Six-term Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL 16th), 52, has resigned after the revelation that he exchanged inappropriate emails with a former 16 year-old congressional page. Pages are high school students who work as messengers and attend classes under congressional supervision.
Rep. Foley, who is single, apologized Friday for letting down his family and constituents. Once his resignation [...]

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The U.S. State Department, in its annual International Religious Freedom Report released this month, charges that North Korea suppresses religion, and North Korea responded by telling Washington to stop acting as the world’s “religious judge.”
The report quoted defectors and others who said that North Korea imprisoned and executed people who tried to practice religion. [...]

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U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein, on Monday, gave class action status to tens of millions of “light” cigarette smokers who are seeking a potential $200 billion lawsuit against “Big Tobacco.”
The lawsuit alleges that Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Lorillard Tobacco Company, and other defendants deceived smokers with marketing strategies that were meant to [...]

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A new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows President Bush’s approval rating at 44%, the highest it has been in a year.
Scott Reed, a Republican strategist who ran Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign, called the GOP’s apparent reversal of fortune, “the best two weeks Republicans have had since Bush was re-elected.”
Political scientist Richard Eichenberg of Tufts [...]

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Because prohibitionists are usually rather averse to participating in any sort of debate in which the untenability of the drug war — a.k.a. Prohibition II, the sequel with a much bigger budget, a lot more hype, and a far higher body count — might be exposed, I thought I was onto something interesting when I [...]

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