Monday, Dec 01st
Last update10:42:03 AM GMT
The top 1 percent of earners more than doubled their share of the nation’s income over the last three decades, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday, in a new report likely to figure prominently in the escalating political fight over how to revive the economy, create jobs and lower the federal debt.
In addition, the report said, government policy has become less redistributive since the late 1970s, doing less to reduce the concentration of income.
Muslims who change their names to sound more traditionally American, as immigrants have done for generations, or who adopt Arabic names as a sign of their faith are often investigated and catalogued in secret New York Police Department intelligence files, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
The NYPD monitors everyone in the city who changes his or her name, according to internal police documents and interviews. For those whose names sound Arabic or might be from Muslim countries, police run comprehensive background checks that include reviewing travel records, criminal histories, business licenses and immigration documents. All this is recorded in police databases for supervisors, who review the names and select a handful of people for police to visit.
The last of the chemical weapons stockpile at the U.S. Army's Umatilla Chemical Depot has been successfully incinerated.
For nearly 50 years, it was the deathtrap next door: 3.7 tons of nerve gas and blister agent, a big part of America's chemical weapons arsenal, stored at a depot near the little town of Hermiston, Ore.
evicting 82 families, and arresting 18 people. Then they blockaded the village, keeping the villagers in -- and journalists out. (Wilmar claims it has done no wrong.)
The Army's crime lab, already beleaguered by multiple internal investigations, has something new to explain: missing evidence.
Examiners misplaced evidence in a possible suicide investigation and an assault case. One of the analysts didn't notify his superiors for months that a handwriting sample he was supposed to examine had been missing, a miscue that delayed an investigation into the matter until recently.
A new audit of the Federal Reserve released today detailed widespread conflicts of interest involving directors of its regional banks.
"The most powerful entity in the United States is riddled with conflicts of interest," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said after reviewing the Government Accountability Office report. The study required by a Sanders Amendment to last year's Wall Street reform law examined Fed practices never before subjected to such independent, expert scrutiny.
From Naomi Wolf's arrest in New York to shootings in Tucson and Florida, forces face allegations of abuse of power.
A report from the New York Civil Liberties Union recently looked at police use of Taser stun guns in the state, and revealed that in 60% of incidents where they were used, the incident did not meet the recommended criteria for such a weapon. Some cases involved people already handcuffed and 40% involved "at risk" subjects such as children, the elderly or mentally ill. "This disturbing pattern of misuse and abuse endangers lives," said the NYCLU's executive director, Donna Lieberman.
Established by Congress to investigate and expose government waste, the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan has decided to not reveal its volumes of materials to the public for another two decades.
After three years of work, the commission officially shut down last week, having concluded that the U.S. misspent between $31 billion and $60 billion in contracting for services in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Vatican called Monday for radical reform of the world's financial systems, including the creation of a global political authority to manage the economy.
Vatican pronouncements on the economy are meant to guide world leaders as well as the global church. United States Roman Catholic bishops, for example, have released a voter guide for the 2012 election that highlights social concerns such as ending poverty.
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