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Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will mark the ninth anniversary of 9/11 with a speech Friday in New York vowing to keep up the fight against terrorists and to “to enlist the nation in its own collective security.” “[W]e can’t guarantee there won’t be another successful terrorist attack,” Napolitano will tell first responders and emergency workers. “The threats we face are evolving, and enemies like al Qaeda and its affiliates are determined. … Today, on the eve of the ninth anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history, I can pledge to you this: we will do everything...

LONDON – It has no headquarters and its public face — a wiry, silver-haired Australian with a physics Ph.D. — carries his desktop computer in a backpack as he moves from place to place. WikiLeaks is a bare-bones organization on a mission to root out the secrets of the high and mighty, from Sarah Palin to the Church of Scientology. Its founder, Julian Assange, said his group's biggest coup so far — the publication of tens of thousands of classified U.S. military reports on Afghanistan — will likely unleash a new wave of leaks. "It is our experience that courage...

PENSACOLA, Fla. – Laying the groundwork for an evening speech to the nation, President Barack Obama walked a pristine stretch of sand on Florida's shoreline Tuesday and pledged to "fight back with everything we've got" against the spreading oil lurking offshore. In a speech at Pensacola's Naval Air Station, Obama took note of the painful contrasts around him: "The sand is white. The water's blue," he said. And yet, he added, "those plumes of oil are off the coast." Obama's challenge was spelled out clearly in a sign held up by one of the passersby who watched the president's motorcade...

Friday, April 09, 2010 The Validity of Homosexual Vows of Chastity in Religious Life By Regis Scanlon We are all too painfully aware of the problems that homosexuality in the priesthood has caused the Catholic Church. When the John Jay College of Criminal Justice conducted its research into clerical sex abuse for the U.S. bishops in 2004, it found not a pedophilia crisis but what Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, described as a pattern of "homosexual predation on American Catholic youth." The first question that comes to mind is: Should the Church accept homosexuals into diocesan...

AFP - A senior minister on Sunday warned that Israel would "liquidate" the Islamist Hamas-run government in Gaza following deadly weekend clashes that killed two Israeli soldiers. "Sooner or later we will liquidate the military regime of the pro-Iranian Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip," Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, from the governing rightwing Likud party, told public radio. "I am not setting a timetable, but we will not tolerate this regime continuing to strengthen itself militarily and providing itself with an arsenal of rockets that threaten our territory," he added.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama vowed Saturday to salvage his health reform drive and crusade for change despite a "blizzard" of opposition, as he left a snow-buried White House to rally wavering Democrats. Obama motorcaded through deserted Washington streets during a historic winter storm to fire up a party rocked by panic and disaffection after the president's reform drive hit a roadblock ahead of mid-term polls in November. "(It's) good to be among friends. So committed to the future of this party and this country ... a blizzard ... Snowmageddon here in DC!" Obama told Democratic National Committee members...

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil – Leftists who converged in Brazil to protest what they view as uncontrolled capitalism ended the World Social Forum on Friday with vows to take advantage of the financial crisis to promote a global socialist agenda. Activists at the annual countercultural gathering against the World Economic Forum under way at the Swiss ski resort of Davos said the meltdown proves the business titans attending the economic forum shouldn't be permitted to help reshape the global economy. About 30,000 people attended the 10th annual social forum .. They railed against unfettered capitalism they claimed is responsible for corporate...

WASHINGTON – Declaring "I don't quit,'" an embattled President Barack Obama vowed in his first State of the Union address Wednesday night to make job growth his topmost priority for the year and urged a divided Congress to come together around new stimulus spending and short-term economic relief. He said he would still pursue ambitious longer-term changes to health care, energy, education and beyond. "Change has not come fast enough," Obama said before a politician-packed House chamber and a TV audience of millions. "I do not accept second-place for the United States of America. As hard as it may be,...

President Barack Obama is to pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the US in several stages, beginning with a 17% cut by 2020, the White House has said. The offer will be made at December's UN climate talks in Copenhagen, which Mr Obama will attend. But he does not plan to be there for the crucial last days, when delegates including other world leaders are hoping to pull together a deal. The talks aim to draw up a new treaty to supplant the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. UN climate chief Yvo de Boer said his attendance could be vital for...

Attorney General Eric Holder has pledged not to allow the release of dangerous detainees in the United States if they are found not guilty in federal court or if their case is thrown out on a technicality. Holder made the assurances in a written response to a question posed by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) obtained by The Hill. The 55-page document provided answers to questions from several senators on the Judiciary Committee in advance of a Wednesday oversight hearing on Justice Department policies and practices.

MCLEAN, Virginia (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed the United States would keep relentless pressure on al Qaeda and ensure extremist networks, which he called a "principle" threat, do not find safe havens overseas. "We know that al Qaeda and its extremist allies threaten us from different corners of the globe -- from Pakistan but also from East Africa and Southeast Asia; from Europe and the Gulf," Obama said in a visit to the National Counterterrorism Center. "And that's why we're applying focused and relentless pressure on al Qaeda," he said, citing intelligence-sharing, disruption of terrorism financing, and...

Urging members of his own party to be just as fiscally tough as the most conservative Republicans, Obama said the $700 billion economic bailout plan proposed by the Bush administration and congressional leaders is forcing a renewed look at federal spending. As president, Obama said he would create a White House team headed by a chief performance officer to monitor the efficiency of government spending. "I am not a Democrat who believes that we can or should defend every government program just because it's there," Obama said at a rally. "We will fire government managers who aren't getting results, we...

Chrysler, the nation's third-largest automaker, filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday, with President Obama promising that court relief would give the company a "new lease on life." The administration's efforts to avert a bankruptcy filing were frustrated by some hedge funds, which Obama referred to as "a small group of speculators," that rejected the government's final offer to settle their claims against Chrysler out of court. Now largely under government control, Chrysler will seek in court to strip itself of its overwhelming debts. Then, according to the administration plan, the company will get roughly $10 billion in new government aid and...

US President-elect Barack Obama says he will shut down the "war on terror'' internment camp at Guantanamo Bay and rebuild "America's moral stature in the world,'' in a major interview aired overnight. "I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that,'' the Democrat, who takes office on January 20, told the CBS program 60 Minutes. "I have said repeatedly that America doesn't torture. And I'm going to make sure that we don't torture. Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world,'' Senator Obama said....

Having an affair can help to save a struggling marriage, according to a new, controversial self-help book. Mira Kirshenbaum, who has over 30 years' experience as a marriage therapist, says the 'right kind' of affair can be a positive thing, acting to "jolt people from their inertia". The author of When Good People Have Affairs, published this week, argues that because society has so far failed to have a sympathetic discussion of infidelity, the positive sides of cheating have been ignored. However, she insists that most cheating spouses should never own up, because revealing the infidelity is more damaging than...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Monday vowed to aid small farmers by targeting agricultural tariffs and subsidies doled out to agribusiness. "If I am elected president, I will seek an end to all agricultural tariffs, and to all farm subsidies that are not based on clear need. I will veto any bill containing special-interest favors and corporate welfare in any form," McCain said in remarks prepared for delivery to the National Restaurant Association in Chicago. McCain, an Arizona senator, said one of the biggest obstacles to opening up foreign markets to American farmers is found in...

BAGHDAD - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Thursday he planned to launch more security crackdowns like the one in Basra against "criminal gangs" in Baghdad. Addressing a news conference, he singled out Sadr City and Shula — two Mahdi Army militia strongholds in Baghdad — as likely targets in the future crackdowns, saying they were under the sway of "criminal gangs." Al-Maliki did not mention by name the Mahdi Army militia, which is led by radical Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr. Sadr City and Shula are militia strongholds and any attack by government troops there is likely to trigger a backlash...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's prime minister vowed on Saturday that attacks by two female bombers which killed 99 people in Baghdad would not derail improved security, but angry residents demanded the government do more to protect them. Nuri al-Maliki said Friday's nearly simultaneous bombings at two crowded pet markets, the deadliest attacks in the city since April, would not herald a return to the savage violence that took Iraq to the brink of sectarian civil war. The U.S. military said there were indications the women were mentally handicapped, and probably unaware they were being used as human bombs. It blamed...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Republican Mitt Romney, his family and supporters vowed to carry his campaign into the vote-rich Super Tuesday contests next week after narrowly losing Florida's primary to rival John McCain. In his concession speech Tuesday night, Romney issued a call to arms to conservatives to support him, vowing to cut federal spending, end illegal immigration and teach children "that before they have babies, they should get married." But it was his wife, Ann, who took the microphone after Romney delivered nine minutes of prepared remarks, who explained the reasons for continuing. "We feel as though the conservatives...

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto will defy President Pervez Musharraf and go ahead with a pro-democracy rally next week, an aide said on Saturday, as Washington called on Pakistan to end its state of emergency. A defiant Bhutto, who was kept under house arrest in Islamabad on Friday to prevent her from leading a protest in the adjoining garrison town of Rawalpindi, plans on Tuesday to set off in a motorcade from Lahore to the capital. Police maintained a strong security presence at Bhutto's Islamabad residence early on Saturday, complete with barbed wire and concrete barriers, despite...