News stories by Matthew Cardinale, page 5

Democracy advocates in the United States are troubled by the pending execution of two men who took part in anti-government protests in Bahrain.

Earlier this month, Georgia became the third state to enact some of the most anti-immigrant legislation in recent U.S. history, when Governor Nathan Deal, a Republican, signed the bill, HB 87.

The death penalty is in limbo in several states since the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency confiscated several states' supplies of sodium thiopental (ST), a key drug used in lethal injections, and as the supply of the drug to the U.S. grows even tighter.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that it would not hear an appeal by death row inmate Troy Davis, in what could be the end of the legal road for the Georgia prisoner whose case has garnered international support.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has begun the initial stages of a process that may lead to the federal agency's first regulations to limit emissions of carbon dioxide from power plants and oil refineries.

As the domestic and overseas sources that U.S. states relied upon for sodium thiopental (ST), a key drug used in lethal injections, have stopped producing or exporting the drug, state governments are scrambling to find another way to carry out planned executions.

The New Year brought a spate of incidents across the United States and around the world in which large numbers of birds appeared to have fallen out of the sky, and thousands of fish were found floating dead in rivers.

In what some are calling the largest prison strike in U.S. history, inmates in the state of Georgia coordinated a strike across multiple prison facilities using pre-paid cell phones.

The private central bank of the United States, the Federal Reserve, has begun purchasing $600 billion of long-term U.S. Treasury Bonds, essentially subsidising the federal deficit for the year.

The discovery of apparent massive fraud in mortgage and foreclosure documents has called into question millions of pending foreclosures in the U.S. Several banks have enacted partial or complete moratoriums until the issues can be resolved.