Sachs Leads to Arrest
Goldman Sachs, which received more subsidies and bailout-related funds than any other investment bank because the Federal Reserve permitted it to become a bank holding company under its “emergency situation,” has used billions in taxpayer money to enrich itself and reward its top executives. It handed its senior employees a staggering $18 billion in 2009, $16 billion in 2010 and $10 billion in 2011 in mega-bonuses. This massive transfer of wealth upwards by the Bush and Obama administrations, now estimated at $13 trillion to $14 trillion, went into the pockets of those who carried out fraud and criminal activity rather than the victims who lost their jobs, their savings and often their homes.
Secret 'Watch List' Reveals Failure To Curb Toxic Air
The system Congress set up 21 years ago to clean up toxic air pollution still leaves many communities exposed to risky concentrations of benzene, formaldehyde, mercury and many other hazardous chemicals.
Pollution violations at more than 1,600 plants across the country were serious enough that the government believes they require urgent action, according to an analysis of EPA data by NPR and the Center for Public Integrity. Yet nearly 300 of those facilities have been considered "high priority violators" of the Clean Air Act by the Environmental Protection Agency for at least a decade.
15,000 Voters Left Off 2008 Voter List in Shelby County, Tennessee!
There is still time to correct these problems by 2012. This story is not just about Shelby County, Tennessee, where I believe the elections commission is competently addressing these problems for 2012. Last-minute dumps of new voter registration forms was a national problem in 2008, and across America voters reported that when they showed up to vote, their name was missing from the list.
The 2008 presidential election brought millions of new voters to the polls, with enthusiasm especially high among youth and minority voters. Yet in Shelby County (the home of the great city of Memphis), over 15,000 voters, disproportionately young or Black voters, were omitted from the list of valid voters at the time of early voting; by Election Day, the names finally made it to the list.
U.S. pullout leaves Iraqi interpreters in 'dangerous limbo'
I am an Iraqi citizen who worked as an interpreter with the U.S. military for two years. It was an honor to serve, and I did it because I believed that bringing freedom to Iraq required brave people to stand up and try to make a difference. Now, as a result of my service, I find myself in a dangerous limbo.
Before 2003, I thought of the U.S. primarily as the home of Bruce Willis, Hollywood and Las Vegas. But it was also a dream, a dream of freedom.
Keystone XL pipeline decisions to be probed by State Department
The State Department's inspector general's office will launch an inquiry into the department's decisions regarding the Keystone XL pipeline, which would ferry oil from Canada's tar sands formation across the Plains states to the Gulf of Mexico.
The inquiry, in response to a congressional request, will center on whether the department followed laws and regulations in preparing its environmental assessment and statement of national interest for the 1,700-mile-long pipeline.
Fracking May Have Caused 50 Earthquakes in Oklahoma
In a surprising turn of events, Cuadrilla Resources, a British energy company, recently admitted that its hydraulic fracturing operations "likely" caused an earthquake in England. Predictably, this news quickly sent a shockwave through the U.K., the oil and natural gas industries, and the environmental activist community. And it certainly feeds plenty of speculation that the same phenomenon could be occurring elsewhere.
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