No American is dedicating as much of his money to defeat President Obama as Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate who also happens to have made more money in the last three years than any other American [....]
By Dave Segal, New York Times Business, June 23/24, 2012
SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. [....]
With public employee unions under attack in states like Wisconsin, and with cities across the country looking to trim budgets, behold a town built almost entirely on a series of public-private partnerships — a system that leaders around here refer to, simply, as “the model.”
Paraguay's senate voted to remove President Fernando Lugo from office on Friday in an impeachment trial that plunged the South American country into a crisis.
After a quick, five-hour trial, 39 senators voted to dismiss Lugo, while four senators voted against and two were absent. Based on the decision, Lugo is to be replaced by Vice President Federico Franco of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The American Civil Liberties Union called on the U.S. Justice Department to take control of the Puerto Rican police force and ensure reforms are carried out in a report issued Tuesday that says the department’s officers routinely use excessive force, killing at least 21 people in the past two years.
By Vanessa Fuhrmans, Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2012
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.—Germany's transplant-factories, like the sprawling Volkswagen AG complex here, aren't just cranking out cars, machinery and chemicals. They're also bringing a German training system that could help narrow America's skilled labor gap.
Volkswagen, whose auto factory will graduate its first class of U.S. apprentices next year, is one of dozens of companies introducing training that combine German-style apprenticeships and vocational schooling.
By Esther Addley and Beatrice Wolf, guardian.co.uk, June 19, 2012
Julian Assange has dramatically sought political asylum at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, days after the supreme court rejected the last of his appeals against extradition to Sweden to face sex crime accusations and after what he called a "declaration of abandonment" by his own government in Australia.
By Jason Burke in Delhi, guardian.co.uk, June 17, 2012
A multinational investigation into bomb plots targeting Israeli diplomats earlier this year has produced the clearest evidence yet that Iran was involved, illustrating the risks to the west if it fails to reach detente with Tehran over its nuclear weapons programme.
Trying to go to its url (tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com) now automatically redirects you to the the Talking Points Memo home page (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/)
Did anyone notice a public announcement that this was going to happen? Just curious.
By John Schwartz, New York Times, June 14/15, 2012
NEW ORLEANS — Finally, there is a wall around this city.
Nearly seven years after flood waters from Hurricane Katrina gushed over New Orleans, $14.5 billion worth of civil works designed to block such surges is now in place — a 133-mile chain of levees, flood walls, gates and pumps too vast to take in at once, except perhaps from space [....]
