Since the advent in 2006 of colony collapse disorder, the mysterious ailment that continues to decimate hives across the country, Brandi has grown accustomed to seeing up to 40 percent of his bees vanish each year, simply leave the hive in search of food and never come back. But this was different. Instead of losing bees from all his colonies, Brandi watched the ones that skipped watermelon duty continue to thrive.

Brandi discovered the watermelon farmer had irrigated his plants with imidacloprid, the world's best-selling insecticide created by Bayer CropScience Inc., one of the world's leading producers of pesticides and genetically modified vegetable seeds, with annual sales of $8.6 billion. Blended with water and applied to the soil, imidacloprid creates a moist mixture the bees likely drank from on a hot day.

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That September, a neurophysiologist diagnosed Devon with Asperger's syndrome, a mental disorder related to autism, which affects children's social and communication development. But when Clark researched Asperger's on the Internet, she was shocked to learn something she hadn't heard in the physician's office. Some studies had found a correlation between Asperger's, autism and vaccinations containing the mercury-based preservative thimerosal.

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Over 80 percent of respondents said the U.S. should use its military assets to bolster African Union troops on the ground in Darfur, should impose tough sanctions on the leaders who control the Janjaweed, and establish a no-fly zone over Darfur (air bombings on Darfuri villages continue unabated, according to reports). 80 percent also believed the war against civilians constitutes genocide.

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Outside polling stations Wednesday in Cairo, pro-democracy demonstrators were attacked by policemen and hired government thugs. "Women were surrounded, groped and had their clothes torn," wrote a Los Angeles Times reporter on the scene. "Some demonstrators were thrown down flights of concrete stairs, dragged by their hair and kicked by swarms of young men."

President Bush denounced the attacks on Thursday. "The idea of people expressing themselves in opposition to the government, then getting beaten, is not our view of how a democracy ought to work," he said. But the administration squandered a chance to make its case for real democratic reform during a recent visit to Egypt by Laura Bush, who strongly endorsed Mubarak. The First Lady said Mubarak had taken "a bold step," with this week's referendum, but emphasized that "each step is a small step, [and] you can't be quick."

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By 63 to 33 percent, Americans support the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, with men supporting it at a higher rate (68 to 28 percent) than women (58 to 37 percent).

For all the rhetoric from the religious right about "outrage" over the filibuster compromise, the poll revealed that opinions about the nuclear option divided along party lines, with Republicans against the filibuster 48 to 39 percent, and Democrats supporting its use by 70 to 23 percent. Independent voters, meanwhile, backed the use of the filibuster by a margin of 54 to 39 percent.

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The bill has set off another round of inflammatory rhetoric from the far right. Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas said a vote for the bill would be a "vote to fund with taxpayer dollars the dismemberment of living, distinct human beings for the purposes of medical experimentation."

There's the far-right religious view, and there's the more mainstream scientific one. After last week's announcement that South Korean researchers had succeeded in cloning human embryos to create patient-specific lines of stem cells, many lawmakers believe that the U.S. is failing to pursue crucial new technology in the race to cure devastating diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. "How many more lives must be ended or ravaged?" asked Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York, according to the New York Times. "How much more unimaginable suffering must be endured until government gives researchers the wherewithal to simply do their jobs?"

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New Hampshire state officials are appealing a November 2004 ruling by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which found the state's parental notification law unconstitutional because it did not provide an exception for cases in which the health of the mother is in danger. (Most states that have parental notification laws do include such exceptions.) In its consideration of the Planned Parenthood case this fall, it's possible the Supreme Court could narrow the circumstances under which a judge might allow a minor to bypass notification laws for health reasons.

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The group's message obliterates any separation between church and state, said Carol Rose, Executive Director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, in a statement: "The Silver Ring Thing is nothing more than a vehicle for converting young people to Christianity. Our taxpayer dollars should play no part in such a program."

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In July 2004, Congress led the world in unanimously declaring the violence in Darfur a genocide, as the Bush administration also subsequently did. And Congress is considering the Darfur Accountability Act, which would take strong steps against the Khartoum regime and provide support for the meager African Union monitoring force that is now in Darfur.

But recent media reports suggest the Bush administration may be backing off its earlier genocide determination, and even trying to neuter the Darfur Accountability Act.

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Proponents of the bill say it's nothing of the sort. Introduced by Sens. John McCain and Ted Kennedy, the legislation would enable illegal workers to apply for a three-year work visa, and later apply for a three-year extension and a green card. Eventually, they could get in the "back of the line," as McCain has termed it, to apply for citizenship.

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The military's justification for the changes sought today -- that environmental liabilities undermine training operations, even more of a detriment with the nation at war -- seems a long way from a declaration made by Dick Cheney at a meeting between environmentalists and the Pentagon during the Persian Gulf crisis in 1990. "Defense and the environment is not an either-or proposition," said Cheney, who served as secretary of defense at the time. "To choose between them is impossible in this real world of serious defense threats and genuine environmental concerns. The real choice is whether we are going to build a new environmental ethic into the daily business of defense."

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"REID: Why is Fox picking a fight by sending us contestants like this? Why are they refusing to move on to less controversial contestants? They want to make us look like obstructionists. We know the difference between opposing contestants and blocking contestants. We will oppose bad contestants but we will only block unacceptable contestants. They won't send us any new contestants because the president of Fox doesn't want to give us a chance to demonstrate that we are reasonable. He's just giving a big wet kiss to Italians on the far right. This is about checks and balances. I'm feeling unbalanced. I need to step away from the precipice before I'm swayed.

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According to the AP, over the weekend Chandler also denied ever having enforced guidelines from a partisan pulpit. "No one has ever been voted from the membership of this church due to an individual's support or lack of support for a political party or candidate," he said in a statement through his lawyer.

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Launched last month, the campaign generated more than 200,000 emails to the companies, and on Wednesday the group announced that three of the corporations -- American Airlines, Verizon, and Nissan North America -- have written DeLay off.

"We congratulate these companies for responding to the public's concern and taking a positive step towards restoring confidence in an ethical government," John Podesta, the group's president, said in a statement.

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Last November, a coalition of law schools challenged the Solomon Amendment -- which permits the government to withhold funding from schools that deny recruiters access -- by invoking the right not to "associate" with people linked to the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The schools argued the policy was anti-gay and conflicted with their own non-discrimination guidelines. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, and issued an injunction barring the government from enforcing the amendment. The Defense Department appealed the ruling, along with another ruling in February, in which Yale University's law school won the right to bar recruiters from their campus for the same reason.

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That contradicts longstanding claims by the energy industry that restrictive federal regulations have prevented them from getting at America's abundant natural gas deposits. Last year, Big Energy's best friend in Washington, Vice President Dick Cheney decried the fact that "large parts of the Rocky Mountain West are off limits." The BLM proceeded to issue an unprecedented number of drilling permits last year, which continues apace, in spite of energy companies' inability to keep up.

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Diane Parente, president of Image Development and Management, based in Ross, Calif., had some tips for DeLay at the time. "I would get rid of the [hair] gel," she said. Parente thought he was "very sloppy looking" and needed to "convey a more sincere attitude and watch the expression on his mouth, which looks like a frown." She also suggested he consider an eyelift because his "heavy lids" made him look "cynical."

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