During a March 17 combined hearing of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs and the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, several U.S. officials put the spotlight on a new aspect of border control — stopping the southbound flow of guns and laundered cash into Mexico.

Christian Pastor Don Swarthout has filed an ethics complaint with the Texas Bar Association seeking an investigation of U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton’s performance during the prosecution of U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. His complaint alleges that Sutton issued “willfully misleading” statements to the jury that convicted the two men of wrongfully shooting at a drug smuggler attempting to cross into the United States.

The Board of Supervisors in Santa Clara County, California, voted 3-2 on April 25 to ban restaurants in unincorporated areas of the county from giving away toys with children's meals that exceed set levels of calories, fat, salt, and sugar.

Every person with an ounce of common sense, and an equal amount of compassion for his fellow human beings, takes public health threats seriously. It is an unfortunate fact of our existence that we are vulnerable to communicable diseases, which, when detected, must be contained. 

Though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said on May 4 that the virus it now officially designates as "novel H1N1 flu" has been confirmed in six more states since the previous day, there were signs that the severity of the illness is less than initially feared.

The world watched warily on April 27, as cases of swine flu that first emerged in Mexico in recent weeks in near-epidemic proportions started surfacing in other nations. Mexican officials said the flu strain may have sickened 1,614 people since April 13. Officials were awaiting the results of laboratory tests to confirm how many of 149 suspected flu-related deaths were in fact caused by the illness. So far, at least 22 deaths in the nation of 111 million people have been attributed to swine flu.

Information posted on the website of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control on April 28 confirmed a total of 64 human cases of swine flu across the country. The count was up from 40 confirmed cases the previous day. New York leads the nation with 45 cases (attributed to students at a Queens, New York, high school who had spent spring break in Cancun, Mexico), California had10 cases, Texas 6 cases, Kansas 2 cases, and Ohio 1 case.

The Bush administration plans to enforce a regulation that will prevent healthcare workers who object to abortion from being forced to perform abortion-related services that violate their beliefs. Under the rule, federal officials can deny funding to hundreds of thousands of health care providers if they do not allow employees to opt out from providing care that violates their personal, moral or religious beliefs.

The Council on Foreign Relations recently asked the above question of some of its favorite commentators. One of the answers sent to this seat of the Eastern Liberal Establishment likely surprised whoever received it.

Forty years ago on October 25th, the United Nations General Assembly ousted the Nationalist Chinese and gave China's seat to the murderous communist government in Beijing. The transfer was marked with jubilation and dancing in the aisles at UN headquarters in New York. Representatives of the many pro-communist UN member states delightedly interpreted the UN's move as a huge slap in the face to the United States.