The latest headlines from The Most Important News....
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's momentum has been stopped and rebels have been able to hold onto areas that Gadhafi's forces had been poised to take over, a U.S. official said Monday.
Qaddafi has surrounded himself with civilian supporters in Tripoli, and his forces are bringing civilians to Misrata to use as human shields.
Media outlets affiliated with the Libyan opposition reported Monday that the son of Muammar Gaddafi, Khamis Gaddafi, was killed in a suicide attack on the Bab al-Azizia barracks in Tripoli.
SAS teams are on the ground in Libya with orders to pinpoint and destroy Colonel Gaddafi’s weapons.
One NATO missile totally destroyed an administrative building at Col. Gaddafi's Tripoli residence according to reports.
As the contrived moral high ground behind the absurdly hypocritical “humanitarian” pretext of the attack on Libya collapses in the wake of Russia, the Arab League and the African Union condemning the US-led NATO bombings, so does any pretense of legality that the “no fly zone” resolution holds, because the obvious attempt to assassinate Gaddafi violates not only U.S. law, but also the UN’s own charter.
Oil prices surged more than $2 a barrel in electronic trading Monday, after coalition forces launched an attack on Libyan military targets over the weekend.
Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev has lashed out at Prime Minister Vladimir Putin over his comments on the UN's Libya resolution.
The U.K. government is battling to hold together the international coalition opposing Muammar Gaddafi's actions amid signs of Arab unease at the scale and impact of western-led military operations in Libya, divisions within Nato over the no-fly zone, and a rising tide of global criticism.
Plant operators evacuated workers from Japan's tsunami-stricken nuclear complex Monday after gray smoke rose from one of its reactor units, the latest of persistent troubles in stabilizing the complex after it was damaged in a quake and tsunami.
Radioactivity fears in Japan are growing, with evidence of contamination in milk, vegetables and fish.
As Japan edged forward in its battle to contain the damage at its ravaged nuclear power plants on Saturday, the government said it had found higher than normal levels of radioactivity in spinach and milk at farms up to 90 miles away from the plants.
World health officials are warning of the dangerous cumulative effects from eating food contaminated by radiation leaking from Japan's crippled nuclear plant. One Japanese restaurant in Taiwan is serving up radiation gauges alongside its meals.
Radiation levels observed in food and milk grown and produced significant distances from the stricken nuclear power plant in Fukushima do not correlate with readings supposedly found in the immediate vicinity, suggesting that the real levels are being withheld from the public.
China and South Korea announced on Monday they will toughen checks of Japanese food for radioactivity, hours after the World Health Organization said the detection of radiation in some food in Japan was a more serious problem than it had expected.
Apparently the Dai-ichi complex in Fukushima, Japan has nearly 10 times more nuclear fuel than Chernobyl.
Japanese engineers have conceded that burying a crippled nuclear plant in sand and concrete may be the only way to prevent a catastrophic radiation release.
The release of radiation from the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant will be a problem for Japan for years to come, according to the French nuclear watchdog.
The death toll from last week's devastating earthquake and tsunami will top 15,000 in Miyagi Prefecture alone, the local police chief said Sunday.
Food is really starting to run short in Japan.
Are thorium reactors going to transform the way that the world gets energy?
Now that the total debt of the U.S. government is $14,223,730,274,180.80, it is getting really hard to deny that the federal government is drowning in debt.
In just a month’s time a second American paper mill has announced that it will be closing its doors for good.
Unemployment rose in nearly all of the 372 largest U.S. cities in January compared to the previous month.
Since the recession began, the number of Americans that have given up looking for work has grown by 30 percent, to more than 6.4 million.
Sales of previously owned U.S. homes fell unexpectedly sharply in February and prices touched their lowest level in nearly nine years.
The National Association of Realtors said Monday that sales of previously occupied homes fell last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.88 million. That’s down 9.6% from 5.4 million in January.
Are there good reasons why many Americans should never buy a house again?
The U.S. Treasury said Monday that it will sell a big portfolio of mortgage-backed bonds over the next year or so, in a move to wind down a crisis-era program providing financing for residential housing.
Average weekly earnings in the United States have gone in a negative direction for four months in a row.
About three-quarters of Americans surveyed by America's Research Group said they were shopping less due to rising gas prices, with more than 62 percent of the participants planning to spend generously only next year or beyond.
Households, followed by mutual funds, are the biggest holders of municipal debt.
Corn has soared 52% in the past 12 months. Sugar’s up 60%. Soybeans have jumped 41%. And wheat costs 24% more than it did a year ago.
According to a recent Newsweek quiz, 29 percent of Americans could not pass the citizenship test, leading to several doubts about the civic awareness of the population.
Ron Paul won the California Republican Party convention poll over the weekend. The Texas congressman defeated former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.
Graphic photos showing U.S. troops and dead Afghans that the Army was keeping under wraps for a war crimes probe were carried by a German news organization Monday, with one showing a soldier smiling as he posed with a bloodied and partially clothed corpse.
An autistic man says Transportation Security Administration agents violated his rights early Sunday during a security screening at Boston Logan International Airport.
The federal government says more overweight Americans are squeezing onto buses, and it may have to rewrite bus safety rules because of it.
Porsche is now taking orders for the German carmaker's first publicly available hybrid sports car, the 918 Spyder. It is only $845,000.
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons says facelifts for men jumped 14 percent last year.
Demonstrators in the southern Syrian city of Deraa have set fire to several buildings during a third consecutive day of protests, witnesses say. One report said the buildings targeted included the headquarters of the ruling Baath Party.
Lastly, facing a possible new conflict against Hamas, concern is growing within the IDF regarding increased efforts by Palestinian terrorist groups to dig tunnels under the border that could be used to infiltrate into Israel and perpetrate attacks.
The latest headlines from The Most Important News....
The situation at Japan's tsunami-stricken nuclear plant is "very serious" but at the moment it does not appear to be deteriorating, a senior official of the U.N. atomic agency said Thursday.
Efforts to cool down one of the reactors at a quake-damaged Japanese nuclear power plant have been "somewhat effective" since authorities turned helicopters, fire trucks and police water cannon on the facility, its owner said early Friday.
A United Nations forecast of the possible movement of the radioactive plume coming from crippled Japanese reactors shows it churning across the Pacific, and touching the Aleutian Islands on Thursday before hitting Southern California late Friday.
Why are the spent fuel rods at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nucler plant such a threat?
Fallout from the current meltdown occurring at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, which was hit by the 9.0+ mega earthquake and tsunami last Friday, could contaminate the world's food supply with toxic radiation according to experts.
Is the mainstream media downplaying the amount of radiation that will make it to the U.S.?
Radiation detectors at Dallas-Fort Worth and Chicago O’Hare airports were recently triggered when passengers from flights that started in Tokyo passed through customs, the New York Post reported.
Suggesting that levels of radiation leaks from the stricken Fukushima plant are being grossly underreported by Japanese authorities, a Swedish government agency told Reuters today that not only will the radiation reach North America, but it will subsequently cover the entire northern hemisphere.
The U.S. State Department says that the United States has chartered aircraft to help Americans leave Japan and has authorized the voluntary departure of family members of diplomatic staff in Tokyo, Nagoya and Yokohama -- about 600 people.
Mizuho, the second-largest financial services company in Japan, has just locked out its customers from accessing their cash.
Many Chinese, fearing radiation poisoning from the earthquake-ravaged nuclear plant in neighboring Japan that just lies across the sea, are buying iodine pills to protect themselves.
Japanese citizens are starting to leave Tokyo in very large numbers.
Is the nuclear crisis in Japan going to cause an energy crunch?
Millions of Japanese people are bracing themselves for massive blackouts as the country’s power system struggles to cope amid the nuclear crisis.
The Bank of Japan has pumped 6 trillion yen into the country's financial markets in a bid to stabilize them.
Problems in Japan have become exhibit A in what economists say is the greatest threat to the recovery in the United States -- uncertainty overseas.
Will quantitative easing have to be extended because of the crisis in Japan?
The U.S. national debt jumped by $72 billion on Tuesday even as the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution to fund the government for just three weeks that will cut $6 billion from government spending.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday that there was no alternative except for Congress to raise the debt ceiling so that the government can keep borrowing. "Congress has to do it. There's no alternative," he said in response to questions at a House of Representatives appropriations subcommittee.
General Motors plans to halt production temporarily of the Chevrolet Colorado and GM Canyon compact pickups made at Shreveport, La., because some parts come from Japan and aren't available now.
Japan will get what it wants from the Group of Seven teleconference of finance ministers and central bankers Thursday night, but G-7 sources say the group is still waiting for Japan to ask.
U.S. housing starts posted their biggest decline in 27 years in February while building permits dropped to their lowest level on record, suggesting the beleaguered real estate sector has yet to rebound from its deepest slump in modern history.
The U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is the official government measure to track inflation, is up 2.1 percent from last year.
Food prices at the wholesale level rose last month by the most in 36 years. Cold weather accounted for most of it, forcing stores and restaurants to pay more for green peppers, lettuce and other vegetables, but meat and dairy prices surged, too.
Americans spend only about 10% of their annual incomes on food, compared with as much as 70% in other countries, but with prices climbing, some economists wonder whether the nation's abundance of affordable food is history.
A special index created by the Labor Department to measure the actual cost of living for Americans hit a record high in February, according to data released Thursday, surpassing the old high in July 2008.
Public/quasi-public employment rose steadily over the past ten years, and is now up 16%. By comparison, the rest of the private sector is down 8% in jobs over the past 10 years.
North Dakota, the state with the nation's lowest unemployment rate, capped a decade of economic prosperity with dramatic population growth in its biggest cities.
The U.S. Senate has easily passed the sixth in a series of short-term spending bills to avoid a government shutdown.
The U.S. House of Representatives has easily passed a bill that would eliminate taxpayer funds for NPR, a week after a fundraising executive was caught on video saying the organization would be better off without government support.
Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, has confirmed that she will not serve in the next Barack Obama administration if the president wins a second term in 2012.
Faced with a Congress hostile to even slight restrictions of Second Amendment rights, the Obama administration is exploring potential changes to gun laws that can be secured strictly through executive action, administration officials say.
A group of Democratic lawmakers has introduced legislation that would result in a tax hike of up to 40% for the wealthiest Americans.
One protester in Bahrain was recently shot at point blank range.
The United States, in a reversal of its previous position, now says the UN Security Council should consider more than a no-fly zone to protect civilians in Libya.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday that any military intervention in Libya may trigger a war.
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy and Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday that the Obama administration is planning to maintain “joint” U.S.-Afghan military bases in Afghanistan after 2014 and it plans to conduct what Flournoy described as “joint counter-terrorism operations” with the Afghan military after that date.
Enviropig is the trademark for a genetically modified line of Yorkshire pigs, first created in 1999, with the capability to digest plant phosphorus more efficiently than ordinary unmodified pigs. They are considered “greener”, emitting a smaller quantity of pollutants in their manure. Thus, the name “enviropig”. Their creators hope one day that enviropig’s will be sold in markets, fast food chains and in packaged food.
CNBC is mocking "Armageddon entrepreneurs".
The New Hampshire Supreme Court on Wednesday affirmed a lower court’s decision to order an 11-year-old out of homeschooling and into a public school.
Lastly, crews are on scene assessing a 40-foot section of Highway 1 that fell into the Pacific Ocean near the Big Sur area Wednesday night, according to the California Department of Transportation.
The latest headlines from The Most Important News....
Speaking briefly at the White House Thursday, Barack Obama said Muammar Gaddafi must leave Libya and he said that the U.S. was "outraged by the violence" in the North African country as rebels and forces loyal to Gaddafi continue to battle.
One major British newspaper is reporting that the U.S. and NATO are edging closer to a possible military confrontation with Muammar Gaddafi's regime, as the U.S. deploys naval and air force units around Libya, and as David Cameron orders contingency plans for Britain to help enforce a no-fly zone.
Barack Obama has announced that he has approved the use of U.S. military aircraft to help return to Egypt those Egyptian citizens who have fled to Tunisia to escape unrest in neighboring Libya Obama said he also authorized the U.S. Agency for International Development to charter additional planes "to help people from other countries find their way home."
If the U.S. military is hesitant to enact a no-fly zone over Libya, the Army is capable of giving the opposition the capacity to use anti-aircraft defenses themselves, Sen. Joe Lieberman suggested Thursday.
Three Dutch marines are being held in Libya after they were captured by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi while trying to rescue Dutch workers.
Gaddafi has offered amnesty to Libyan rebels but has also threatened a bloodbath if the West tries to intervene.
The Wisconsin Senate has passed a resolution calling for police to take 14 Democrats into custody for contempt after they fled to Illinois to avoid voting on a union rights bill.
The number of Americans on food stamps is now over 44 million.
According to Gallup, unemployment in the United States rose to 10.3% at the end of February.
New home sales in the United States fell a shocking 11.2% between December and January and 18.6% from 12 months earlier.
97% of all U.S. mortgages are now either written or guaranteed by the U.S. government.
In the past six months, the value of the precious metal has increased nearly 80 percent, to more than $34 an ounce from around $19 an ounce.
Gas prices jumped 4 cents overnight, with the average American driver now paying more than $3.40 a gallon.
Nationwide, drivers spent $347 on gasoline in February, which is nearly 8.5% of median income, according to the Oil Price Information Service.
World food prices rose 2.2% in February from the previous month (a 26.4% annualized rate) to a record peak, according to the The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Some fast food chains in North America are limiting the servings of some vegetables on their sandwiches after a frost hit crops in California and Mexico.
Would the combination of $5 gasoline and 5 percent mortgage rates crush the U.S. economy?
Will monetization of U.S. government debt by the Federal Reserve ever come to an end?
Is George Soros trying to restructure the global financial system?
The Wall Street Journal is declaring that the reign of the U.S. dollar is coming to an end.
Total world debt, mathematically, is always tending toward infinity – and there is no possible way of paying it off.
The interest rate on Portugal's 10-year debt has been above 7% for 19 days now.
Are Europe's banks in much greater danger than most people realize?
China hopes to allow all exporters and importers to settle their cross-border trades in the yuan by the end of this year, the central bank said on Wednesday, as part of plans to grow the currency’s international role.
Is the U.S. Postal Service going to be flat broke by this October?
Alan Blinder, former Vice-Chairman of the Federal Reserve and now an economist at Princeton, is estimating that offshoring will ultimately affect up to 40 million American jobs.
U.S. 15-year-olds rank 17th in the world in science and 25th in math.
Many areas of Chicago now very closely resemble "war zones".
Major U.S. airlines are raising fares for the sixth time this year.
With price of gasoline rising for the eighth consecutive day, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour accused the Obama administration of hiking energy costs in an effort to promote alternative fuels.
The founder of one of the largest Tea Party groups has had enough with the lack of budget cuts sought by House Speaker John Boehner, calling him "a fool" proposing that the movement challenge him in the 2012 elections and saying that he's now making less sense than Charlie Sheen.
Nearly every Republican freshman representative (the vast majority of whom claim to represent the Tea Party), sent a letter to Barack Obama demanding he submit the Korea, Panama and Columbia free trade agreements to the House of Representatives for ratification.
Karl Rove says that Republicans cannot win in 2012 with just a message of austerity.
Fareed Zakaria, a member of both the CFR and the Trilateral Commission, says that America is failing because of our failure to embrace “market-based” globalism.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a tacit admission during a U.S. Foreign Policy Priorities committee meeting yesterday, arguing that the State Department needs more money because the US military-industrial complex is “losing the information war” to the likes of Russia Today and Al Jazeera due to the US corporate media having completely abandoned “real news”.
A national ID card for all Americas? Get ready - the REAL ID Act goes into full effect on May 11th.
An increasing number of cities are turning toilet water into tap water.
In New York City in 2007, 87,527 abortions were performed, with 43,568–or 49.8 percent–of the aborted babies being black, according to the CDC.
Lawmakers in Texas are eyeing the adoption of an immigration reform law similar to the one in Arizona, making the Lone Star state the latest to join about a dozen others also considering it.
Almost overnight, the online evangelical community has erupted into a full-blown debate over doctrines related to heaven, hell, religious pluralism, justice, mercy and atonement.
After a large posting of the Ten Commandments was removed for the second time from a Giles High School wall, kids began posting the Ten Commandments on their lockers.
Prosecutors have notified a Philadelphia doctor charged with killing a patient and seven babies at his abortion clinic that they intend to pursue the death penalty against him.
A family in Pasadena, California is making a living from selling produce grown in their yard to neighbors and restaurants. They grow 6,000 pounds of produce on 1/10th of an acre of cultivated land per year.
One of the nation’s senior scientists has alerted the federal government to a newly discovered organism that may have the potential to cause infertility and spontaneous abortion in farm animals, raising significant concerns about human health. Dr. Don Huber, professor emeritus at Purdue University, believes the appearance and prevalence of the unnamed organism may be related to the nation’s over reliance on the weed killer known as Roundup and/or to something about the genetically engineered Roundup-Ready crops.
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday ordered the removal from the market of more than 500 prescription drugs used to treat colds, coughs and allergies because the medications had never gone through a federal review of their safety and effectiveness.
Lastly, a new study appearing in the journal Anticancer Research lays out the simple, powerful truth about vitamin D that we’ve been teaching at NaturalNews for years: A typical adults needs 4,000 – 8,000 IUs of vitamin D each day to prevent cancer, MS and type-1 diabetes, not the ridiculously low 400 – 800 IUs recommended by the U.S. government.
