U.S. grain prices should stay unrelentingly high this year, according to a Reuters poll, the latest sign that the era of cheap food has come to an end. U.S. corn, soybeans and wheat prices -- which surged by as much has 50 percent last year and hit their highest levels since mid-2008 -- will dip by at most 5 percent by the end of 2011, according to the poll of 16 analysts.
The forecasts suggest no quick relief for nations bedeviled by record high food costs that have stoked civil unrest. It means any extreme weather event in a grains-producing part of the world could send prices soaring further.



Virginia Tea Party Patriots leader Jamie Radtke went after the Republican establishment Thursday during an address to the Senate Tea Party caucus. During her address to the caucus, National Journal reports Radtke said, "The Tea Party movement would not exist today if the Republicans had not failed under the Bush years."
The investigation comes days after the deaths of an estimated 100,000 fish in northwest Arkansas. Authorities suspect disease was to blame there, a state spokesman said.
A decade ago, half of all Mexicans had no health insurance at all. Then the country’s Congress passed a bill to ensure health care for every Mexican without access to it. The goal was explicit: universal coverage.
Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs Group has tripled the base salary of chief executive Lloyd Blankfein to $2m (£1.3m), up from $600,000. And company filings show he was also awarded shares currently worth $12.6m, a 42% hike from the the stock bonus he received for 2009.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has expanded the pool of Korean War vets who can make claims related to exposure to Agent Orange. This toxic defoliant has been linked to more than a dozen serious, often fatal health problems, including various types of cancer.





























