Two men accused of butchering a British soldier had been investigated previously by security services, a British official said Thursday, as investigators searched several locations and tried to determine whether the men were part of a wider plot to instill terror on the streets of London.

Syria's opposition and the government of President Bashar al-Assad seem to be preparing to take part in an international peace conference against a background of some of the worst fighting this year.

In our country right now there are basically only two political parties we are allowed to choose from. Sure, we are supposed to be able to choose from whomever we want. When challenged on it, representatives from either of those only two parties will typically say, “people can choose whatever party they would like.” But, that's like all those in positions of power during the late 1960's and 1970's saying, “people of color and women can do anything male non-people of color do.” Yes, after Jim Crowe had been mostly dismantled, and the push to adopt the ERA helped change attitudes towards women's rights nationwide, the door had been cracked and people that were not white males, were supposed to be admitted to any place or position as any Americans available. But the bigotry in our nation was alive and well.

I've never been to Detroit, but I imagine Philadelphia's West Kensington neighborhood is a lot like it.

Another public school within the Michigan district shuts its doors due to lack of public funding.

A funding crisis caused the Buena Vista School District to close its schools for the rest of the year—and perhaps permanently.

Syrian President Bashar Assad said in a newspaper interview Saturday he won't step down before elections and that the United States has no right to interfere in his country's politics, raising new doubts about a U.S-Russian effort to get Assad and his opponents to negotiate an end to the country's civil war.

Our elected and unelected officials tell us that drone strikes target top level enemies of the United States who are imminent threats to us, and that killing innocent people is avoided altogether or minimized.

Congressional hearings, with a couple of excellent exceptions, question outside academics about the legality of this purported strategy. The Obama administration declines to send any witnesses.

An important study has just been published1 examining the level of consensus among scientists about climate change.

The issue at hand is this: What is the level of agreement in the scientific community about the reality of climate change and about the human role in climate change?

Some causes tend to be slowly successful as more and more people fasten their seat belts, others are going backward as ever more people drive while on the phone, or traffic in cocaine. Gruesome ads cut down on tobacco and methamphetamine ie speed.