The world's largest country by land mass is challenging time: This weekend, Russia is cutting the number of its time zones from 11 to 9.
"The less fractional division of the country will enable us to resolve a number of transport and communications issues, will increase its manageability and strengthen the position of Russia as an important chain in the world's global infrastructure," President Dmitry Medvedev said at a special Kremlin meeting devoted to the issues of time change.
Technically speaking, five Russian regions -- two in European Russia and three in Siberia -- will not join the rest of the country in moving the clock one hour forward to daylight saving time at 2 a.m. Sunday, thus coming a little closer to Moscow.
President Obama explains how the reform bill he signed into law earlier in the morning will make a positive impact in the lives of Americans at an event at the Department of the Interior in Washington, DC. March 23, 2010. This Video starts at 4:30 ... for the whole speech.. please rewind!!
During their first joint visit to Haiti, George W. Bush appears to have wiped his hand on Bill Clinton's shirt after shaking hands with a crowd of Haitians. It looks pretty bad. It's difficult not to draw a direct line between this handshake-wipe and Bush's treatment of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina trashed the city. The story that this video tells is this guy just proved once again that he was most Stupid and Evil president in U.S. history
A large number of Indians now suspect that the CIA carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
According to India's Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar: "For the first time in recent years, the Indian public has closed ranks with prevalent opinion in Pakistan that sees the US as a diabolic, self-centered power, which double-crosses its partners, friends and allies in single-minded pursuit of its interests." (A spy unsettles US-India ties)
The American FBI has made a bargain with the American 'CIA agent' David Headley.
The once mighty community activist group ACORN announced Monday it is folding amid falling revenues — six months after video footage emerged showing some of its workers giving tax tips to conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute.
"It's really declining revenue in the face of a series of attacks from partisan operatives and right-wing activists that have taken away our ability to raise the resources we need," ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan said.
Several of its largest affiliates, including ACORN New York and ACORN California, broke away this year and changed their names in a bid to ditch the tarnished image of their parent organization and restore revenue that ran dry in the wake of the video scandal.
A proposal to put the legalization of marijuana in California to a vote this November is causing some growers of the plant in the state to worry about a sharp drop in the value of their crop if the measure succeeds.
As The Los Angeles Times explained in January, when supporters of the proposed Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 turned in more than enough signatures to get the measure on the ballot, the initiative “would make it legal for anyone 21 and older to possess an ounce of marijuana and grow plants in an area no larger than 25 square feet for personal use. It would also allow cities and counties to permit marijuana to be grown and sold, and to impose taxes on marijuana production and sales.”
What should governments do to fight climate change? The world is emitting huge amounts of greenhouse gases that are changing our climate. If our governments don't take serious action to cut emissions soon, climate change could have a disastrous and irreversible impact on our planet within the lifetime of today's young generation. The European Commission launched a campaign in order to encourage EU citizens to post a message and show their commitment to fighting climate change. Among its many supporters is also Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen. He appeals to viewers to inform their governments what they need to do to stop climate change, in the run up to the UN Climate Conference. By posting a message EU citizens encouraged governments to take action in the fight against climate change. If you want to fight climate change show your commitment and leave a message and change your daily habits. Now is the time to act!
Russia's drugs control chief has urged NATO to step up its fight against narcotics production in Afghanistan. Top officials and anti-drug experts have met in Brussels to discuss jointly tackling the growing problem.
Earlier the US military has said it is using a new approach to fight drug production in Afghanistan, but Julian Mercille, lecturer at University College, Dublin, believes both they and NATO have in fact been supporting the industry.
“The bulk of the income from drugs is captured by other players like traffickers and the police and people in the government. So the problem is that the US and NATO have empowered a lot of people who are involved in drugs in government and the police forces,” says Mercille. “That is one reason why the US and NATO have directly caused the drastic increases in drug production in Afghanistan.”
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner testified on the future of housing finance. In his remarks he indicated that he favored reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and that he opposed approaches that would either permanently nationalize the two groups or create new quasi-governmental corporations that would compete with each other.
Also: John Phillips Avlon[1] (born 1973) is the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics and Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America. He was a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun and worked as chief speechwriter for former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani. He was Director of Speechwriting and Deputy Policy Director for Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign.[2] He is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.[3] He is senior political columnist at TheDailyBeast.com.[4] [edit] Life and career
Joe Biden is famous for having a mouth that out-runs his brain from time to time, and so it proved again, as the vice-president was caught exclaiming in no uncertain terms live on national television.
After introducing the president at the signing ceremony for healthcare reform legislation at the White House today, Biden turned and embraced his boss while excitedly whispering into Obama's ear: "This is a big fucking deal!" Loudly enough to be picked up by the cameras and microphones in the East Room. Fox News was the first to pick up on Biden's blooper, and repeatedly ran the clip (above). Biden can clearly be heard saying the phrase around the nine-second mark.
The health care law signed Tuesday by President Obama is projected to extend insurance coverage to roughly 32 million additional Americans, but what happens to those who don't get themselves covered by health insurance?
The new law creates penalties in the tax code as an incentive.
An adult who does not have health insurance by 2014 would be penalized $95 or 1 percent of income, whichever is greater, so long as the amount does not exceed the price tag of a basic health plan. But by 2016, the penalty increases to $695 for an uninsured adult, and up to $2,085 per household, or 2.5 percent of income, whichever is greater.
One of the provisions in the new health care law requires small businesses to provide coverage for workers. Such an "employer mandate" has been in place in San Francisco, Calif., for over a year. The mandate has earned mixed reviews at best.
Under the law, businesses with 20 or more employees are required to provide medical coverage, either on their own or by paying into a city-run program. That's what most restaurants are doing -- albeit grudgingly.
The top prosecutors in 13 states — 12 of them Republicans — filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the health-care bill minutes after President Barack Obama signed the landmark legislation into law.
In a suit filed in federal district court in Tallahassee, Fla., the attorneys general claimed that the new law's requirement for all Americans to buy health insurance is unconstitutional.
