The latest from The Most Important News....

A magnitude-6.7 earthquake rattled northeast Japan early Thursday in the same area where a massive quake triggered a deadly tsunami in March, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday welcomed Barack Obama's plans for a U.S. troops drawdown and said it's a sign that Afghanistan is ready to take control of security in the war-torn nation.

Syrian troops massed near the Turkish border, witnesses said on Thursday, raising tensions with Ankara as President Bashar al-Assad uses increasing military force against a popular revolt.

Lebanon's Hezbollah is preparing for a possible war with Israel to relieve perceived Western pressure to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad, its guardian ally, sources close to the movement say.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday that the Islamic Republic is not afraid of manufacturing nuclear weapons, but does not intend to do so.

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, says she is not sure that there will be a vote in the United Nations in September on recognition of a Palestinian state and that the wording of the resolution is still uncertain.

Severe flooding is causing chaos in North Dakota.

Two Republicans pulled out of high-profile budget talks today, saying that Barack Obama needs to address Democratic demands that tax increases are needed to reduce the nation's debt.

As of June 20th, the U.S. national debt was $14,344,524,186,068.19.

The national debt will exceed the size of the entire U.S. economy by 2021 — and balloon to nearly 200 percent of GDP within 25 years — without dramatic cuts to federal health and retirement programs or steep tax increases, congressional budget analysts said Wednesday.

Federal Reserve officials are more pessimistic about prospects for economic growth and employment than they were two months ago.

Ben Bernanke made the following statement yesterday: "We don’t have a precise read on why this slower pace of growth is persisting."

The Federal Reserve plans to "embed" even more workers at top Wall Street banks.

The U.S. Department of Energy said Thursday it will release 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to alleviate Libyan supply disruptions -- driving already sinking prices lower.

The price of food continues to soar all over the United States.

Livestock prices have increased 138% since March 2009.

World food prices that rose 37 percent in a year, driving 44 million more people into poverty, are a “plague” that need action from world leaders now, French President Nicolas Sarkozy says.

According to a recent poll, 48 percent of Americans believe that "another Great Depression" is likely within the next 12 months.

In the week ending June 18, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 429,000, an increase of 9,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 420,000.

U.S. jobs have been leaving the country at a staggering pace.

America has lost 11.7 million jobs and 440,000 businesses over the past 11 years.

Excluding petroleum products, China accounts for 70 percent of America's trade deficit in goods.

The Chinese government is using sovereign wealth funds and Chinese state-owned enterprises to buy up economic assets and huge tracts of land all over the United States.

The People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, said on Thursday that it has signed a revised bilateral currency settlement agreement with the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.

In less than 40 years India will overtake the US as the world’s second-largest trading nation, pushing today’s superpower into third place and Europe in to the little leagues, according to a new report by Citi.

India imported a staggering $8.96 billion of gold and silver in May.

Greece won the consent of a team of EU-IMF inspectors for its new five-year austerity plan after committing to an additional round of tax rises and spending cuts.

Greece's new finance minister said the government has been encouraging Greek banks to participate in a solution to the country's crippling debt crisis, just days ahead of a crucial Parliamentary vote that could stave off a devastating default.

Rioting is becoming a common thing all over the globe.

All over the United States, thieves are stealing copper wire, train tracks and even drain covers.

With a bill that would ban invasive TSA pat downs in Texas set to be heard by the state legislature on Friday, the federal agency has indicated that it will take legal action to prevent the law being implemented, indicating that the government could once again resort to threatening Texas with a blockade that would impose a de facto “no fly zone” over the state.

It is being reported that Fukushima nuclear fuel has burned through the containment vessel and is sitting on the concrete foundation of the plant leaking into the groundwater.

Heavy rains in South Dakota recently triggered a sinkhole which swallowed two vehicles and ended up claiming two lives.

An indigenous tribe of 200 people who have never had contact with the outside world has been discovered living in Brazil's Amazon rainforest.

In his encyclical Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI came out forcefully in favor of environmental protection and "sustainable" economic development.

The death of an Arizona man who recently visited Germany may be linked to the food-poisoning outbreak in Europe, health officials said Thursday.

A shocking new study published in a prestigious medical journal has found a direct statistical link between higher vaccine doses and infant mortality rates in the developed world, suggesting that the increasing number of inoculations being forced upon children by medical authorities, particularly in the United States which administers the highest number of vaccines and also has the highest number of infant deaths, is in fact having a detrimental impact on health.

On Monday, former Vice President Al Gore discussed climate change and population control at the Games for Change convention in New York City.

Lastly, Jews and Israelis, or passengers carrying any non-Islamic article of faith, will not be able to fly on Delta Air Lines flights from the U.S. to Saudi Arabia under Delta's new partnership with Saudi Arabian Airlines.

Armed westerners have been filmed on the front line with rebels near Misrata in the first apparent confirmation that foreign special forces are playing an active role in the Libyan conflict.

Eight generals from embattled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's army have defected to Italy, the Italian Foreign Ministry told CNN Monday.

Is NATO preparing to hit Moammar Gadhafi harder than ever?

Most people do not realize it, but Yemen is coming apart at the seams right now.

An Israeli Cabinet minister says the civilized world must take joint action to avert the Iranian nuclear threat, including a pre-emptive strike if necessary.

The Muslim Brotherhood claims that it wants a diverse parliament after elections in September and is not seeking to impose Islamic law on Egypt, the head of the group's newly formed political party said in an interview.

On Saturday, before Songda degraded into a tropical storm, TEPCO said some reactor buildings were uncovered and radiation would spread due to the storm. “We have made utmost efforts, but we have not completed covering the damaged reactor buildings,” said an official at that time.

Within a 20 km radius around the stricken plant at Fukushima, a Chernobyl-style dead zone is developing, with levels of 1.48 million becquerels a square meter measured within that area.

Gasoline costs a dollar more per gallon than it did last Memorial Day.

The average Memorial Day cookout is going to cost 29 percent more this year than it did last year.

The Japanese earthquake and tsunami in March appears to have damaged the U.S. economy much more than expected.

High input prices, supply chain disruptions from the tsunami disaster in Japan and slowing demand from China have combined to brake manufacturing momentum in Europe, the United States and Asia in recent months.

Even the United Nations is now warning that the U.S. dollar could collapse.

Reports that Greece has not met any of the fiscal targets set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union (EU) as part of its 110 billion euros ($157 billion) bailout knocked down the euro Monday, as other countries in the euro zone are threatened with being dragged into the Greek morass.

The European Union is racing to draft a second bailout package for Greece to release vital loans next month and avert the risk of the euro zone country defaulting, EU officials said on Monday.

It is being reported that if a new Greek bailout package is approved, outside authorities will take over various functions related to tax collection (a big time problem in Athens) and privatizations.

The ECB owns 50 billion EUR worth of Greek bonds, and has loaned 90 billion EUR to Greek banks. A Greek default would compromise the balance sheet of the ECB.

Greek citizens are pulling billions out of their banks as the country descends into chaos.

Tens of thousands of Greeks vented their anger at the nation’s political classes in Athens on Sunday, staging the biggest in a week of protests as the government seeks backing for yet more austerity.

If Greece defaults, it is going to be a complete and total financial disaster.

Ireland may have to ask for another loan from the European Union and International Monetary Fund because it will struggle to return to debt markets to raise funds next year, a government minister said on Sunday.

The Bank of England's chief economist has admitted that the UK faces two "bleak" years as it grapples with inflation and economic adjustments.

China is stepping up buying in Japanese government bonds, particularly notes with less than one year to maturity, market players say, in what looks like a fresh drive to diversify its ballooning foreign reserves.

In a move that is certain to be detrimental to the American economy, President Barack Obama is personally pushing for Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization, even working behind the scenes to resolve some of the outstanding issues.

Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal said Sunday that he wants oil prices to drop so that the United States and Europe don't accelerate efforts to wean themselves off his country's supply.

A weak dollar, mounting inflationary fears and skyrocketing gold and silver prices are prompting some states to convert precious metals into legal currencies.

China now consumes 53% of the world's cement.

The cost of airline travel has increased exponentially, mostly due to surcharges and fees which can add $500 or more to the price of round-trip airfare.

Is the U.S. Postal Service on the verge of collapse?

Sometimes controversial trends analyzer Gerald Celente is forecasting that a return to the gold standard will not be enough to save the U.S. economy from collapsing.

Sarah Palin told CNN on Monday that she plans to take her "One Nation" bus tour to Iowa, the state that votes first in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul performed well in the latest CNN poll of potential Republican primary voters.

Barack Obama is sending even more troops over to Iraq.

Iraqi cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr has threatened to take up arms against U.S. troops unless they leave the country by the end of the year.

An internal bulletin from the Kenyan National Security Intelligence Service, or NSIS, states that the Kenyan government in 2009 commissioned a cultural museum in the Obama home village of Kogelo to honor the "birthplace of President Barack Obama" and rededicate the tomb of his father, Barack Obama Sr.

African swine fever (ASF), a viral disease harmless to people but lethal to pigs, is likely to spread beyond Russia and the Caucasus region into Europe, the United Nations’ food agency said on Thursday.

The Church of Scotland is preparing for dozens of ministers to come out as homosexuals following a historic vote to allow practicing gay clergy.

Northern Europe is facing the worst drought it has seen in 35 years.

One U.S. Congressman is saying that we need to move our families out of the cities.

A study scheduled for publication in the Pace Environmental Law Review closely examined public information on 1,300 cases in which the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program compensated families. Significant brain injuries were found in compensated patients as a direct result of vaccinations. Eighty-three cases specifically resulted in autism and are being called, “the tip of the iceberg.”

Some authorities want to add lithium to our drinking water to "improve" our mental health.

It turns out that dancing at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C. is illegal.

Chilling technology straight out of Minority Report that would subject Americans to pre-crime interrogations and physiological scans to detect “malintent” at sports stadiums, malls, airports and other public places has moved closer to being implemented after Homeland Security’s FAST program passed its first round of testing.

Lastly, starting next year all new cellphones will be required to contain a chip that will allow the president to broadcast "emergency alerts" to the cellphones whenever the president wants.

Barack Obama has announced to the world that the U.S. military has killed Osama Bin Laden.  At this point nobody can examine the evidence because supposedly the body has been dumped into the North Arabian Sea from aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier.  U.S. officials say that this was necessary because "Islamic law" requires a rapid burial.

It turns out that Islamic law actually requires burial in the ground if at all possible.

The compound where Osama bin Laden was supposedly killed by U.S. forces is located a bit more than 1,000 yards from a Pakistan Military Academy.

Pakistan declared the killing of Osama bin Laden a “major setback” to global terrorism, but it will inevitably come under pressure to explain how the al-Qaeda leader was holed up in a mansion near a military facility.

Thousands of people poured into the streets outside the White House and in New York City early Monday, waving U.S. flags, cheering and honking horns to celebrate al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden's death.

Not everyone is celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden. Between 800 - 1,200 protestors marched in Quetta, Pakistan on Monday, to pay homage to Osama Bin Laden.

The Taliban has already threatened fresh attacks on Pakistani leaders and US targets.

The London Guardian has suggested that the fake image of a dead Osama Bin Laden used by several British mainstream media websites this morning on their front pages was the work of “conspiracy theorists” who claimed it was genuine.

An article in the New York Times reported that Osama Bin Laden was dead back in 2002, and an article on Fox News reported that Osama Bin Laden was dead back in 2001.  In fact, there have been quite a few reports of the death of Bin Laden over the years.

As news of Osama bin Laden's death made its way across the globe Sunday night, Internet traffic exploded.

The Chinese official news agency Xinhua is reporting that Osama Bin Laden was killed by Pakistani forces, and that U.S. forces merely swooped in the pick up the body.

Adolf Hitler's death was made public 66 years to the day before Bin Laden's.

The State Department issued a travel alert Monday, warning Americans traveling or living abroad to be cautious about anti-American violence in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death.

On Monday, the NYPD flooded the city’s subway system with additional cops. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, “out of an abundance of caution,” said it has added more police at airports, the George Washington Bridge and ground zero.

China has again urged an end to fighting in Libya, saying it has "always opposed" any action not authorized by the U.N. Security Council, after Libya said Muammar Gaddafi's youngest son and three grandchildren were killed in a NATO airstrike.

The British embassy in Tripoli was set on fire and other western missions were ransacked by angry Libyan crowds recently in retaliation for a Nato air strike that killed members of Muammar Gaddafi's family.

Persistent, heavy rains have helped swell the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to the highest levels ever recorded, said an Army Corps of Engineers official Sunday.

The F5 tornado that ripped through the Tuscaloosa, Alabama area recently was reportedly so monstrous that it is still kind of difficult to believe that it was actually real. The thing was a mile wide and scientists are estimating that it had winds that exceeded 260 miles an hour. According to National Geographic, this monster tornado may have traveled a whopping 300 miles across Alabama and Georgia.

After jumping more than 3 cents over the weekend, gas prices across America could top $4 a gallon this week, according to one industry analyst.

The number of "low income jobs" in the U.S. has risen steadily over the past 30 years and they now account for 41 percent of all jobs in the United States.

The U.S. dollar is becoming incredibly weak.

Honda has warned its U.S. dealers that there will be shortages later in the summer of popular models such as the just-on-sale, redesigned Civic compact.

Mainland China has decreased its holdings of U.S. Treasury securities since last October, according to a report updated today by the U.S. Treasury Department.

Atlantic City has been very busy putting homeless people on a bus and sending them back where they came from.

According to the American Association of Medical Colleges, we face a shortfall of more than 150,000 doctors over the next 15 years.

Billions of dollars in unclaimed life insurance benefits are at the center of a legal wrestling match as cash-strapped state governments step up their efforts to go after unclaimed insurance benefits.

It sounds like Donald Trump has definitely decided to make a run for the White House in 2012.

Facebook has removed dozens of political activist profiles from its site, causing an outcry from campaigners trying to organize anti-austerity protests this weekend.

Sleeping too little or for too long disrupts how we think and can age the brain by up to seven years, a new study has shown.

Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said on Saturday that the country's economic outlook was very severe and that the central bank would take appropriate action to support the economy.

Radioactive leakage from fuel rods at a nuclear power plant in the city of Tsuruga in Fukui prefecture on Honshu island of Japan are believed to be the cause of a surge in the density of toxic substances detected in coolant water, the prefectural government said Monday.

Furious parents in Fukushima have delivered a bag of radioactive playground earth to education officials in protest at moves to weaken nuclear safety standards in schools.

The northwest coast of the U.S. could be devastated by a huge movement of undersea plates known as a ‘megathrust’ earthquake, scientists say.

Ecuador's Tungurahua volcano recently hurled massive pyroclastic boulders more than a mile in a powerful eruption that prompted at least 300 people to flee their homes, authorities said.

A former Miss USA's claims of being groped during a pat-down at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport could be a felony under a bill gaining momentum in the Texas Legislature.

Barack Obama’s father was forced to leave Harvard University before completing his Ph.D. in economics because the school was concerned about his personal life and finances, according to newly public immigration records.

The once outlawed Muslim Brotherhood said Saturday its new political party will contest half of the seats in Egypt’s parliamentary elections in September, revealing plans to become a major force in the country’s post-revolution politics.

Israeli fighter jets are conducting drills at a military base in Iraq in preparation for a strike on Iran, the Islamic Republic's Press TV is reporting.

Debka is reporting that Hezbollah is preparing to pull its heavy, long-range weapons out of storage in Syrian military facilities – no longer sure they are safe there – and risk transporting them to Lebanon.

Lastly, Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil al-Arabi on Sunday called on the United States to recognize a Palestinian state.

As day broke Thursday, people throughout the South began to survey the wreckage left behind after dozens of tornadoes ripped through six states killing hundreds of people.

The vast majority of fatalities from the tornadoes occurred in Alabama, where well over 100 people perished, said Yasamie August, Alabama Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman.

UK newspapers are reporting that British troops could be deployed to the Libyan border to guard refugees fleeing the Gaddafi regime.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick Thursday says that he hopes the institution will have a role in rebuilding Libya as it emerges from current unrest.

Syrian security forces have killed at least 500 civilians in a crackdown on a "peaceful democratic uprising", Syrian human rights organization Sawasiah said on Thursday.

Radiation readings at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear station have risen to the highest level since an earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems.

In the first quarter of 2011, U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) only increased by 1.8 percent, significantly down from the 3.1 percent of growth in the last quarter of 2010.

The Labor Department says that new claims for unemployment benefits jumped 25,000 to a seasonally adjusted 429,000 for the week ending April 23. That's the highest total since late January.

After sifting through about one million applications, McDonald’s hired more than 60,000 workers nationwide  in conjunction with its National Hiring Day earlier this month.

It turns out that it is now easier to get into Harvard than it is to get a job at McDonald's.

Wal-Mart says that their customers are running out of money.

Rampant inflation is starting to show up in a lot of different areas of the economy.

As gas prices approach record highs, gas-related thievery is on the rise.

Declining total gasoline stocks in the critical central U.S. Atlantic Coast region may be putting some in the U.S. Atlantic Coast gasoline market on edge as the country moves toward the high-demand summer gasoline season.

Gold settled at a fresh record high above $1,531 on Thursday, while silver soared to an all-time high, as a falling dollar and signs that the Federal Reserve would maintain a loose monetary policy boosted precious metals' appeal as a hedge against inflation and economic uncertainty.

Is the decline of the U.S. dollar about to accelerate?

House prices are falling again—and the decline is accelerating.

The battle over debit card fees is turning ugly.

If the U.S. economy get rid of all debt there would literally be no money.

If you break down the U.S. national debt, it comes to more than $45,000 per citizen, or almost $127,000 per taxpaying American.

State budget cuts will force Philadelphia's schools to lay off 3,820 employees - including 12% of the district's teachers - to close a gaping budget shortfall next year.

55% of Americans believe that the U.S. economy is either in a depression or a recession.

More Americans than ever are stockpiling food and emergency supplies.

In many areas, sales of guns and rifles are setting new records.

Standard and Poor's, one of the top credit rating agencies, is warning that the cost of rebuilding Japan could hit 50 trillion yen, and it has downgraded the outlook for Japan's debt rating from "stable" to "negative".

Are you against raising the debt ceiling?  If so, according to former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill you are actually part of al-Qaeda.

In an effort to enhance online security and privacy, the Obama administration has proposed Americans obtain a single ID for all Internet sales and banking activity. But a new Rasmussen Reports poll finds most Americans want nothing to do with such an ID if the government is the one to issue it and hold the information.

Navigation device maker TomTom has apologized after getting busted for selling user data to local police in Europe.

It turns out that there are all kinds of problems with the "birth certificate" that Barack Obama has released.

Now Donald Trump wants Barack Obama to release his college records.

Fox News host Glenn Beck says that some of the so-called “birthers” are actually supporters of Barack Obama.

California’s AB 354 was passed in September of last year, making proof of whooping cough vaccinations mandatory for both public and private school students starting in the 2011-12 school year. However, health representatives told Mercury News that the law makes most students ineligible for attendance.

Superman renounces his U.S. citizenship in a new issue of Action Comics.

Belief in a god, or a supreme being, and some sort of afterlife is strong in many countries around the globe, according to a new Ipsos/Reuters poll.

A Methodist church in Ohio is publicly declaring that being gay is a gift from God.

Last week a group of pro-abortion activists vandalized and desecrated a Christian pro-life display students at Clarion University put up at their Pennsylvania campus.

Charlie Veitch, who many of you will know as the leader of the Love Police activist group, has been arrested by British police in a pre-crime raid on charges of “conspiracy to cause a public nuisance” at tomorrow’s Royal Wedding.

Lastly, Rev. David Wilkerson, founding pastor of Times Square Church in New York City and author of the well-known book The Cross and the Switchblade, was killed Wednesday in a head-on collision in Texas. He was 79.

The latest from The Most Important News....

France and Italy announced Wednesday that they will send military officers to advise rebels fighting for the ouster of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's regime.

Britain has announced that it is expanding its presence in Libya with military advisers while the European Union said it is prepared to send troops for humanitarian assistance if requested by the United Nations.

NATO military commanders conceded Tuesday they are unable to stop Muammar Gadhafi's shelling of the rebel-held city of Misrata, where hospitals are overwhelmed with casualties.

American and European diplomats are warning that if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fails to present a new peace initiative soon, the Quartet may be compelled to recognize a Palestinian State within the 1967 borders, with east Jerusalem as its capital.

According to Debka, Saudi Arabia has gone out on a limb against the Obama administration to place itself at the forefront of an independent Gulf campaign for cutting down the Islamic Republic's drive for a nuclear bomb and its expansionist meddling in Arab countries.

The Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has reported to a Cabinet Office safety panel that nuclear fuel pellets in the Nos. 1 and 3 reactors at the quake-hit Fukushima power station are believed to have partially melted.

Japanese authorities are reportedly considering implementing a mandatory evacuation zone around the Fukushima Nuclear Plant.

Cesium-137 from Fukushima has been detected in drinking water and milk here in the United States. Cesium and Tellurium were found in Boise, Las Vegas, Nome and Dutch Harbor, Honolulu, Kauai and Oahu, Anaheim, Riverside, San Francisco, and San Bernardino, Jacksonville and Orlando, Salt Lake City, Guam, and Saipan while Uranium-234, with a half-life of 245,500 years has been found in Hawaii, California, and Washington.

The operator of Japan's crippled nuclear plant has laid out a blueprint for stopping radiation leaks and stabilizing damaged reactors within the next six to nine months as a first step toward allowing some of the tens of thousands of evacuees to return to the area.

Oil prices jumped more than $3 Wednesday, to above $111 a barrel, as the dollar weakened and a government report said U.S. crude supplies fell last week.

Gas prices reached five dollars per gallon at a gas station in Washington, DC on April 19, 2011.

One economist believes that we could see gas prices as high as $6 a gallon or more by summertime under the right conditions.

Gold prices topped $1,500 an ounce Tuesday as investors looked for more stable assets because of worries about U.S. government debt, European financial problems and inflation.

Will silver reach $50 an ounce soon?

Even though Standard & Poor’s has threatened to downgrade the nation’s credit rating, and well-known bond managers have sold their Treasury bonds, the U.S. debt market continues to thrive — and even rally.

American Airlines lost $436 million in the first quarter as it battled rising jet fuel prices, likely foreshadowing huge losses at other major U.S. airlines.

Late Tuesday, Southwest Airlines raised all of its round-trip fares by $10. Delta initiated this latest round of price increases on Monday, and as of midday Wednesday American Airlines, JetBlue and United Airlines had matched it.

Investors drove up home sales last month, paying cash to grab cheap homes at risk of foreclosure. But purchases by first-time homebuyers, crucial to a housing recovery, fell.

U.S. commercial property prices slipped for the second straight month in January, as distressed real estate sales weighed on values, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

Government now provides 35% of all wages in the United States.

The average American family is having a really tough time right now.  Only 45.4% of Americans had a job during 2010.  The last time the employment level was that low was back in 1983.

U.S. multinational corporations cut their work forces in the U.S. by 2.9 million during the 2000s while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million, new data from the U.S. Commerce Department reveals.

Over the past decade, the U.S. manufacturing industry has shed 5.5 million jobs while around 50,000 factories have shuttered.

Thousands of people showed up to McDonald’s restaurants nationwide to apply for jobs on the hamburger giant’s first National Hiring Day, creating lines in some places.

Is China about to revalue the Yuan?

China is heavily investing in troubled Spanish banks.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is not impressed with the U.S. economy at all.

Even Ben Stein is warning that an economic collapse may be coming.

There are a lot of reasons why the price of gold keeps hitting new record highs.

Roughly one in four dollars the federal government borrows goes to pay the interest on the debt.

Did you know that our federal government spent $413 billion on interest payments just last year? Which means in 2010 alone we spent more in interest payments than we spent on the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Energy, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Justice and Homeland Security, the Department of Agriculture, the Treasury Department, the Department of Labor and the small business administration — combined.

The United States lacks a credible plan to cut its deficit over the medium term, the International Monetary Fund's chief economist Olivier Blanchard told French daily Le Monde in an interview published on Wednesday.

Standard & Poor’s has decided to slap U.S. government debt with a negative ratings outlook.

It is being reported that Barack Obama begged Standard & Poor's not to lower the outlook on U.S. government debt.

A credit rating downgrade for the United States would spell even more financial trouble for the U.S. government, hampering its ability to borrow money as investors demand higher yields to make up for the increased risk. That would cause its national debt to balloon further and increase the need to hike taxes or make even more painful cuts in spending.

Donald Trump says that he will show his tax returns if Barack Obama shows his birth certificate.

Google searches for Donald Trump have gone way up recently.

Only a quarter of Republicans in critical caucus-state Iowa believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is reportedly following the lead of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) by preparing a plan that would allow him to possibly take over municipalities that don’t pass a financial stress test.

The San Francisco Entertainment Commission wants to require all venues with an occupancy of over 100 people to record the faces of all patrons and scan their ID’s for storage in a database which they must hand over to law enforcement on request.

Several conservative bloggers are accusing Glenn Beck of stealing their content without giving credit.  Worse, there is evidence that Beck takes steps to hide the true source before using content on his show.

73% of Americans say they waste time at work -- at least one hour per day.

77% of workers that have access to Facebook at work check it daily.

27% of U.S. workers actually watch porn while at work.

With the largest rate of teens having sex in the country and the fifth-highest HIV/AIDS rate in that age group, Philadelphia has launched a campaign to reverse those trends with a website that offers mail-order condoms to children as young as 11.

Over the past 13 years, a little-known Philadelphia phone-sex company called PrimeTel Communications has quietly gained control over nearly a quarter of all the 1-800 numbers in the U.S. and Canada, often by grabbing them the moment they are relinquished by previous users.

The New York State Health Department has created a list of what they deem to be “risky recreational activities” and is forcing many summer programs to ban these games unless they shell out extra funds to be recognized as an official summer camp.

It has been discovered that since the introduction of iOS 4, Apple devices have been tracking and storing the user's location along with a time stamp -- essentially logging a user's movements since upgrading to iOS 4.

According to a nationwide study just released by the Flagstaff, Arizona-based Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), meat and poultry from U.S. grocery stores have an unexpectedly high rate of dangerous disease-causing bacteria, including antibiotic resistant superbugs.

According to the ACLU, Michigan police officers are using devices to download all your phone data when they pull you over, including photos and text messages.

Roughly two dozen teens, reportedly chanting the name of an Atlanta gang, invaded a MARTA train early Sunday morning, beating and robbing two Delta flight attendants.

A damning new study conducted by German scientists has found that so-called energy saving light bulbs contain poisonous carcinogens that could cause cancer and should be “kept as far away as possible from the human environment,” but Americans will be forced to replace their traditional light bulbs with toxic CFLs ahead of a government ban set to take effect at the start of next year.

Angry opposition supporters in Nigeria's Muslim north set fire to homes bearing ruling party banners Monday and heavy gunfire rang out in several towns as election officials released results showing the Christian incumbent had gained an insurmountable lead.

Protesters led by hardline Islamists in southern Egypt held their ground Monday, saying they won't end their campaign of civil disobedience until the government removes a newly appointed Coptic Christian governor.

Women who do not wear headscarves are being threatened with violence and even death by Islamic extremists intent on imposing sharia law on parts of Britain.

Did news footage recently capture images of a giant UFO hovering over Fukushima?

Incredible footage has emerged of what a group of Russians claim is the remains of a mangled alien.

An increasingly larger number of gays and lesbians at Christian colleges are starting to "come out of the closet".

Lastly, does a new book entitled "Where's The Birth Certificate?" finally reveal all the details surrounding the birth of Barack Obama?

The latest headlines from The Most Important News....

Many in the Tea Party movement are absolutely furious about the $38.5 billion budget deal that he agreed to with the Democrats and are calling for his resignation.

The budget deal is not going to cut an additional $38.5 billion. That headline number includes $12 billion in cuts that were included in three prior short-term funding resolutions. That leaves lawmakers looking for $26.5 billion to cut from agencies and programs.

A magnitude 6.6 aftershock has just rattled Japan  This comes nearly a month after the magnitude 9 earthquake that spawned a deadly tsunami.

The situation at the Fukushima nuclear complex in Japan just seems to get worse by the day.

Japan's government called for evacuations Monday from several towns beyond the danger zone already declared around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, warning that residents could receive high doses of radiation over the coming months.

Uranium-234 has been detected in Hawaii, California and Seattle.

New EPA milk samples in Hawaii show radiation in milk at 800% above limits for C-134, 633% above limits for C-137 and 600% above EPA maximum for I-131 for a total of 2033%, or 20.33 times, above the federal drinking water limits.

The crisis at Fukushima is likely to continue for years.

Forces stormed the president's residence in Ivory Coast on Monday and arrested self-declared president Laurent Gbagbo, whose refusal to accept the results of a presidential election last year plunged the West African nation into civil war.

Libyan rebels rejected an African Union peace plan on Monday because it did not address their main demand that Muammar Gaddafi quit and because it proposed reforming a ruling system they want removed.

NATO said on Monday it took note of reports of an African Union proposal for a cease-fire in Libya, but an official said the alliance would target Muammar Gaddafi’s forces as long as they threatened civilians.

Around 2,000 protesters defied an army demand to leave Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Monday, vowing to stay until Egypt’s ruling military council heeds their demand for civilian rule and a deeper purge of corrupt officials.

Syrian security forces sealed off the coastal city of Banias overnight following sectarian killings by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, witnesses said on Monday.

An Egyptian military court on Monday jailed a blogger for three years for criticizing the armed forces, the country’s rulers since president Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in February, his lawyer told AFP.

An explosion tore through a key subway station in the Belarusian capital of Minsk during evening rush hour Monday, killing seven people and wounding 50 others, officials said.

Unlike Americans, the people of Iceland were allowed to vote on bailing out the banksters. They voted overwhelmingly against the proposal on Saturday despite the intimidation tactics of the globalist loan sharking operation, the International Monetary Fund.

The Congressional Research Service estimates that the U.S. government will need to borrow $738 billion between April 1 and Sept. 30.

Are we going to see $5 gas by Memorial Day?

Gold is at a new record, wheat is surging, corn is at highest since 2008, crude at a new 30 month high, silver is at $41.10 - a new fresh post Hunt high, beans surging, etc, etc, etc.

Just 59 percent of Americans now believe that the "free market economy is the best system on which to base the future of the world."

Is the Federal Reserve attempting to sink the U.S. dollar to goose corporate profits, reinflate asset prices and create "modest inflation"?

Federal Reserve Vice Chair Janet Yellen is promising that inflation will not "impede the economic recovery".

It turns out that PIMCO is now shorting U.S. government bonds.

PIMCO chief Bill Gross has been warning of a U.S. debt default, while wondering who would stick around to buy Treasuries following the end of QE2.

Many on Wall Street are absolutely convinced that PIMCO has made exactly the right move.

There are several counties in America, each with more than 10,000 homes, which have vacancy rates above 55%.

The outgoing chairman of the nation’s third-biggest health insurer exercised stock options worth more than $50.3 million and pulled in $18.4 million in pay, stock and other compensation, according to the company’s 2011 proxy filing.

In America today, the top 1% control 40 percent of the nation's wealth.

The United States has increased its military spending by 81 percent since 2001.

It didn't take Donald Trump long to respond to the comment by White House adviser David Plouffe that he has "zero chance" to be president and that his prospective campaign is a "sideshow."

Republicans Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney lead Barack Obama in Florida, according to a new poll out today on the 2012 presidential race.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 19% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president, which was a brand new low.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says taht U.S. troops could remain in Iraq for years to come.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said that Iran has recently accelerated its nuclear program as it appeared to sense a reduction in international pressure

In Israel, the success of the Iron Dome missile defense system so far - nine interceptions including the system's first one on Thursday night - has surprised even the air defense troops who have been training to operate the device for several months.

In California, what started out as a program to hold unclaimed property, such as the contents of safety deposit boxes owned by people who have moved away without a forwarding address, has gone wildly out of control. The program is now using the flimsiest of excuses to drill safe deposit boxes and sell the contents, often for below-market value, the proceeds going to the state’s general revenue.

Are "mega earthquakes" on the rise?

The evidence in support of Andrea Rossi's "cold fusion" or "LENR" (low energy nuclear reaction) based Energy Catalyzer continues to grow.

Blueberries, which have already been lauded as a superfood for their ability to help prevent heart disease and Type-2 diabetes, contain high levels of polyphenols – groups of chemicals with potential health benefits.

Girls in the United States are now reaching puberty earlier than ever.

Environmental pollution, plastic chemicals, pharmaceutical drugs, pesticides, unhealthy diets, radiation-emitting technologies — these and many other factors are contributing to an epidemic decline in sperm counts among modern men.

In a 70-28 vote, the Tennessee House of Representatives passed HB 368, a bill that encourages science teachers to explore controversial topics without fear of reprisal.

A Mississippi state judge has issued an order to public school attendance officers in his judicial district to provide the names of all homeschoolers there.

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A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck Japan on Thursday, triggering a tsunami warning for one prefecture and advisories in others.

A 6.5 magnitude earthquake was felt across Mexico about an hour before the 7.1 earthquake hit Japan.

The new earthquake in Japan was accompanied by a very strange blue light show.

TEPCO has begun discharging 11,500 tons of highly radioactive water into the surrounding ocean.  A marine consulting and research firm has developed a model to predict the spread of the contaminated material.

Concerns about radiation fallout from Japan's nuclear disaster prompted some schools in South Korea to shut on Thursday as rain fell over most of the country.

After the radioactive cloud emanating from Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant reached Europe last week, French authorities have detected radioactive iodine-131 in rainwater and milk.

The EPA says that eating fish caught in Japan, with radiation levels 2400% above Federal limits, does not pose any health risks.

Japan's economy is "under strong downward pressure" due to the devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami, the Bank of Japan says.

Barack Obama is meeting again today with Republican and Democratic congressional leaders who blame each other for the budget impasse that threatens to shut down the federal government at midnight on Friday.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid indicated Thursday that there is likely to be a government shutdown at the end of the week -- an outcome the Nevada Democrat blames wholly on his Republican colleagues.

Even if the government does shut down, not that much is actually going to change.

House Budget Chairman Congressman Paul Ryan says that Barack Obama’s budget strategy is to “do nothing, punt, duck, kick the can down the road” while the debt remains on track to eventually hit 800 percent of GDP. Ryan also says that the CBO is saying it “can’t conceive of any way” that the economy can continue past 2037 given its current trajectory.

Oil prices jumped above $110 a barrel, a fresh 2-1/2 year high, after news broke that Japan was hit with another major earthquake.

Oil prices will soar above $130 a barrel by late 2011, a new Reuters poll has found, and one in five traders said they expected oil to hit $150 this year, levels some economists say could trigger recession.

Inflation fears in Europe have prompted the European Central Bank to raise interest rates for the first time since 2008. The bank hiked their key rate by 25 basis points to 1.25%.

Portugal's prime minister said Wednesday his country has asked for financing assistance from the European Union due to its high debts and difficulty raising money on international markets.

Is the U.S. government debt crisis even worse than the Greek debt crisis?

Two and a half years ago 66% of foreign central bank assets were in U.S. dollar investments.  Before that it was 70% and today it is just 61.3%.

According to the CoreLogic HPI, national home prices, including distressed sales, declined by 6.7 percent in February 2011 compared to February 2010 after declining by 5.5 percent in January 2011 compared to January 2010.

Over the past several months regulators have finally noticed what consumer attorneys have been saying for years: the big banks have routinely committed fraud in their foreclosure filings and their records of how much people owe are too often wrong.

Internationalist billionaire George Soros is holding an international conference April 8 to April 11 at Bretton Woods, N.H., the noted birthplace of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, where he plans to “rearrange the entire financial order”.

China is growing increasingly assertive in its foreign policy, especially in the way it handles the U.S., because officials there believe that China is on the rise while America is in the midst of a steady decline.

A highly contagious "AIDS-like disease" is spreading in China.

25,000 people die each year from superbugs in Europe and there are a number of bacteria which are now resistant to all drugs.

NBC’s Tom Brokaw says that the Saudi Arabian monarchy is “so unhappy with the Obama administration for the way it pushed out President Mubarak of Egypt” that it has sent senior officials to the Peoples’ Republic of China and Russia to seek expanded business opportunities with those countries.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney appears to be the early front-runner in the largely unformed race for the Republican nomination for president, but real estate magnate Donald Trump may be a surprise contender, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

Donald Trump continued to question Barack Obama's American citizenship during an appearance on NBC's Today show, saying "there is a big possibility" the president may have violated the Constitution.

The former Hawaii elections official who maintains there's no long-form birth certificate for Barack Obama in the Aloha State is now saying the president and his aides have been "caught fibbing" about Obama's background, and the "embarrassing" situation is making it difficult to fess up to the truth.

The rationing that so many warned was coming under Obamacare has already begun.

The Pentagon says NATO will have to adjust the way it operates in Libya to keep up with changing tactics by forces of Moammar Gadhafi.

Tens of thousands of protesters defied a government crackdown and took to the streets of Yemen's second largest city on Wednesday in the latest demonstrations against the long-serving president, Ali Abdullah Saleh.

According to Debka, the Syrian uprising took a new turn Tuesday, April 5, when armed protesters ambushed and shot dead two policemen in the Damascus suburb of Kfar Batna. Syrian troops then opened fire and killed 15 inhabitants.

The UN air strikes in the Ivory Coast suggest Libya was no fluke: the West's appetite for military action has recovered robustly from the diplomatic trauma of the Iraq war.

A U.S. senator says President Barak Obama’s administration “got it wrong” in its handling of the ongoing crisis in Ivory Coast following violent clashes between rival forces, which has left hundreds dead and tens of thousands fleeing the West African conflict.

The drought may be over in California, but large portions of the Southwest, southern Plains, Florida and the Southeast are all still enduring severe to extreme drought conditions.

Depletion of the ozone layer over the Arctic has reached record levels, and Nordic countries will have to watch for higher than normal ultraviolet radiation in coming weeks, the UN weather agency said Tuesday.

Glenn Beck and the Fox News Channel are giving up on his nightly show. Later this year - a specific date was not disclosed - the controversial host will leave the show, and instead, work on unspecified projects down the road.

Lastly, Google is planning to significantly revamp YouTube to "compete with broadcast and cable television."

The Most Important News....

The radiation level in the ocean near the Fukushima nuclear plant keeps rising. It is now 4,385 times above what is considered normal. This is a significant increase from the yesterday’s report that the I-131 isotope found in the water was 3,355 times the regulatory limit.

The consistently high levels of radiation found in the sea outside Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear plant complex may mean that radiation is leaking out continuously, Japan's nuclear watchdog said on Thursday.

Workers who have been fighting to bring the reactors under control at Japan’s strick nuclear plant expect to die from radiation sickness, according to the mother of one of the men.

The loss of two nuclear power plants means the Tokyo region will face the summer peak demand with a loss of about 20% of capacity, the plant's owner said Thursday.

There is no health risk from consuming milk with extremely low levels of radiation, like those found in Washington state and California, experts said Thursday, echoing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Is the nuclear crisis in Japan going to continue for months or even years?

Barack Obama signed a secret order a few weeks ago authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, according to government officials.

It is being reported that before any no fly zones, NATO involvement or UN resolutions, US and British intelligence and special forces were on the ground inside Libya, coordinating the uprising against Gaddafi and waging a covert war.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said today the alliance was opposed to arming the Libyan rebels fighting against Muammar Gaddafi.

Mussa Kussa, the Libyan foreign minister who flew to Britain Wednesday and said he was defecting from the Tripoli regime, is described as a “master of international terrorism” and the man responsible for exporting Muammar Gaddafi’s revolution.

Today, in Libya, a ragtag group of rebels fight a seesaw battle against Muammar Qaddafi's better-equipped forces, and a debate rages over whether to provide them arms and training. However, whispers are growing that al Qaeda may already be among them, complicating the current debate over arming the rebels.

Is the U.S. headed for a "worst case scenario" is Libya?

Following a closed briefing for members of the House on the U.S. military operation in Libya, Democrat Rep. Charlie Rangel said that he would “like to believe” members of Congress are looking into whether or not the attack on Libya without congressional approval is an impeachable offense.

Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognized president of the Ivory Coast, on Thursday declared a curfew in Abidjan as forces loyal to him moved closer to taking control of the city.

In the first economic metric since the Japanese earthquake struck, Japanese manufacturing activity slumped to a two-year low in March and posted its steepest monthly decline on record, confirming all the worst fears about supply chain disruptions and production operations.

Toyota may delay the production of at least 500,000 vehicles in Japan because of a shortage of parts and electricity after the nation’s record earthquake, said an analyst at Advanced Research Japan.

U.S. consumers face "serious" inflation in the months ahead for clothing, food and other products, the head of Wal-Mart's U.S. operations warned Wednesday.

Hershey has announced a nearly 10 percent price increase across its line of candy products to cover rising raw material costs, fuel and transportation.

Corn prices are spiking dramatically after a bleak forecast was released by the USDA.

Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage rose to 4.86% from 4.81% the previous week.

The U.S. had 1.8 million distressed homes in January that had yet to be listed for sale, a “shadow inventory” that is expected to weigh on home prices for years.

J.P. Morgan Chase and other banks are trying to recoup approximately $30 billion a year in lost overdraft fee income by testing $5 ATM fees, Consumer Action spokesman Joe Ridout told CNBC.

Is the next financial crisis going to wipe out large numbers of U.S. banks?

New orders for manufactured goods in February, down following three consecutive monthly increases, decreased $0.4 billion or 0.1 percent to $446.0 billion.

The Federal Reserve is now purchasing 70% to 80% of all new U.S. Treasuries.

The Federal Reserve is naming the banks that drew emergency loans during the financial crisis, offering information on its oldest lending tool for the first time in the central bank’s nearly 100-year history.

When news broke that Pimco's Total Return Fund had slashed its U.S. Treasury holdings to zero, investors were left wondering why the world's biggest bond fund would bail out of the safe haven.

In his latest investment outlook, Bill Gross warns that America will default, thanks to trillions in entitlement obligations.

Political instability and a potential EU financial rescue package for Portugal that will increase interest rate burdens pushed rating agency S&P to downgrade the country’s debt status for the second time in a week to BBB-, only one notch above junk status.

The head of General Electric on Thursday defended the conglomerate's zero tax rate in 2010, and called for reform of the U.S. tax code.

The chief U.S. tax collector said Thursday that budget cuts proposed by Republicans would have "potentially devastating" impact on the nation's tax system, including a drop in enforcement revenue by $4 billion for the rest of this year.

Tea Party supporters who rallied on Capitol Hill today didn't sound too impressed with a tentative deal to cut about $33 billion from the federal budget and avoid a government shutdown.

Israel’s efforts to rally countries against Palestinian Authority plans to ask the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state along the pre-1967 lines are hindered by the fact that Israel has not presented any plan of its own, diplomatic officials said Tuesday.

State and local governments are slashing their budgets by roughly $110 billion this year.

How in the world did two kids in their 20s win a $300 million contract from the Pentagon to arm America's allies in Afghanistan?

It turns out that our cell phones are tracking our every move.

The recorded impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on wildlife may have severely underestimated the number of deaths of whales and dolphins, according to a new report.

A series of undercover phone calls contacting 30 Planned Parenthood clinics in 27 states revealed that the organization does not offer mammograms, contrary to claims made on national TV by Cecile Richards, the group’s CEO.

A surge in Satanism fueled by the Internet has led to a sharp rise in the demand for exorcists, the Roman Catholic Church has warned.

Lastly, Delaware police and DOT officials — armed with a front-end loader and a massive dump truck — recently ripped a basketball hoop out of a family's front yard and carted it away, despite the protests of the angry parents.

The latest headlines from around the world - this is The Most Important News....

Rebel forces on Monday fought their way to the doorstep of Moammar Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte, a key government stronghold guarding the road to the capital Tripoli, their rapid advance built on powerful international airstrikes that have battered Gadhafi's air force, armor and troops.

Libya rebel official says rebels in "active discussions" to have sanctions lifted on purchases of crude from rebel-held east Libya.

The Libyan rebels in Benghazi said they have created a new national oil company to replace the corporation controlled by leader Muammar Qaddafi whose assets were frozen by the United Nations Security Council and have formed a central bank.

Libyan rebels say they have signed an oil contract with Qatar to export oil from rebel-held territory.

Russia said on Monday attacks on forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi amounted to intervention in a civil war and were not backed by the U.N. resolution authorizing no-fly zones.

In the first 24 hours of the Libyan attack, US B-2s dropped forty-five 2,000-pound bombs. These massive bombs, along with the Cruise missiles launched from British and French planes and ships, all contained depleted uranium (DU) warheads.

Syrian security forces flooded the restive cities of Daraa and Latakia on Monday, patrolling the streets, protecting government buildings and in at least one case clashing with protesters, according to witnesses.

On Sunday, Lieberman said that he would support military intervention in Syria if its president, Bashar al-Assad, resorts to the kind of violent tactics used in Libya.

The containment structure surrounding one of the reactors at a quake-battered nuclear power plant is damaged and may be leaking radioactive material, the Japanese government's point man on the crisis said Monday.

Japan on Sunday faced an increasing challenge of removing highly radioactive water found inside buildings near some troubled nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, with the radiation level of the surface of the pool in the basement of the No. 2 reactor's turbine building found to be more than 1,000 millisieverts per hour.

Workers discovered new pools of radioactive water leaking from Japan's crippled nuclear complex, officials said Monday, as emergency crews struggled to pump out hundreds of tons of contaminated water and bring the plant back under control.

Plutonium has been discovered in the soil outside the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

The discovery of plutonium at five places within Japan's damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex will not cause work there to be suspended, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said on Tuesday.

For some stunning footage of the ruined reactors at Fukushima just check out this video.

A recent sample of rainwater in Boston showed very low concentrations of radiation, most likely from the damaged Japanese nuclear power power.

In Japan, radioactive cesium-137 is being released at 60% of the level that it was being released at during the Chernobyl disaster.  Cesium-137 has a half-life of approximately 30 years.  That means that all of this cesium is going to be with us for a very, very long time.

Is the nuclear disaster in Japan now worse than the Chernobyl disaster?

Some nuclear experts are now warning that a "worst case scenario" is going to eventually play out in Japan.

Goldman Sachs is ordering all of their employees to stay in Tokyo.

American companies are finding new overseas tax havens to legally protect some of their profits from the U.S. tax rate of 35 percent, among the highest in the world.

It is being alleged that General Electric is not paying any U.S. taxes.

Right now the New York Times and GE are engaged in a war of words over taxes.

There were 167,564 empty houses in Nevada last year, according to newly released U.S. Census data, more than double the number in 2000.

A recent job fair in Massachusetts was shut down because of a lack of jobs.

Despite the overall job gains posted last year, companies continued to eliminate management positions, with about 550,000 being lost.

With nearly 14 million unemployed workers in America, many have gotten so desperate that they're willing to work for free.

Employee loyalty is at a three-year low, but many employers are precariously unaware of the morale meltdown, according to a study out today.

In 2009, the richest 5 percent claimed 63.5 percent of the nation’s wealth. The overwhelming majority, the bottom 80 percent, collectively held just 12.8 percent.

Consumer spending rose in February at the fastest pace in four months, but a big part of the increase went to higher gasoline prices.

The FDIC has announced the following: "From December 31, 2010 through December 31, 2012, all noninterest-bearing transaction accounts are fully insured, regardless of the balance of the account and the ownership capacity of the funds. This coverage is available to all depositors, including consumers, businesses, and government entities. The unlimited coverage is separate from, and in addition to, the insurance coverage provided for a depositor’s other accounts held at an FDIC-insured bank."

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday, 46 percent of Americans say they prefer President Barack Obama's approach on budget negotiations, with 45 percent saying they prefer congressional Republicans' approach to the tough choices involved in both cutting programs to reduce the deficit and at the same time maintain needed federal programs.

As if fuel taxes and rising gas prices weren't causing enough pain at the pump, Democrats seeking to raise new revenues to support federal spending on highway maintenance are considering taxing motorists for the number of miles they drive.

Deutsche Bank's Chief Economist Charles Mayer says that given the recent election results in Germany, where German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party was trounced, it will be difficult for Germany to approve another debt bailout. Mayer says it may come down to an IMF "bridge loan" for Portugal to make its bond payments.

By restricting exports, Chinese officials have allowed the price of rare earth metals to rise exponentially, putting pressure on companies across the globe that rely on their input for their manufactured products.

Chinese police have arrested prominent blogger Ran Yunfei for challenging the ruling Communist Party, people close to the blogger said on Monday, the latest in a string of arrests in a deepening crackdown on dissent.

CNBC says that according to the basic laws of supply and demand, especially given that the two metals are quite similar, the price gap between gold and silver should be much smaller.

The central bank in Afghanistan has been up to a lot of mischief lately.

Mega-millionaire Donald Trump today said during an interview with FoxNewsInsider that Barack Obama is having trouble with, and spending millions to fight, the ongoing questions about his birth, his birth certificate and his eligibility to hold office.

According to one new study, 34% of senior males are in the work force while just 15% of teenage boys have an employer.

There have been over 800 earthquakes in and around Japan since March 11th.

Severe drought conditions across eastern Colorado and the western half of Kansas and Oklahoma are worsening the outlook for more wild fires in the region climatologists say.

More than 17,000 students have enrolled at Oaksterdam University, "America's first cannabis college", since it first opened in late 2007.

New evidence has emerged that the Iranian government sees the current unrest in the Middle East as a signal that the Mahdi--or Islamic messiah--is about to appear.

Lastly, a clay tablet that has baffled scientists for more than a century has been identified as a witness's account of an asteroid that destroyed the Biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah 5,000 years ago.

The latest headlines from The Most Important News....

The Obama administration is strongly defending its handling of the Libyan crisis, drawing a clear line between military and political objectives while dismissing criticism that it has failed to adequately consult with members of Congress.

Representatives of Moammar Gadhafi's government and the Libyan opposition will be among those attending an African Union meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Friday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday.

NATO has reached an agreement to take over the no-fly zone in Libya from the United States "in a couple of days" NATO's secretary general said Thursday.

Sixty percent of Americans support the U.S. and allied military action in Libya to impose a no-fly zone to protect civilians from forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Thursday found.

A Gallup poll conducted Monday finds more Americans approving than disapproving of the military action against Libya by the United States and other countries.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the country's top general are hashing out a political settlement in which both men would resign from their positions within days in favor of a civilian-led transitional government, according to three people familiar with the situation.

Human rights activists said at least 15 people were killed on Wednesday in the volatile Syrian city of Daraa, hub of a week of anti-regime protests, as anger reportedly spread to neighboring towns.

Radioactive yellow rain that fell in Tokyo and surrounding areas last night caused panic amongst Japanese citizens and prompted a flood of phone calls to Japan’s Meteorological Agency this morning, with people concerned that they were being fed the same lies as victims of Chernobyl, who were told that yellow rain which fell over Russia and surrounding countries after the 1986 disaster was merely pollen, the same explanation now being offered by Japanese authorities.

Tokyo government officials have announced that radiation levels in Tokyo tap water are now so high that it is unsafe for infants to drink.

The scope of radiation-contaminated tap water expanded Thursday, with radioactive iodine detected in tap water in Chiba and Saitama prefectures, while the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, which said the day before its drinking water was contaminated, scurried to distribute 240,000 bottles of water to households with babies.

Reactors 5 and 6 at the Fukushima nuclear complex are reportedly now also leaking radiation.

The radiation released by the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant already rivals and in one sense exceeds the Chernobyl catastrophe according to Austria’s Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics, even as media spin downplays the severity of the crisis despite the fact that the problems at the plant show no signs of abating.

Bottled water was virtually impossible to find in Tokyo on Thursday.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday it has observed a neutron beam, a kind of radioactive ray, 13 times on the premises of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant after it was crippled by the massive March 11 quake-tsunami disaster.

Radiation from the ongoing disaster in Japan is spreading throughout the United States, and while the EPA says the levels are not dangerous, it also admits that some of its radiation-tracking air monitors may not even be working.

An estimated 66,000 metric tons of spent fuel rods are stored at 77 sites around the United States - that's more than 145 million pounds.

The Japanese tsunami was more than 77 feet high at its peak.

Was the damage done to Japan's economy worse than originally thought?

Have the disasters in Japan broken the global supply chain?

Palestinian rockets struck two cities deep in Israel on Wednesday, wounding a resident and prompting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to threaten lengthy “exchanges of blows” with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

The IAF bombed terrorists that were attempting to shoot rockets into Israel on Thursday morning.

Oil traded as high as $106.69 a barrel Thursday in a nervous and uncertain energy market.

Will the price of gasoline reach $5.00 a gallon before the end of this year?

Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates has resigned after parliament rejected an austerity budget.

A bailout for Portugal may total as much as 70 billion euros ($99 billion), two European officials with direct knowledge of the matter said as a credit-rating cut threatened to deepen Portugal’s debt woes.

Warren Buffett told CNBC Thursday that the collapse of the euro zone's single currency is far from "unthinkable".

The US ranks near the bottom of developed global economies in terms of financial stability and will stay there unless it addresses its burgeoning debt problems, a new study has found.

Ten former chairmen of the White House Council of Economic Advisers say that a plan crafted by fiscal commission appointed by President Barack Obama should be "the starting point" for addressing what they labeled a "severe threat" to the nation's economy.

The Federal Reserve has "done a bit too much" quantitative easing amid signs "of speculative excess" in the the US, according to a senior official at the central bank.

The U.S. trade deficit grew by 33 percent in 2010 to nearly half a trillion dollars.

According to the Alliance for American Manufacturing, more than 5.5 million manufacturing jobs have been lost in the past 10 years.

The average American family's household net worth declined 23% between 2007 and 2009, the Federal Reserve said Thursday.

More than two-thirds of Americans saw their net worth decline during the recession according to the Fed.

One school district in the Chicago area is laying off 363 teachers.

The Postal Service is offering a $20,000 buyout to thousands of veteran workers as part of its bid to eliminate 7,500 administrative jobs, the agency announced Thursday.

Hammered by the auto industry's slump, Detroit saw its population plummet 25 percent over the past decade, according to census data released on Tuesday that reflects the severity of an economic downturn in the only state whose population declined since 2000.

The Census Bureau says that 403,765 new firms were started in the 12 months ended March 2009, down 17.3% from a year earlier and the fewest on records that begin in 1977.

Is gold replacing the dollar as the world reserve currency?

Silver recently hit $36.78 an ounce, the highest it has been since February 1980.

Some of the top experts in the world now believe that a collapse of the U.S. dollar is inevitable.

Is George Soros attempting to remake the entire world financial order?

CNN is reporting that Rep. Michele Bachmann will form a presidential exploratory committee. The Minnesota Republican plans to file papers for the committee in early June, with an announcement likely around that same time.

Ron Paul says that he is undecided about whether he will run for president or not.

Donald Trump is demanding that Barack Obama prove that he was born in the United States.

In the wake of changes to government employee unions’ power in Wisconsin and elsewhere, The Communist Party USA is working in conjunction with national labor unions and other left wing political groups to organize protests in Madison, Wisconsin and across the nation on April 4th.

The Obama administration has begun examining whether it can make cuts to its nuclear weapons stockpiles that go beyond those outlined in a recent treaty with Russia.

The Russian Defense Ministry will buy 36 strategic ballistic missiles, two strategic missile submarines and 20 strategic cruise missiles this year, Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said on Friday.

Liberal Democratic Party of Russia leader and Vice-Chairman of the State Duma Vladimir Zhirinovsky released a statement today calling for the Nobel Prize Committee to take back the Nobel Peace Prize bestowed on Barack Obama in 2009.

Microsoft just spent $7.5 million to buy a block of 666,624 IPv4 addresses from Nortel in bankruptcy court. That works out to about $11.25 apiece.

A 7.0 earthquake recently struck an area near the Northern Thailand border.

Fonterra, a New Zealand-based cooperative that represents the world’s largest exporter of dairy products, has been pinned by Greenpeace Australia for allegedly selling dairy products contaminated with GMOs, despite the fact that the company is not a GMO brand.

A dangerous drug-resistant bacterium has spread to patients in Southern California, according to a study by Los Angeles County public health officials, and it is killing 40 percent of the people that become infected.

Gender-bending chemicals found in non-stick pans and food packaging are linked to early menopause, some scientists are saying.

U.S. companies selling doomsday bunkers are seeing sales skyrocket anywhere from 20% to 1,000%.

Stink bugs, the smelly scourge of the mid-Atlantic, are hitch-hiking and gliding their way across the country. Officially known as the brown marmorated stink bug, sightings of the pest have been reported in 33 states, an increase of eight states since last fall.

The worst Texas drought in 44 years is damaging the state’s wheat crop and forcing ranchers to reduce cattle herds, as rising demand for U.S. food sends grain and meat prices higher.

Four branches of the military have begun sending training material to 2.2 million active and reserve troops as a prelude to opening the ranks to gays, with instructions on, for example, what to do if an officer sees two male Marines kissing in a shopping mall.

A band of six Democrats in the California state Senate voted today to advance a bill that has been described as "the worst school sexual indoctrination ever" and would require that school children be taught to admire "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual" role models.

Lastly, Border Patrol agents recently arrested 13 illegal immigrants disguised as U.S. Marines and riding in a fake military van, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Tuesday.

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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.

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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.

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Japanese officials said Monday that the nuclear fuel rods appear to be melting inside all three of the most troubled nuclear reactors.

Japan’s struggle to contain the crisis at a stricken nuclear power plant worsened sharply as emergency operations to pump seawater into one crippled reactor failed at least temporarily, increasing the risk of an uncontrolled release of radioactive material, officials said.

There are fears that a radioactive cloud could envelop Tokyo’s 13 million residents.

As the scale of Japan’s nuclear crisis begins to come to light, experts in Japan and the United States say the country is now facing a cascade of accumulating problems that suggest that radioactive releases of steam from the crippled plants could go on for weeks or even months.

The Pentagon was expected to announce that the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, which is sailing in the Pacific, passed through a radioactive cloud from stricken nuclear reactors in Japan, causing crew members on deck to receive a month’s worth of radiation in about an hour, government officials said Sunday.

An American nuclear expert says radiation from Japan could spread across the Pacific and reach the United States if a complete meltdown occurs at a Japanese nuclear facility damaged as a result of last week’s earthquake and subsequent tsunami.

Several scientists in the U.S. are warning of a 'worst-case scenario' in which the highly radioactive material could be blasted into the atmosphere and blown towards the West Coast of America.

California is closely monitoring efforts to contain leaks at the quake-damaged Japanese nuclear plants, a spokesman said Saturday.

Could radiation from Japan reach the west coast of the United States in 10 days?

Radioactive particles from the stricken Fukushima nuclear facility would take around a week to reach Alaska and eleven days to reach Los Angeles, according to an Accuweather.com analysis.

Is the full extent of the nuclear meltdown in Japan being covered up?

So exactly what does radiation do to the human body?

Of all the places in all the world where no one in their right mind would build scores of nuclear power plants, Japan would be pretty near the top of the list.

Is the nuclear fuel being used in many Japanese nuclear reactors especially dangerous?

The official death toll for the Japan tsunami continues to climb, reaching above 1,800 by Monday afternoon, though hundreds if not thousands more were expected to join the total as reports from the most stricken areas trickled in. National broadcaster NHK reported that more than 450,000 people had moved to temporary shelters in the affected areas.

Some 2,000 bodies have been found on two shores in Miyagi Prefecture following Friday's devastating earthquake and massive tsunami, as Japan struggles to grasp the whole picture of the disaster.

What the sea so violently ripped away, it has now begun to return. Hundreds of bodies are washing up along some shores in northeastern Japan, making clearer the extraordinary toll of the earthquake and tsunami that struck last week and adding to the burdens of relief workers as they ferry aid and search for survivors.

Friday's devastating 8.9 earthquake in Japan moved Japan's coastline as much as 13 feet, averaging eight feet along a stretch measuring 300 miles, according to the Geographical Survey Institute.

The Bank of Japan poured a record 15 trillion yen ($183 billion) into the world’s third-biggest economy today as the strongest earthquake in the nation’s history triggered a plunge in stocks and surge in credit risk.

Japan's devastating earthquake and tsunami could cause gas prices to rise even higher in the U.S. as refineries here try to make up for some of the losses to Japan's refining capacity. At the same time, it is reducing crude oil prices.

Oil prices dropped below $99 a barrel Monday in Asia as traders expect the earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan to temporarily crush demand for crude in the world’s third-largest economy.

Industry in the world's third-largest economy all but ground to a halt following the earthquake, as manufacturers ranging from Toyota to Nissan, Sony, Fuji and brewers Kirin and Sapporo shut down their operations in Japan to assess damage and allow staff to check on their families.

The massive earthquake that shook Japan on Friday is expected to at least temporarily set back an economy that has faltered lately and is struggling to recover from years of stagnation.

While most of the industrial base of Japan was spared the worst of the disaster, few plants are back up and running yet as the country tries to come to grips with the crisis.

Toyota Motor Co said on Monday that it plans to suspend all production in Japan at least until March 16 following Friday's massive earthquake in northeastern Japan.

Jittery traders sold pretty much everything Monday as the tragedy in Japan roiled global markets, but longer-term investors were looking at the move as a natural pullback likely to create opportunities.

The devastation in Japan was beyond anything that anyone had possibly imagined was possible.

Will it take Japan many, many years to fully recover from this event?

Will Japan's economy ever be the same again?

Is Japan about to massively sell off their U.S. Treasuries?

Experts are now warning a second huge quake - almost as powerful as the first - could hit Japan, triggering another tsunami.

The Arab League has backed the idea of a no-fly zone over Libya, reports say, as rebels continue to be pushed back by Colonel Gaddafi’s forces.

Forces loyal to Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi advanced further eastward Sunday, moving into the coastal city of Brega and putting new pressure on the United States and its allies to either intervene militarily or risk seeing the anti-Gadhafi movement collapse.

Troops from Saudi Arabia and police officers from the United Arab Emirates crossed into Bahrain on Monday under the aegis of the Gulf Cooperation Council to help quell unrest there, a move Bahraini opposition groups denounced in a statement as an “occupation.”

The Chinese government, in its latest five-year plan, has stated its intentions 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 as part of plans to grow the currency's international role, which has severe ramifications for the economies of the U.S. and China.

China has become the world’s top manufacturing country by output.

Investors cheered on Monday a surprisingly broad European package of measures to deal with the government debt crisis that has over the past year threatened the existence of the euro currency.

Michigan lawmakers are on the verge of approving a bill that would enable the governor to appoint "emergency managers" -- officials with unilateral power to make sweeping changes to cities facing financial troubles.

In Queens, New York, on Friday, New York Fed President William Dudley got bombarded with questions about food inflation.

U.S. Representatives Steve King (R.-Iowa) and Michele Bachmann (R.-Minn.), two of the leading congressional proponents of the Tea Party movement, have taken a pledge and are asking all other House members to join them in it.

Progressive, one of the nation's largest auto insurers, today launches a nationwide ad campaign for its "Snapshot" program, in which drivers can elect to install a small data recorder in their cars that tracks how hard they brake, how far they drive and whether it's day or night driving. Based on the results, drivers can save up to 30% on their insurance. Average savings: $150 a year.

For the elderly, state budget cuts could mean no more daily hot meals and exercise classes to help prevent falls. At worst, some could even lose their beds at the nursing home.

The Obama administration is preparing for the prospect that Islamist governments will take hold in North Africa and the Middle East, acknowledging that the popular revolutions there will bring a more religious cast to the region's politics.

Belief in extraterrestrial life has effectively become a new religion for many, replacing traditional belief.

Astronomers tracking the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis made a major breakthrough in January.

Lastly, around 800 people had to be rescued from their cars recently after a blizzard in North Dakota made roads impassable.

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Throngs of protesters gathered in Madison, Wisconsin, Thursday, pounding on the windows of the state legislature one day after the Senate passed an amended form of a controversial bill that curtails the bargaining rights of most state workers.

The Wisconsin state Assembly vote Thursday morning on union rights legislation was delayed as police removed protesters clamoring to get inside the locked-down Capitol.

Saudi police reportedly opened fire at a rally in the kingdom's east in an apparent escalation of efforts to stop planned protests.

Will the Saudi "Day of Rage" be a major turning point in the Middle East?

Under current conditions, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi appears likely to survive the revolt against him because of superior equipment, the head of the U.S. intelligence community told Congress in a blunt assessment Thursday.

Qaddafi’s son Saif Al-Islam says the time has come for full-scale military action against the rebels.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy will propose air strikes on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's command headquarters to EU leaders, a source close to discussions has told AFP.

Doctors have confirmed that Bahrain is in fact using “potentially lethal and stronger methods” in order to put down calls for a more representative government.

Moody's has cut Spain's credit rating by one notch to Aa2, two ranks below the top level.

U.S. stocks saw a deep sea of red Thursday, as economic fears at home and political concerns in Saudi Arabia weighed heavily on investor sentiment.

The average U.S. household will spend about $700 more for gasoline in 2011 than it spent last year, bringing total motor fuel expenses up 28 percent to $3,235, based on an annual pump price of $3.61 a gallon.

The world's largest bond fund has moved out almost entirely from US debt and into that of emerging markets and corporations.

The U.S. trade deficit increased to 46.3 billion dollars in January.

Are there signs of impending doom on the horizon for the global economy?

According to CoreLogic, home prices in the United States declined by 5.7 percent in January 2011 compared to January 2010.

The number of Americans who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth rose at the end of last year, preventing many people from selling their homes in an already weak housing market.

Bond king Jeff Gundlach likened municipal bonds to subprime mortgage bonds on CNBC’s Strategy Session on Wednesday.

Political paralysis in Brussels and monetary tightening by the European Central Bank has set off a fresh spasm of the eurozone bond crisis, pushing spreads on Portuguese, Irish and Greek bonds to post-EMU records.

When cycle forecaster Charles Nenner told the Fox Business network the other day that the Dow Jones was set to collapse to the 5,000 level on the back of a “major war” that will shake the globe at the end of 2012, hosts David Asman and Elizabeth MacDonald sat in stunned silence.

Is quantitative easing destroying the value of the U.S. dollar?

The head of the Securities and Exchange Commission warned Congress on Thursday that proposed cuts to the regulator's budget would hurt its ability to do its job watching markets.

Are America's wars bankrupting the nation?

JPMorgan Chase, one of the nation’s largest banks, is considering capping debit card transactions at either $50 or $100, according to a source with knowledge of the proposal.

Ireland’s Fine Gael party enticed voters a couple of weeks ago with their tough talk about giving haircuts to bank bondholders and renegotiating Ireland’s IMF “bailout,” but before they’ve even taken power, the new Fine Gael-Labor coalition government has already capitualted to the IMF and European banksters.

Is the world on the verge of a major food crisis?

In a sign of just how certain the move appears to be, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden fully endorsed Russia’s ascension into the World Trade Organization Wednesday during a visit to the country.

What is the island nation of Mauritius doing right that the rest of the world is doing wrong?

Amid battles over health care, the federal budget and the soaring deficit, another fight is brewing on Capitol Hill this week — over light bulbs.

U.S. Senator Rand Paul recently had some very pointed questions for Kathleen Hogan, the deputy assistant secretary for energy efficiency at the Energy Department.

Donald Trump says that he is "more serious than ever" about running for president in 2012.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Wednesday the proportion of people who believe the United States is on the wrong track has risen seven points to 64 percent.

Mexican army troops found a tunnel running between 30 meters and 50 meters (98 feet and 164 feet) that was used to move drugs and illegal immigrants under the U.S.-Mexican border.

More disgusting TSA groping videos have just come out.

It’s the largest underground freshwater supply in the world, stretching from South Dakota all the way to Texas. It’s underneath most of Nebraska’s farmlands, and it provides crucial water resources for farming in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and even New Mexico. It’s called the Ogallala Aquifer, and it is being pumped dry.

China has deployed 7,000 technicians, funneled off 14 billion cubic meters of water, dug thousands of wells and sent silver iodide into the air in an effort to cause more rain.

An earthquake toppled houses and damaged a hotel and supermarket in China's extreme southwest near the border with Myanmar on Thursday, killing at least 22 people and injuring more than 200, officials and state media said.

Iran is moving to a point where it will have the ability to produce nuclear weapons, the U.S. State Department's senior adviser for non-proliferation and arms control said on Wednesday.

Is North Korea building an electromagnetic pulse bomb?

China used a top-secret SC-19 anti-satellite (ASAT) missile in a test last year against a target missile as part of a missile-defense system that remains shrouded in secrecy.

Canadian coins containing tiny transmitters have mysteriously turned up in the pockets of at least three American contractors who visited Canada, says a branch of the U.S. Department of Defense.

The UN on Thursday expressed alarm at a huge decline in bee colonies under a multiple onslaught of pests and pollution, urging an international effort to save the pollinators that are vital for food crops.

Pravda is reporting that there is an 85 percent death rate for "the Cambodian Avian Flu virus".

Lastly, WorldNetDaily is reporting that Christian author Brannon Howse has just released a video in which he flays radio and TV commentator Glenn Beck as a pagan, New Age "anti-Christ" who is deluding many believers away from the Bible's teachings and leading them toward Eastern mysticism.

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Barack Obama isn't taking any options off the table with respect to Libya -- including military options -- but spokesman Jay Carney did say today that sending ground troops "is not the at the top of the list at this point."

NATO has launched around-the-clock surveillance flights of Libya as it considers various options for dealing with escalating violence in the war-torn country, America's ambassador to the organization told reporters Monday.

A joint SAS-MI6 team was kicked out of Libya last night after their mission to link up with rebels fighting Colonel Gaddafi turned to farce.

It is being reported that the Obama administration has asked Saudi Arabia if it can supply weapons to the rebels in Benghazi.

There are reports that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is using paid mercenaries from Serbia, Syria, the Ukraine and Romania to attack rebels.

Interpol has issued a global alert known as an Orange Notice against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and 15 other Libyan nationals, including members of his family and close associates, the Lyon-based international police organization said on Friday.

Options traders are betting more than ever that crude oil is heading to $200 a barrel as some websites call for a “Day of Rage” in Saudi Arabia and anti- government protests spread in the Middle East and North Africa.

Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry said that demonstrations, marches and sit-ins are “strictly” prohibited under the kingdom’s laws, the Saudi Press Agency said, citing an unidentified official at the Interior Ministry.

Saudi Arabia is sending up to 10,000 security personnel into its north-eastern Shia Muslim provinces, clogging the highways into Dammam and other cities with busloads of troops in fear of next week's "day of rage" by what is now called the "Hunayn Revolution".

After Nomura released a report two weeks back predicting oil could rise to $220 if the MENA situation escalates, this morning SocGen's Michael Wittner has released his own scenario analysis on the possible outcomes of the 2011 revolutions. His three cases see oil within the following escalating thresholds: $110-$125; $125-$150; and $150-$200.

West Texas Intermediate crude for April delivery was trading more than $1 a barrel higher Monday around $105.50, after hitting $106.95 a barrel on the Nymex exchange, highest since Sept. 26, 2008.

Gasoline prices in the United States posted their second-biggest increase ever in a two-week period, due to the rise in crude oil prices stemming from the turmoil in Libya, an industry analyst said Sunday.

Joe Sixpack, driving his 15 mpg Dodge RAM pickup, will now be forking over an extra $1,200 per year in gas expenditures.

The speculative fervor for oil is so remarkable that the big trading firms now have nearly twice as many long contracts open as they did in 2008, when oil spiked to $147 in the summer

While rising tension in the Middle East and North Africa have sent crude prices skyrocketing, as well as hurt developed market equities, the U.S. dollar has failed to benefit from this rise in risk aversion. This has many questioning the greenback’s status as a safe haven.

As the chaos in North Africa has grown over the past month, investors have largely shunned the dollar and sought shelter elsewhere. They have turned to other traditional islands of stability, buying Japanese yen and the Swiss franc.

If oil prices continue to climb, it could force the Federal Reserve to make a new round of asset purchases, according to Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart.

The World Bank is urging Barack Obama not to “overreact” to recent spikes in food prices, particularly by imposing export bans on U.S. agricultural products.

Moody’s Investors Service has cut Greece’s sovereign-debt rating by three notches to B1, infuriating the Greek government and temporarily denting the euro amid renewed worries about the ability of Greece and other debt-loaded euro-zone governments to avoid default.

Several European governments are finding it much more expensive to finance their debts these days.

Is the Federal Reserve pushing the U.S. economy towards collapse?

Billionaire real-estate magnate Sam Zell is warning that Americans should brace for a "disastrous" 25 percent decline in the standard of living if the U.S. dollar’s reign as the global reserve currency ever ends.

The U.S. federal government posted its largest monthly deficit in history in February at $223 billion, according to preliminary numbers the Congressional Budget Office released Monday morning.

In a sign of just how clueless some politicians are about America’s manufacturing crisis, former Republican presidential candidate and current Sen. John McCain claimed over the weekend that iPods and iPhones are made right here in America.

Over 19 million workers were employed in manufacturing during the 1970s.  Today we have slightly above 11 million workers with many more living in the country.

After four straight years of declines, sales of million-dollar homes and condos rose last year in all 20 major metro areas, according to DataQuick Information Systems. On average, these cities saw an 18.6% jump in high-end home sales.

An obscure business, the MERS Corporation, claims to hold title to roughly half of all the home mortgages in the nation — an astonishing 60 million loans.

Is America experiencing "biflation"?  During biflation, there’s a rise in prices of commodity-based assets like food and energy (inflation) and a simultaneous fall (deflation) in the price of debt-based assets like homes, cars, and appliances.

California only has a short amount of time to fix its troubled economy, with an $84 billion budget and $24 billion deficit, or else it will deteriorate to the point of no return, Sean Egan, founding partner and president of Egan-Jones Rating Company, told CNBC on Monday.

New York, apparently, wants to encourage companies to take as much risk of bankruptcy as possible, by raising or retaining as little cash as possible, so it taxes them on cash they have in the bank.

In Wisconsin, some tea partiers came over to the union side to have a dialogue with the pro-union protesters. The tea partier was stopped cold by this question: “Why do you have a right to your money”?

There is one family that is actually producing 6000 pounds of produce on just 1/10th of an acre right in the middle of Pasadena, California.

Is the demand for "brains" falling?

More and more people are questioning the practicality of a traditional bachelor of arts degree as the United States struggles to create jobs in a global economy while U.S. colleges fail to contain tuition costs.

The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory says a new fissure eruption opened up on the floor at the Pu’u O’o when a crater collapsed Saturday. Scientists in Hawaii say the new vent opened at one of the world’s most active volcanoes, sending lava shooting up as high as 65 feet.

Google this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what appears in its search results. It's a historic statement - and nobody has yet grasped its significance.

Japan's health ministry has halted the use of vaccines made by Pfizer Inc and Sanofi-Aventis SA to prevent meningitis and pneumonia following the deaths of four children.

DARPA's budget for next year includes funding for all kinds of wild new medical technologies for military medicine, from electromagnetic tissue regeneration to a machine that can suck your blood out, clean it, and then fill you back up.

A non-public EU Commission paper confirms that food from offsprings of cloned animals are already on the European market.

France was shocked yesterday by an opinion poll which suggested that the far-right leader Marine Le Pen could win the first round of the presidential election next spring.

Japan now has a high speed train that is capable of going 200 MPH.

Premier Wen Jiabao vowed on Saturday that China would continue building a "powerful" military, one day after Beijing announced a return to double-digit percentage hikes in defence spending.

The number of temporary healthcare reform waivers granted by the Obama administration to organizations climbed to more than 1,000, according to new numbers disclosed by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Fred Grandy, the former “Love Boat” star who served several terms in Congress before landing a gig as a radio host, resigned from his show this week after he was pressured to stop talking so much about radical Islam, his wife, Catherine, told FoxNews.com.

Americans will be able to use their driver's licenses after May 11 to travel by air after all.  The U.S. Department of Homeland Security today postponed the effective date of the Real ID Act until January 15, 2013, a move that avoided causing tremendous disruptions to air travel.

Departing members of the House of Representatives awarded millions of dollars in extra pay to aides as they closed down their offices, according to lawmakers’ spending records.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul, an icon for lovers of liberty in America and everywhere else in the world, has dropped perhaps the biggest hint yet that he is more than likely to take on a presidential run in 2012.

Barack Obama has managed to play 60 rounds of golf since he became president.

One fringe group says that the world is going to end on May 21, 2011.

Lastly, an ABC pilot called “Good Christian Bitches” has religious and women’s groups up in arms over what they describe as an extremely offensive and distasteful show title.

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.

The latest headlines from The Most Important News....

The U.S. repositioned some naval forces near Libya and threatened Monday that all options remain on the table to protect Libyans threatened by an increasingly isolated and defiant Moammar Gadhafi, including the possible use of warplanes to patrol Libyan skies.

The United States has frozen at least $30 billion in Libyan government assets, a U.S. Treasury official announced Monday -- one of a series of steps being taken by international leaders designed to break strongman Moammar Gadhafi's grip on power.

Embattled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on Monday denied the existence of the protests that have threatened his hold on power.

Following Secretary of State Clinton’s recent call for intervention, a rebel leader in Libya has stated his country does not want or need any help from the United States and its globalist partners.

According to White House spokesman Jay Carney, "no options" have been taken off the table when it comes to the situation in Libya.

The unrest in Libya has cut oil output by half in the world's 12th largest exporter, the West's energy watchdog, the International Energy Agency said on Monday, more than it initially estimated.

The European Union voted Monday to adopt sanctions against Libya that included an arms embargo, an asset freeze and a visa ban, wire services reported.

Yemen's main opposition bloc on Monday rejected President Ali Abdullah Saleh's call to form a unity government to rule until elections to replace him, saying its goal is simply "the fall of the regime."

Anti-government protesters in Oman refused to end protests Monday, despite orders from the sultan to hire 50,000 people and pay a stipend to people who are out of work.

About 60 people were arrested during an anti-government rally attended by about 15,000 people in Zagreb, Croatia on Saturday.

For the second Sunday in a row, protesters in China gathered in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities to call for reform.

The popular uprisings across the Middle East are sparking similar unrest in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with youth groups and workers in that country now calling for a “day of rage” demonstration in the capital, Riyadh, on March 11th.

Russia is vowing to fulfil its contract to supply Syria with cruise missiles despite the turmoil shaking the Arab world and Israel's furious condemnation of the deal.

In a major setback to Iran's nuclear program, technicians will have to unload fuel from the country's first atomic power plant because of an unspecified safety concern, a senior government official said Saturday.

A new national telephone survey found that 58% of American adults believe the unrest in the Middle East will lead to a major war involving the US, with 26% saying it is "very likely."

Barack Obama recently told Republican state governors that they can offer alternatives to his federal health care plan as soon as 2014, so long as they meet the new requirements for covering the uninsured.

Gasoline prices have risen almost 20 cents a gallon in the past week, or 6%, to a national average of $3.368 per gallon according to AAA.

The uncertain situation in the Middle East could send world oil prices to $200 or $300 a barrel even as the Obama Administration fails to promote domestic energy development, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) warned recently.

In the United States, the price of ground beef is up over 11 percent compared to a year ago and the price of butter is up 27 percent compared to a year ago.

Consumers increased spending 0.2% in January, the smallest gain since June, the Commerce Department reported Monday.

Over the past six months, wage income is up $111 billion, and outlays on food and energy are up $116 billion.

Chinese and U.S. cotton futures hit their upward trading limits on Monday, with speculators blamed at least in part for driving up prices that were already rising because of low supply and high demand.

Fewer Americans signed contracts to buy homes in January, the latest evidence that the housing market continues to struggle.

Every child born today in the United States inherits $45,000 in federal government debt.

Entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare now account for 58% of all U.S. government spending.

Entitlements and interest alone will exceed total federal revenue by 2025.

Only 1 in 50 Americans needed Medicaid when it was first created in 1965, 1 in 6 Americans receives Medicaid now.

Some of the largest corporations in the United States do not pay a dime in federal taxes.

James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Fed, said "never say never" in response to a question about whether even more bond purchases, i.e. QE3, may be needed following a speech he gave last week.

Economist Marc Faber believes that the U.S. economy is doomed.

Barack Obama must embrace Islam as a way of life or face the consequences of a trial under the Shariah Islamic court system, British extremist cleric Anjem Choudary declared recently.

The sudden appearance early in the morning of an enormous crack, measuring 100 meters wide and three kilometers long, caused confusion among residents of the Huacullani district in southern Peru.

A magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck Chile on Sunday evening, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It was centered 23 miles south of Concepcion in southern Chile.

A 4.7-magnitude earthquake struck central Arkansas just after 11 p.m. on Sunday the United States Geological Survey said.

Residents of Christchurch, New Zealand are still reeling from last week's devastating 6.3 magnitude quake.

Authorities in New Zealand say that a third of the buildings in central Christchurch may need to be demolished and rebuilt.

Some unbelievable "before and after" photos of the effects of the Christchurch earthquake can be found here.

Heavy rains recently unleashed a "mega-mudslide" in Bolivia's capital that destroyed 400 homes.

Firefighters in Texas continued efforts to contain fast-moving wildfires that have destroyed at least 60 homes, burned more than 120,000 acres, and caused an accident that killed a 5-year-old child, state forestry officials said Monday.

Fears that the destroyed nuclear reactor at Chernobyl could collapse and again leak deadly radiation have prompted European agencies to seek large amounts of money to fund the construction of a vast steel building to encase the site.

You may not want genetically-modified foods in your body, but you are probably eating them anyway.

Boston Dynamics, maker of the Army’s BigDog robotic mule, announced today that Darpa has awarded it a contract to build a much faster and more fearsome animal-like robot, Cheetah.

The Homeland Security Department this summer plans to begin testing a DNA analyzer that's small enough to be easily portable and fast enough to return results in less than an hour.

Shocking as it may seem, U.S. government doctors once thought it was fine to experiment on disabled people and prison inmates. Such experiments included giving hepatitis to mental patients in Connecticut, squirting a pandemic flu virus up the noses of prisoners in Maryland, and injecting cancer cells into chronically ill people at a New York hospital.

Unless it is stopped, the provisions of The Real ID Act of 2005 (Public Law 109-13, 119 Stat 392), through the Department of Homeland Security, will require the federalization of State-issued driver's licenses by May 11, 2011.

The Earth's magnetic field is changing at an increasing rate, throwing off airports and altering the aurora borealis -- and its effect on ordinary compasses could mean the difference between homeward bound and hopelessly lost.

Did you know that the Great Pyramid in Egypt actually contains a prophecy about the Lord Jesus Christ?

After months of updates to its Like button, Facebook has released an update that fundamentally changes the button's functionality to that of a Share button. Now after hitting the Like button, a full story with a headline, blurb and thumbnail will be posted to your profile wall.

Lastly, a scheduled meeting of the Middle East mediators Russia, the United States, the United Nations and the European Union in March will mark an important turning point.  According to the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the quartet will try to draw borderlines between Israel and a sovereign Palestinian state.

The latest headlines from The Most Important News....

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on Thursday blamed the civil war in his country on young people, who he said are taking some sort of pills and being exploited by Osama bin Laden.

Army units and militiamen loyal to Moammar Gadhafi struck back Thursday against rebellious Libyans who have risen up in cities close to the capital, attacking a mosque where many were holding an anti-government sit-in and battling others who seized control of an airport. Medical officials said 15 people were killed in the clashes.

Scores of Libyan soldiers have been executed for refusing to open fire on pro-democracy protesters, International Federation for Human Rights says.

Libyans told on Wednesday of how they were forced to form vigilante groups against foreign mercenaries that were despatched by Col. Muammar Gaddafi to visit terror on revolting citizens.

A Muslim Brotherhood cleric has called for a fatwa against embattled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, saying fighting his citizens “is not heroism”.

The government of Col. Moammar Gadhafi hasn't destroyed significant stockpiles of mustard gas and other chemical-weapons agents, raising fears in Washington about what could happen to them—and whether they may be used—as Libya slides further into chaos.

The leader of Libya’s opposition group organizing the protests both inside and outside of Libya, is currently in Washington D.C. as he and his organization direct the upheaval and bedlam consuming the North African nation.

Protestors in Bahrain say that they will stage more protests and a nationwide strike if the government refuses to resign on Thursday.

A 20-year-old Saudi student has been arrested in Texas in a bomb plot that may have targeted former President George W. Bush and nuclear plants, U.S. authorities said on Thursday.

Syria established four additional nuclear facilities aside from the one bombed by Israel in 2007, the US Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) reported late Wednesday.

Debka is reporting that the conversation between President Barack Obama and Saudi King Abdullah early Thursday, Feb. 10, was the most acerbic that Obama has ever had with an Arab ruler.

Police fired tear gas near the Greek Parliament yesterday as clashes broke out with stone-throwing protesters during a demonstration against austerity measures, an AFP reporter said.

Wisconsin state troopers were dispatched Thursday to try to find at least one of the 14 Senate Democrats who have been on the run for eight days to delay a vote on Republican Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to strip collective bargaining rights from nearly all public employees.

Sometimes it’s necessary to get out on the streets and “get a little bloody” a Massachusetts Democrat said Tuesday in reference to labor battles in Wisconsin.

The showdown over union rights that has paralyzed politics in Wisconsin is spreading to other American states, threatening to trigger a national "workers war" of a kind not seen since Ronald Reagan fired air traffic controllers 30 years ago.

Benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude added $1.24 at $99.34 a barrel in morning trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices have jumped 18% since Friday. In London, Brent crude added $2.19 at $113.44 on the ICE Futures exchange.

Gas prices are up nearly 6 cents this week and analysts say this is just the beginning, as oil prices soar on political strife in North Africa and the Middle East.

Oil prices have already jumped $12 this week, which means that drivers can “expect gas prices to be 37 cents higher” in the coming days, one economist recently told CNN.

Markets around the world are wondering if oil-rich Saudi Arabia is serious about boosting its production to calm surging prices in the wake of continued upheaval in Libya.

Oil could hit $220 a barrel if "Libya and Algeria were to halt oil production together," analysts at Nomura investment bank have predicted.

Almost every single recession since World War I has been preceded by an oil crisis.

Barack Obama is "challenging" business and labor leaders today to generate ideas for creating jobs, sustaining the economic recovery and making America more competitive.

Michigan has approved a plan to shut down nearly half of the public schools in Detroit.  Under the plan, 70 schools will be closed and 72 will continue operating.

In Providence, Rhode Island the school district plans to send out dismissal notices to every one of its 1,926 teachers.

The city of Allen Park, Michigan has notified their entire fire department that they will be terminated in 30 days.

All over the country, state governments are making huge budget cuts.

Korea currently sells us 615,000 cars each year compared to the paltry 7,000 we export to that nation.

Over the past six months the bench mark 10-year Treasury note yield has risen from a yield of 2.20% to 2.74% and presently stands at about 3.60%.

Is the U.S. economy about to enter a period of rampant inflation?

The Obama administration is trying to push through a settlement over mortgage-servicing breakdowns that could force America's largest banks to pay for reductions in loan principal worth billions of dollars.

The Census Bureau reports New Home Sales in January were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 284 thousand. This is down from a revised 325 thousand in December.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) is working on a benchmark revision for existing home sales numbers.  This benchmarking is expected to result in significant downward revisions to sales estimates for the last few years - perhaps as much as 10% to 15% for 2009 and 2010.

The "problem bank ratio" has hit a 23 year high.

Just as President Obama signed and sent his annual Economic Report to Congress, the Treasury Department posted numbers that show the national debt has increased $3.5 trillion so far on Mr. Obama's watch.

The International Monetary Fund called for a weaker dollar to help the United States reduce its deficits with the rest of the world and rebalance the global economy, in a report released Wednesday.

China’s Industrial and Commercial Bank (ICBC) reports purchases of physical gold and gold-related investments are growing at record setting rates.

A year after its "unintended acceleration" trouble began, Toyota today is announcing that it's going to expand its recall of floor mats to include nearly 2.2 million more Lexus and Toyota vehicles in the U.S. The mats can jam against accelerator pedals -- causing so-called pedal entrapment.

According to a General Accountability Office report released last week, only 44 percent of the border is under “operational control.” And of that, only 15 percent is secure.

Not content with raising taxes 66%, attempting to track down those crazy homeschoolers so they can be “helped”, and sheltering Wisconsin’s missing Democrats (we hear that Indiana’s Dems are on the run as well) Illinois actually has HB 1166 sitting in Committee right now which will criminalize individuals who own 7 or more “companion animals”.

Police say the death toll from the magnitude 6.3 quake that hit Christchurch on Tuesday has risen to 98, with 226 more reported missing.

Russia will spend $650 billion to equip its dilapidated military with 600 new warplanes, 100 ships and 1,000 helicopters by 2020, Defense Ministry officials were quoted as saying Thursday.

A smoker in New York has agreed to fork out $2,000 every time he puffs a cigar at his house, and pay his neighbors if they smell it.

Even a regional nuclear war could spark "unprecedented" global cooling and reduce rainfall for years, according to U.S. government computer models.

The Tulsa Police Deptartment is investigating a captain who refused an order to assign officers to attend an upcoming Islamic event because he said it would violate his religious beliefs.

An anti-abortion billboard featuring a young black girl and the slogan "the most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb" has provoked sharp criticism in New York.

Pro-family groups and legal firms have expressed great disappointment with Barack Obama’s decision to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act, saying supporters will face new challenges in court.

Fox News recently reported that two Protestant churches are getting criticized for opening their facilities to Muslims groups that are in need of a place to conduct their services.

The Canadian government is refusing to say whether it is close to approving genetically modified animals for human consumption. But if they do, you may never know it.

Lastly, it is being alleged that a new pathogen found in Roundup Ready genetically-modified crops causes spontaneous abortions and infertility in livestock.

The latest headlines from The Most Important News....

The faltering government of the Libyan strongman Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi struck back at mounting protests against his 40-year rule, as helicopters and warplanes besieged parts of the capital Monday, according to witnesses and news reports from Tripoli.

Libyan military aircraft fired live ammunition at crowds of anti-government protesters in Tripoli, Al Jazeera television reported on Monday, quoting witnesses for its information.

CNN is reporting that two Libyan air force pilots defected to Malta after being asked to bomb citizens.

Large numbers of people are being killed in Libya as anti-government protests have reached the capital for the first time and several cities in the east appeared to be in the hands of the opposition.

Eyewitness reports said that Libyan protesters had torched public buildings in the capital overnight.

On Sunday, the heir-apparent son of its strongman, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, warned Libyans in a televised speech that their oil-rich country would fall into civil war and even renewed Western “colonization” if they threw off his father’s 40-year-long rule.

There are some media reports that indicate that Qaddafi has actually left Libya at this point.

Although the nation is in deep turmoil, Libya's official state news agency is not reporting any of it online.

Protesters continue to demand the ouster of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, despite a government crackdown on demonstrations which has killed at least 22 people.

Palestinians are planning a "day of rage" on Friday in response to the U.S. wielding its veto against a UN security council resolution condemning Israeli settlements.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday called on Muslims to "remove" the U.S. from the Islamic world.

An attempt to foment a Chinese “jasmine” revolution was met with an emphatic show of state power in China after a call to mount public demonstrations against the government was posted on an internet forum.

Protests over a budget bill in Wisconsin are now on the seventh day and total more than 70,000 people with many groups removing their support for Gov. Walker and advocating the recall of Wisconsin elected officials.

No resolution appeared imminent Monday to the stalemate over union rights in Wisconsin that has riveted the country and led to ongoing public protests that have drawn tens of thousands of people.

The average compensation for teachers in the Milwaukee Public School system, when you add up the salaries and benefits, is over $100,000 a year.

As thousands of protesters on both sides of an epic budget standoff in Wisconsin faced off Saturday at the Capitol, alleged doctors were handing out 'fake' sick notes to protesters -- allowing them to call in sick while the budget impasse continues.

Crude oil prices jumped 6% Monday as violent protests spread in Libya, raising the possibility that oil supplies from that OPEC nation could be disrupted.

In fact, Brent Crude soared above $108 a barrel during Monday trading.

Gold burst through $1,400 on Monday morning on escalating political tensions in the Middle East.

Is a U.S. government shutdown on the horizon?

What would a U.S. government shutdown look like?

The prospect of a government shutdown appeared more likely on Saturday after the House passed a budget measure in the pre-dawn hours that cuts $61 billion - and was immediately rejected by Senate Democrats and Barack Obama.

Federal taxes on airline tickets have reached a level that is just obscene.

The average U.S. borrower in the throes of foreclosure hasn't made a mortgage payment in 17 months, up from nearly 11 months two years ago — and the time frame may get even longer.

There is plenty of evidence that the standard of living for the middle class in America is sharply declining.

Wealthy Americans seem to have decided that it's okay to splurge on big ticket items again.

While most Americans are suffering, the Obamas are on vacation once again.

State attorney general's office spokesman Arturo Sandoval said a total of 53 people have been killed in a span of 72-hours in Ciudad Juarez. Sandoval said among the casualties were policemen from three separate departments.

The Utah House has approved an Arizona-style immigration enforcement law after heated debate.

The United Nations is calling for 2% of worldwide income to be invested in the green economy, a move it says would boost jobs and economic growth.

Farmers who plant Monsanto's GM crops probably don't realize what they bargain for when they sign the Monsanto Technology Stewardship Agreement contract. One farmer reportedly 'went crazy' when he discovered the scope of the contract because it transfers ALL liability to the farmer or grower.

Alexander Lebedev, the Russian oligarch, has accused a group of spies and policemen of plotting to steal his multi-billion pound business empire in an open letter to Vladimir Putin, the prime minister.

Hundreds of people fled homes and farms in central Philippines on Monday after a volcano spewed a 2km-high column of ash covering several villages, officials said.

Is Germany's "supervolcano" awakening?

A moderate earthquake struck Baja California on Sunday morning, with shaking felt up to San Diego. No major damages or injuries were reported, authorities said.

The Maryland Republican Party is urging residents to pressure state senators to vote against a bill legalizing gay marriage, which is expected to come up for debate this week.

Attorney Dori Spivak was appointed on Friday as a judge in the Tel Aviv Labor Court. He is the first openly gay judge appointed in Israel.

A hardline Muslim cleric who sparked anger across the U.S. with his anti-American comments in a television interview this month is to hold a protest outside the White House.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Pentagon does not yet know how many troops will draw down from Afghanistan this year. Instead, the Defense Department is budgeting to hold level at 98,000 troops through 2012.

In Afghanistan right now, a one-legged Afghan Red Cross worker named Said Musa is sitting in a prison cell awaiting his execution.  Musa, a father of six children, was arrested by the Afghan government as he attempted to seek asylum at the German embassy last year.  He was sentenced to death by an Afghan court that was established by the new Afghan government that the United States worked so hard to set up.  He has been tortured and sexually abused for months.  An Afghan judge has told him that he will be hung within a matter of days.  So what was his crime?  He was a Muslim that has become a Christian.

The latest headlines from The Most Important News....

Bahrain’s military deployed armored vehicles in the streets of the Manama Thursday after an early morning attack on sleeping protesters killed at least three people and wounded 230 others.

Security forces have clashed with anti-government protesters in Yemen on the seventh consecutive day of demonstrations calling for the ouster of the president.

There are reports coming in of government forces killing anti-government protesters in Libya.

The governor of a remote southern Iraqi province was forced to flee Wednesday when protesters stormed his headquarters during violent demonstrations that illustrated the potential for upheaval in Iraq's new, and still shaky, democracy.

The recent events in Egypt have emboldened protesters all across the Middle East and North Africa.

CBS News correspondent Lara Logan was reporting on the protests in Egypt Friday when she was separated from her crew and attacked. She is currently recovering in a U.S. hospital, having been sexually assaulted and beaten.

Egypt's new ruling military council has appointed an Islamist judge to head the committee drawing up a new constitution, angering some of those who argued last week's revolution would deliver the country to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The U.S. informed Arab governments Tuesday that it will support a U.N. Security Council statement reaffirming that the 15-nation body "does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity", a move aimed at avoiding the prospect of having to veto a stronger Palestinian resolution calling the settlements illegal.

Federal authorities charged more than 100 doctors, nurses and physical therapists in nine cities with Medicare fraud Thursday, part of a massive nationwide bust that snared more suspects than any other in history.

In the week ending Feb. 12, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial unemployment claims was 410,000, an increase of 25,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 385,000.

In early February the worst freeze in 60 years wiped out entire crops all across the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico.  Already, it has been reported that some U.S. supermarkets have doubled or even tripled prices for certain produce items.

Gasoline pump prices reached a 28-month high Wednesday even though oil and gas supplies in the U.S. continue to grow and demand for gas is weak.

U.S. consumers paid more in January for everything from food and gasoline to airline tickets and clothing.

Will rising interest rates cause the next recession?

Traders bet up fed fund futures in Thursday trading, pushing to 78 percent the chance that the Fed will boost interest rates at its December meeting.

The minutes of the latest meeting of Fed policy makers show there is some doubt about the prevailing view that there is little reason to worry about inflation when unemployment is elevated and factories are operating well below their maximum potential.

Why aren't more Wall Street bankers going to jail?

51.2 million Americans are currently collecting social security benefits and of that amount, 7.7 million are early retirees, or young survivors of retirees who have passed away.

Is it time to replace the U.S. Federal Reserve altogether?

China remained the top foreign holder of American debt in 2010, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Treasury Department.

China has been using its position as the top foreign holder of American debt to ask for favors from the U.S. government.

Demand for gold in China is being described as "explosive".

Demand for gold reached a 10-year high with spending reaching a value of $150bn (£93bn) in 2010, as Chinese and Indian consumers increased jewelry purchases and the world's central banks became net buyers for the first time in more than two decades.

Demand in China for physical gold and gold-related investments is growing at a very rapid pace and its appetite for the yellow metal is poised to remain robust amid inflation concerns, said an Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) executive recently.

Some of the taxes that Americans have to pay are absolutely bizarre.

Did an economic riot recently break out in the state of Wisconsin?

In Canada, the average household debt figure at the end of 2010 was $100,879, with the debt-to-income ratio at a record 150 percent.

As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave her speech at George Washington University yesterday condemning governments that arrest protestors and do not allow free expression, 71-year-old Ray McGovern was grabbed from the audience in plain view of her by police and an unidentified official in plain clothes, brutalized and left bleeding in jail.

Following an admission of guilt in federal court earlier this week from a TSA supervisor, two more TSA agents based at a completely different airport have been arrested for stealing thousands of dollars in cash from the luggage of travelers, while another was arrested and fired for seriously assaulting a co-worker in a dispute over a parking space.

While they’ve made strides in arresting illegals and building a fence along the U.S.-Mexico line, the Border Patrol only has “operational control” of 44 percent of the southern border, and of that only 15 percent is air tight, according to new General Accountability Office report.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved plantings of three genetically engineered (GE) crops in as many weeks, including Monsanto Co.’s Roundup Ready sugar beets and alfalfa that are engineered to tolerate Roundup Ready weed-killing herbicide.

The biggest solar flare in years is headed towards earth.

Citing sinkhole losses and higher operating expenses, State Farm Florida asked state regulators today for a 28 percent premium increase on its homeowners policies.

Lots of earthquakes have been reported in Arkansas recently.

Barack Obama's proposed 2012 budget, released publicly this week, suggests charging Canadians $5.50 to enter the country by air and sea to help pay for security checks and inspections at the nation’s airports.

Lastly, a slim majority of Republicans do not believe that Barack Obama, now in his third year in office, was born in the United States and therefore is legally eligible to be president, according to a poll by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling.