Clashes with government forces left more than 30 dead last week, sparking concerns about a full-scale revolt. Protesters are fighting laws that would open their rainforest home to energy and agribusiness development.
Turnout appeared to be extraordinarily high in what is widely seen as a referendum on the hard-line policies of Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
AP - Iranians packed polling stations from boutique-lined streets in north Tehran to conservative bastions in the countryside Friday with a choice that's left the nation divided and on edge: keeping hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power or electing a reformist who favors greater freedoms and improved ties with the United States.
AP - Congress sent legislation to the White House Friday granting the federal government unprecedented authority to regulate and restrict cigarettes, the single largest cause of preventable death.
AP - The wife of a senator playing a lead role on a national health care overhaul sits on the boards of four health care companies, one of several examples of lawmakers with ties to the medical industry. Jackie Clegg Dodd, wife of Sen. Chris Dodd, serves on the boards of Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cardiome Pharma Corp., Brookdale Senior Living, and Pear Tree Pharmaceuticals, a financial disclosure report the senator released Friday shows.
Eva Rich Blumberg, 85, was scheduled to speak in Washington on Sunday about her experiences during the Holocaust, but the shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has left her with second thoughts. Blumberg and other Holocaust suvivors say they fear Wednesday's shooting may embolden others who embrace hate. Said Blumberg, "I couldn't sleep all night because things keep coming back."
As millions of Iranians cast their ballots in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iranians in the U.S. are also turning out in record numbers to vote. From New York to California, there are 41 designated voting locations where Iranian citizens can cast absentee ballots.
The number of swine flu cases is closer to reaching 30,000, the World Health Organization reported Friday, a day after declaring the start of a global pandemic.