The health plan in Massachusetts led to increased demand, which boosted costs and brought price controls and rationing. The federal health plan will do the same.
US District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled that the National Day of Prayer violates the First Amendment’s prohibition on government endorsement of religion.
President Obama ordered his health secretary to issue new rules aimed at making it easier for gays and lesbians to make medical decisions for their partners.
The plume of ash from a volcano in Iceland forced aviation authorities to order the restrictions, affecting thousands of flights in a wide arc from Ireland to Scandinavia.
Porter J. Goss in 2005 approved of the decision by one of his top aides to destroy dozens of videotapes documenting the brutal interrogation of two detainees.
AP - Former CIA Director Porter Goss agreed with a 2005 decision to destroy interrogation videos showing waterboarding, but nobody told White House counsel Harriet Miers, who was "livid" to find out afterward, according to internal CIA e-mails released Thursday.
AP - Hospitals that accept Medicare and Medicaid payments must let patients choose which persons, including gay and lesbian partners, can visit them and help make critical health decisions, President Barack Obama said Thursday.
AP - Just hours after Congress passed an $18 billion bill to restore unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed, President Barack Obama made it the law of the land.
Airports across Europe were today thrown into chaos after volcanic ash drifting across the Atlantic from Iceland caused several countries to close their airspace. The dangerous cloud of ash and rock spewed up by the volcano over 1000 miles away has caused the U.K., Norway, Ireland and Sweden to enforce a nationwide no fly policy.
Chinese rescue teams fought altitude sickness, freezing temperature and gusty winds as they raced against time in their search for survivors in the quake zone in western China.
Rescue workers used shovels and their bare hands due to a lack of heavy equipment. An ABC team travelling to the quake zone witnessed the difficulties of getting heavy equipment into the devastated areas. Trucks struggled to pull bulldozers and excavators on the steep mountain passes along the bumpy, unpaved roads. The long ride from the provincial capital could take as long as 15 hours.
At 13,000 feet above sea level, our team also experienced the difficulty felt by rescuers in breathing the thin air of the Tibetan plateau and suffering from headaches and nausea.
But as rescue efforts entered the second day in the remote mountainous region in Qinghai province, there were glimpses of hope amid the chaos and devastation.
Chinese authorities announced that rescuers pulled out more than 1,000 survivors from under the rubble. One of the lucky ones was a girl trapped for more than 16 hours beneath a concrete slab.
Pakistan failed to provide adequate security for ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto before her death, and agencies hindered the investigation, a U.N. commission found.
Charges have been dropped against nine of the American missionaries held in Haiti earlier this year, according to a spokesman for Idaho Sen. Jim Risch. A tenth missionary, Laura Silsby, remains in a Haitian jail.
As rescuers raced against the clock to pull survivors from the rubble, Premier Wen Jiabao traveled to China's earthquake-devastated zone Thursday night to inspect the damage and assure victims that the search would continue.
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