A federal district court judge late Friday revoked the government’s approval of genetically engineered sugar beets, saying that the United States Department of Agriculture had not adequately assessed the environmental consequences before approving them for commercial cultivation.
The decision by Judge Jeffrey S. White of Federal District Court in San Francisco appears to effectively ban the planting of the genetically modified sugar beets — which this year make up about 95 percent of the crop — until the Agriculture Department prepares an environmental impact statement and reconsiders approval of the crop, a process that might take a couple of years.
The Food and Drug Administration approved a controversial new form of emergency contraception Friday that can prevent a pregnancy as many as five days after sex. The decision to allow the sale of the pill, which will be marketed under the brand name "ella," was welcomed by family-planning proponents as a crucial new option to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
No more than one-quarter of Americans trusts the news media, but the greatest confidence in the struggling newspaper industry ironically comes from young people, a poll said Friday. The Gallup poll found that 25 percent of Americans felt a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in newspapers and 22 percent in television news, in line with a steady slide over the past two decades.
Longshot Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene was indicted Friday on two charges, including a felony charge of showing pornography to a teenage student in a South Carolina college computer lab. Greene surprised the party establishment with his primary victory in June. His arrest in November was first reported by The Associated Press the day after he won the nomination.
The American Cancer Society (ACS) is involved financially with manufacturers of mammography devices, tainting its cancer screenings with conflict of interest, cancer prevention experts Samuel S. Epstein and Rosalie Bertell have charged.
"You are a General," Tillman's father writes Jones after being presented with a briefing book of his findings. "There is no way a man like you, with your intelligence, education, military, experience, responsibilities (primarily for difficult situations), and rank... believes the conclusions reached in the March 31, 2005 Briefing Book. But your signature is on it. I assume, therefore, that you are part of this shameless bullshit. I embarrassed myself by treating you with respect [on] March 31, 2005. I thought your rank deserved it and anticipated something different from the new and improved investigation. I won't act so hypocritically if we meet again."
In the midst of the drama around the mosque that’s being erected two blocks from Ground Zero, a few details have been left out that provide some clarity as to the purpose of this project. Specifically, the project will be the country’s first certified “green mosque,” in full compliance with stringent LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards, which is why organizers have named the project Park51, rather than the oft-cited “Cordoba House.”
The world's pre-eminent Sunni Muslim institution of learning has condemned a Florida church's plans to host a Koran-burning ceremony on September 11. In a statement carried by local media on Thursday, Al-Azhar's Supreme Council in Egypt accused the church of stirring up hate and discrimination and called on other American churches to condemn the event.
A US appeals court has upheld a ruling that blocks schools in the state of Massachusetts from teaching literature that denies the mass killing of Armenians in Turkey in 1915 was a genocide. The ruling came in response to a 2005 lawsuit filed by the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, a US lobbying group. A lower court dismissed the suit in June, and the appeals court upheld that decision on Wednesday.
