The Precarious State of Statehouse Budgets
A slumping housing market and skimpier sales tax collections are busting budgets from California to Florida with national job growth sluggish and consumer confidence near a two-year low.
Similar measures considered in several other states have failed in the state legislature or at the ballot box, while polls show the country still divided on the issue.
For years, journalists struggled to report on the activities the private security firms in Iraq, companies who functioned in some ways as private armies. But last week, when the story of one such company moved from the streets of Baghdad to the hearing rooms on Capitol Hill, the media shed more light on the mystery.
Once online, they are avid consumers of health information