Thursday, Jul 18th
Last update06:35:59 AM GMT
Special Interest Glance
The Arizona assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has focused attention on U.S. gun laws, which are among the most permissive in the developed world. Here are some of the key federal and state laws:
* CONSTITUTION:: The Supreme Court in a key ruling in 2008 supported the right of individual Americans to own guns for self defense. Gun owners, represented by the powerful National Rifle Association, have jealously guarded this right and opposed any proposed law they see as diluting it.
A senator's high-profile investigation of spending by televangelists wrapped up after more than three years Thursday with no penalties for the pastors who refused to cooperate and no definitive findings of wrongdoing.
The report released by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley raises questions about the personal use of church-owned airplanes, luxury homes and credit cards by pastors and their families, and expresses concern about the lack of oversight of finances by boards often packed with the televangelists' relatives and friends.
Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki says the archdiocese had no choice but to file for bankruptcy due to the lawsuits it faces for sexual abuse by its clergy. Listecki described the bankruptcy filing Tuesday as something that would allow the archdiocese to pay victims molested by priests while preserving programs, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
"As a result of the horrific actions of a few, there are financial claims pending against the archdiocese that exceed our means," Listecki said at a news conference at the archdiocesan headquarters.
Japanese and American officials discussed taking action to weaken a prominent anti-whaling group, with Tokyo insisting that Sea Shepherd's confrontations on the high seas actually hurt efforts to reduce whaling, U.S. diplomatic cables show.
The U.S. representative to the International Whaling Commission, Monica Medina, discussed revoking the U.S.-based conservation group's tax-exempt status during a meeting with senior officials from the Fisheries Agency of Japan in November 2009, according to the documents released by WikiLeaks on Monday.
WMR has learned from a long-time Republican Party consultant that the CIA used Sweden to launder the transfer to Wikileaks of carefully screened and redacted State Department cables and the subsequent release of the cables to pre-selected corporate news media entities. Sweden was chosen because of its so-called “press freedom and freedom of expression” traditions in an effort to make the release of the cables by Wikileaks appear to be unconnected to a covert CIA and Pentagon psychological operations program designed to place further controls on the Internet.
In the event of his untimely death or long-term incarceration, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange would make public all the leaked documents his group has, the activist reiterated Thursday in an interview with the broadcaster al Jazeera.
"If I am forced, we could go to the extreme and expose each and every file that we have access to," he said, according to media groups reporting on the interview.
The board of a Rio Linda church, whose pastor has been arrested on suspicion of child molestation, released a statement of support on Saturday.
Tom Gene Daniels, 48, pastor of the Rio Linda Baptist Church, is charged with suspicion of lewd or lascivious act with a child under 14 and engaging in 3 or more acts of sexual conduct with a child.
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