The Agony Of The Heat

The eastern U.S. felt the full, blazing brunt Thursday of a heat wave that began in the Plains and has strained tempers and electricity grids from Tulsa to Boston amid record temperatures and stifling humidity. “So far this month we’ve seen more than 1,000 record highs set across the country,” National Weather Service spokesman Chris [...]

Watchdogs Examine Smear Against ATF Agent

The Justice Department’s Inspector General has opened an investigation into possible retaliation against a whistle-blowing agent at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, according to two people briefed on the inquiry. Watchdogs are examining whether anyone at the Justice Department improperly released internal correspondence to try to smear ATF agent John Dodson, who told [...]

Guilt, Grief And Redemption In ‘Northwest Corner’

What best characterizes a John Burnham Schwartz novel is a quote from Reservation Road, the 1998 novel that made his reputation (and was made into a far lesser film): “There are heroes, and there are the rest of us. There comes a time when you just let go the ghost of the better person you [...]

Progress Still ‘Elusive’ On Deficit-Reduction Deal

Though the negotiations that many care most about are over ending the NFL lockout, we’ll look first at where things stand in the deficit-reduction talks — one day before what the White House had said is the deadline for reaching a deal if everything is going to be written, passed and signed by Aug. 2, [...]

Hospice Companies Zero In On Nursing Home Patients

Dying patients in nursing homes are an increasingly lucrative source of business for hospice companies, which have made a big push into these facilities, according to a federal audit that was just released. Medicare spending on hospice care for patients in nursing facilities increased by 69 percent over just four years — from $2.6 billion [...]

Bachmann Courts ‘King Makers’ In South Carolina

After several weeks of campaigning, Michele Bachmann has become a serious contender for the GOP presidential nomination. She has been campaigning in South Carolina, which hosts the first Southern primary of 2012. The winner in South Carolina has gone on to win every Republican nomination since 1980. A small crowd of about 150 people gathered [...]

Remains Of Hitler Deputy Rudolf Hess Exhumed, Will Be Destroyed

“The grave containing the remains of [Adolf] Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess has been destroyed to end it being used as a pilgrimage site by neo-Nazis,” the BBC reports. German’s Der Spiegel writes that for years the grave site in the Bavarian town of Wunsiedel had been a gathering point for neo-Nazis who “celebrate Rudolf Hess [...]

Stieglitz And O’Keeffe: Their Love And Life In Letters

From 1915 until 1946, some 25,000 pieces of paper were exchanged between two major 20th century artists. Painter Georgia O’Keeffe and photographer Alfred Stieglitz wrote each other letters — sometimes two and three a day, some of them 40 pages long. The correspondence tracks their relationship from acquaintances to admirers to lovers to man and [...]

Spaceflight Is Getting Cheaper. But It’s Still Not Cheap Enough.

Elon Musk wants humans to live on other planets one day. But he’s worried about the cost of getting there. So in 2002, he took the fortune he made in Internet start-ups and started his own rocket company. He called it SpaceX. The company is still in its early days. It’s had seven launches, four [...]

Ethanol Industry Torn Over Losing Subsidy Billions

The federal government pays oil companies about $6 billion a year to blend ethanol into your gasoline; it’s been subsidizing ethanol for 33 years now. But any agreement in Washington to raise the debt ceiling will most likely include a plan to cut that subsidy off. And after all these years, many in the ethanol [...]