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The Senate on Monday overwhelmingly advanced a $40 billion Ukraine aid package that easily passed the House last week but had stalled in the upper chamber because of an objection from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). Senators voted 81 to 11 to end debate on a motion to proceed to the legislation, setting up a final vote on the bill for later in the week.

Another decade is over. With the 2020s upon us, now is the perfect time to reflect on the immense technological advancements that humanity has made since the dawn of the new millennium. This article explores, in no particular order, 20 of the most significant technological advancements we have made in the last 20 years. Smartphones: Mobile phones existed before the 21st century. However, in the past 20 years, their capabilities have improved enormously. In June 2007, Apple released the iPhone, the first touchscreen smartphone with mass-market appeal. Many other companies took inspiration from the iPhone. As a consequence, smartphones...

"For generations now, we have denied the food of revealed truth to our children; and we have permitted the moral polluters to dump their garbage into our culture with abandon. Why then, are we surprised that ours has become a stunted and sick society?" - Patrick J. Buchanan The times are growing very dark. Everywhere signs are emerging which point to the appearance of the Man of Sin. A Brazilian heavy metal band is announcing the Age of Antichrist (see here). We have a Pontiff who preaches a "live and let live" philosophy (see here) which is nothing less than...

~ EXCERPT ~ USAA, the financial services company catering to military members, is preparing to give some members an advance loan on their paychecks if the debt ceiling negotiations disrupt their pay. USAA said it would provide the interest-free advances to military members on active duty who already have their military pay directly deposited in a USAA account. The one-time loan would be for eligible members' Aug. 15 paycheck. Several Republican lawmakers had introduced a bill into Congress looking to make military pay the top priority in the event a deal isn't reached. A spokesman for Sen. Pat Toomey (R.,...

Madison — The Senate abruptly passed a controversial budget-repair bill Wednesday night – without Democrats – and sent the measure to the Assembly, which is expected to pass it Thursday. The bill eliminates almost all collective bargaining for public workers. It passed18-1, with Sen. Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center) casting the no vote. The Assembly passed an almost identical version of the bill Feb. 25.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) – Ohio joined Wisconsin on Wednesday in advancing a plan to restrict public sector unions, posing a new threat to labor union power in one of the most politically and economically important states. The Republican-controlled Ohio state senate approved a proposal to curb the collective bargaining rights of public employees and forbid government workers from going on strike. The vote followed the Wisconsin Assembly's approval last week of a similar proposal, which has sparked mass protests and a national debate over labor relations. In both states, the plans still must be passed by a second chamber of...

WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans on Tuesday helped advance a Democratic-pushed bill to cut off money for the war in Iraq, saying the additional debating time would allow them to hail progress there. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said the discussion will allow the GOP to cite the "extraordinary progress that's been made in Iraq over the last six months, not only on the military side, but also with civilian reconciliation beginning to finally take hold in the country." The Senate voted 70-24 to advance the bill past a procedural hurdle and begin debating it in earnest. A final vote was...

WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Tuesday to jump-start a stalled immigration measure to legalize millions of unlawful immigrants. President Bush said the bill offered a "historic opportunity for Congress to act," and appeared optimistic about its passage by week's end. The pivotal test-vote was 64-35 to revive the divisive legislation. It still faces formidable obstacles in the Senate, including bitter opposition by GOP conservatives and attempts by some waverers in both parties to revise its key elements. Supporters needed 60 votes to scale procedural hurdles and return to the bill. A similar test-vote earlier this month found just 45 supporters,...

NEW YORK - Anti-gay bias has flared up in Hollywood and pro basketball recently, and soon the topic will be thrust dramatically into a new forum — a reshaped Congress likely to pass the first major federal gay-rights bills. Wary conservative leaders, as well as gay-rights advocates, share a belief that at least two measures will win approval this year: a hate-crimes bill that would cover offenses motivated by anti-gay bias, and a measure that would outlaw workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. Also on the table — although with more doubtful prospects — will be a measure to be...

Sanitation was voted the most important medical milestone in the past century and a half on Thursday in a poll conducted by a leading medical journal. Improved sewage disposal and clean water supply systems, which have reduced diseases such as cholera, was the overwhelming favorite of 11,341 people worldwide who voted in the survey conducted by the British Medical Journal. It surpassed antibiotics, the discovery of DNA, and anesthesia, which were among the top five milestones in the poll. Participants were asked what they thought was the biggest medical advance since the journal was established in 1840. "I'm delighted that...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13, 2006 -- The military has made tremendous advances in health care in the last decade and specifically since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the top Defense Department official for health care said here yesterday. Body armor, eyewear, new surgical techniques and improved medical data collection in this conflict have all contributed to the lowest “killed-in-action” rate in history, Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said in a roundtable discussion with retired military analysts. The killed-in-action rate for operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom is 12.5 percent, vs....

WASHINGTON - The Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to limit debate on election-year immigration legislation, clearing the way for final passage later this week of a bill that calls for tougher border security as well as an eventual chance at citizenship for millions of men and women in the country illegally. The vote to advance the measure was 73-25, 13 more than the 60 needed. Despite the controversy surrounding the bill, the outcome was not a surprise. Even some of the bill's opponents said they were satisfied they had been given ample opportunity over past week to try and give the...

U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said Monday the "achievement gap is beginning to close" between Hispanic and white students, while Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton countered that she's not convinced the federal government is doing enough to help Hispanic youth get through school. Spellings and Clinton each spoke at the convention of the National Council of La Raza, a four-day event that ends Tuesday. The two did not dispute statistics that show Latino students have the nation's highest high school dropout rate and the lowest college enrollment rate, but diverged on whether the government is fixing the problem. Praising No Child...

SACRAMENTO – State lawmakers are no longer sitting on the sidelines as the San Diego Chargers scramble to build a $450 million stadium under the city's haunting fiscal cloud. Legislation to create a state bonding authority that could help the Chargers secure tax-free financing for a new home is on a steady march through the Legislature and to the governor's desk. Where that home might be has been a matter of speculation in recent years. While the Chargers insist they want to stay in San Diego, the prospect of moving north has added intrigue to their quest for a new...

Over the last few weeks, Afghanistan has been in the news again--unfortunately, for all the wrong reasons. The media pack has made a brief reappearance in Afghanistan to report on carefully staged "spontaneous" riots, which briefly erupted around the country, ostensibly in protest over a report in Newsweek (later retracted) about desecration of Koran. Sadly, in the rush of commentary about Afghanistan's slide into anarchy and America's deteriorating position in Kabul, most of the international media again missed or downplayed many other stories, some of them arguably far more consequential than an antigovernment rampage whipped up by opponents of President...

"The Greatest Century That Ever Was: 25 Miraculous Trends of the Past 100 Years" is the appropriate title of a 1999 article authored by Stephen Moore and the late Julian L. Simon and published by the Washington-based Cato Institute. Let's highlight some of the phenomenal progress Americans made during the 20th century. During that century, life expectancy rose from 47 to 77 years of age. Deaths from infectious diseases fell from 700 to 50 per 100,000 of the population. Major killer diseases such as tuberculosis, polio, typhoid fever and whooping cough were virtually eliminated. Infant mortality plummeted. The 20th century...

Dramatic advances in battlefield medicine are allowing more soldiers to survive major combat injuries, but are resulting in a lack of appreciation for the ferocity of war. According to a report in the the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, fundamental changes in treating wounded troops have altered the old calculus for measuring a war's intensity. Harvard professor Atul Gawande, also a surgeon at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, concludes that it may therefore be misleading to focus only on combat deaths to gauge the level of fighting in Iraq.