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Weatherman Justin Chamberlain said the Islands had been under the influence of a highly unstable convective south/southwest air flow originating in Antarctica, keeping air temperatures below freezing. At times the wind was strong or gale force, leading to blizzard conditions and snowdrifts. The duration of the Antarctic showery feed was unusual, he said, due in part to an area of high pressure covering much of South America, which blocked the usual mobile westerly flow. Forty-three centimetres of snow were recorded, a new record at Mount Pleasant. It is comparable to July 2004, when a total of 33cm was recorded, and...

Dawn Johnsen, nominee to head the White House Office of Legal Counsel, faces criticism from a pro-life group for her opposition to the federal partial-birth abortion ban and her comments characterizing pregnant mothers as “inevitable losers in the contraceptive lottery” and comparing pregnancy to slavery or being hit by a drunk driver.

Call it a condom conundrum. At a time when the federal government is spending billions of stimulus dollars to stem the tide of U.S. layoffs, should that same government put even more Americans out of work by buying cheaper foreign products? In this case, Chinese condoms. That’s the dilemma for the folks at the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has distributed an estimated 10 billion U.S.-made AIDS-preventing condoms in poor countries around the world. But not anymore. In a move expected to cost 300 American jobs, the government is switching to cheaper off-shore condoms, including some made in China.

EVEN before the conclusion of the George W. Bush mandate, the most recalcitrant of Miami’s Cuban-American mafia, fleeced by their blind alliance with John McCain, have selected their Republican candidate for the 2012 presidential elections; no less than Jeb Bush. The association of the heirs of the Batista dictatorship with McCain was never a matter of chance; the U.S. media corporations were very careful to erase from the history of the Republican politician his particular links with the Cuba of Batista. On marrying Cindy Hensley on his arrival in Arizona, where he began his political career in 1982, McCain attached...

Acting as super-predators, humans are forcing changes to body size and reproductive abilities in some species 300 percent faster than would occur naturally, a new study finds. Hunting and fishing by individual sportsmen as well as large-scale commercial fishing are also outpacing other human influences, such as pollution, in effects on the animal kingdom.

Mark Driscoll’s sermons are mostly too racy to post on GodTube, the evangelical Christian “family friendly” video-posting Web site. With titles like “Biblical Oral Sex” and “Pleasuring Your Spouse,” his clips do not stand a chance against the site’s content filters. No matter: YouTube is where Driscoll, the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, would rather be. Unsuspecting sinners who type in popular keywords may suddenly find themselves face to face with a husky-voiced preacher in a black skateboarder’s jacket and skull T-shirt. An “Under 17 Requires Adult Permission” warning flashes before the video cuts to evening services at...

In between meaningful football games yesterday, I saw clips of Vice President Cheney with Chris Wallace and read some comments on the interview. Frequent readers of my blog understands that I am far from a Bush / Cheney apologist. In fact, I am pretty close to a non-entity in conservative Republican circles because of my early public support for Obama last January. However, in this case, I have to agree with the Vice President (almost) in his opinion that the Congress is equally culpable in both the breach of civil liberties but also the Constitutional idea of checks and balances....

Lance Armstrong will soon have four children to go along with his seven Tour de France titles. Armstrong, 37, and his girlfriend Anna Hansen, 28, have announced they’re expecting a child next year. "Anna and I are thrilled to confirm that we are expecting in June and our families are ecstatic and grateful," Armstrong said via a statement. "We are very much looking forward to what 2009 brings on many fronts. We appreciate respecting our privacy, as we are both eager to celebrate the holidays as a family." The expected child of Armstrong and his girlfriend is via natural pregnancy.

NASCAR will test drivers for performance-enhancing drugs next month under a tougher policy that also bans using illegal drugs and abusing prescription medications. NASCAR likely will test drivers the third week of January, and crew members must submit results from an approved lab by Jan. 16, according to documents obtained Thursday by The Associated Press

Sen. Charles Grassley is weighing proposing legislation in early 2009 that would hold nonprofit hospitals more accountable for the billions of dollars in annual tax exemptions they enjoy, aides to the Iowa senator said. The legislation would require nonprofit hospitals to spend a minimum amount on free care for the poor, also known as charity care, and set curbs on executive compensation and conflicts of interest, according to staff members for Mr. Grassley, ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.

The global economic crisis is a result of the "comprehensive failure of extreme capitalism," Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Wednesday as he took aim at bulging executive pay packets. The centre-left Labor Party leader named greed and fear as the "twin evils" at the root of the financial sector collapse, which began in the United States and swept the world. "What we have seen is the comprehensive failure of extreme capitalism -- extreme capitalism which now turns to government to prevent systemic failure," Rudd told the National Press Club in Canberra.

A legendary St. Louis car dealer’s television commercials are grabbing even more attention these days. In an economic downturn, Dave Sinclair is standing out from the others with a personal message against outsourcing U.S. jobs. Sinclair, 80, has been telling St. Louisians to buy American for years, but now he’s pulled his ads from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in his unique way.

Friends, compatriots, fellow-lamenters, We are writing to you because of the fury and dread we have felt since the announcement of Sarah Palin as the Vice-Presidential candidate for the Republican Party. We believe that this terrible decision has surpassed mere partisanship, and that it is a dangerous farce on the part of a pandering and rudderless Presidential candidate that has a real possibility of becoming fact. Perhaps like us, as American women, you share the fear of what Ms. Palin and her professed beliefs and proven record could lead to for ourselves and for our present or future daughters. To...

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On Saturday morning just before 9am, KCMO police were called to the Bank of America, 8320 North Oak Trafficway, in regard to a shooting. Upon arrival officer's located a black male (approx. 20yrs old) in the parking lot suffering from a gunshot wound to the head. He was transported to a local hospital in critical condition. It appears he was attempting to rob two victim's at gunpoint near the ATM when one of the victim's brandished a handgun and shot him in self defense. Both victim's along with several witnesses are being interviewed in regard. Anyone who may have witnessed...

Police on Thursday accused a Brazilian man of killing and dismembering his 17-year-old British girlfriend, taking pictures of her body parts with his cell phone and stuffing her torso in a suitcase. Goias state police inspector Jorge Moreira da Silva said officers found the suitcase with the torso of Cara Marie Burke on Monday at the edge of a river in the central Brazilian city of Goiania. Burke's boyfriend, Mohamed D'Ali Carvalho Santos, 20, was arrested on Thursday and was charged with homicide, Silva said.

She's revered as a trail-blazing feminist and author Alice Walker touched the lives of a generation of women. A champion of women's rights, she has always argued that motherhood is a form of servitude. But one woman didn't buy in to Alice's beliefs - her daughter, Rebecca, 38. Here the writer describes what it was like to grow up as the daughter of a cultural icon, and why she feels so blessed to be the sort of woman 64-year-old Alice despises - a mother.

“He that sells what isn’t his ‘en must pay his debts or go to prison” is an old stock market axiom that has stood the test of time. Loosely translated, it means that if you sell a stock “short” (betting that it's going down in price), you're responsible for ANY loss incurred if that stock rallies. And, last week that old market “saw” took on new meaning when the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) changed the rules on “naked” short-selling. Clearly, “naked” short-selling has been a “dirty” little secret on Wall Street for years, but that has now changed with the...

<p>SALINAS, Calif. — A disoriented woman holed up in a minivan and repeatedly stabbing herself in the neck was shot to death by local police officers who thought the distraught woman was lunging at them with a knife or pick ax.</p>

Eating high levels of some soy products - including tofu - may raise the risk of memory loss, research suggests.