SOFIA, Feb 20 (Reuters) – Bulgaria’s government resigned on Wednesday after violent nationwide protests against high power prices, joining a long list of European administrations felled by austerity during Europe’s debt crisis.

Prime Minister Boiko Borisov, a former bodyguard who swept to power in 2009 on pledges to root out corruption and raise living standards in the European Union’s poorest member, now faces a tough task to prop up eroding support ahead of a probable early …

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The United States Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear the case that opens the door to the final destruction of the campaign finance laws that place a limit on how much money an individual can contribute directly to a federal candidate or national political party.

Now that the infamous Citizens United case, decided in 2010, has removed limits on how much a corporation, union and individual can contribute to groups that are ‘unaffiliated’ with candidates …

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Recent reports suggest that President Obama is about to nominate Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the president of the Walmart Foundation, as director of the Office of Management and Budget. Her nomination would be a coup for Walmart and its foundation, which under Burwell’s watch has wielded its massive budget to expand the retail giant’s influence at all levels of government and to pave the way for store expansions.
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The most recent tax disclosure from the Walmart Foundation, …

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The Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program was created by what is commonly referred to as “welfare reform” in 1996. It replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) as the program through which some low-income families are able to receive cash assistance.

With TANF authorization expiring at the end of March and needing to be renewed (and hopefully improved)—and over 46 million people still living below the poverty line of $23,021 for a family …

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States led by Republican Governors are turning to the Federal Government for help in setting up and running their in-state health exchanges as required by President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Listen to Jay Angoff give Thom Hartmann details of the health exchanges.

Thom’s Guest: Jay Angoff, attorney with Mehri & Skalet. Former Director of the Health and Human Services Office of Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.

Take …

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An unusually detailed 60-page study, to be released Tuesday by Mandiant, an American computer security firm, tracks for the first time individual members of the most sophisticated of the Chinese hacking groups — known to many of its victims in the United States as “Comment Crew” or “Shanghai Group” — to the doorstep of the military unit’s headquarters. The firm was not able to place the hackers inside the 12-story building, but makes a …

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(Reuters) – Egypt’s campaign to shut down smuggling tunnels running under its border into the Gaza Strip threatens to throw thousands of Palestinians out of work in the Hamas-run enclave.

The network of tunnels has been a vital lifeline for Gaza, bringing in an estimated 30 percent of all goods that reach the enclave and circumventing a blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt for more than seven years.

Weapons are also smuggled underground and at least 10,000 …

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Lawyers are racing against the clock to save the life of a “mentally retarded” man in Georgia who is scheduled to be put to death on Tuesday despite a US supreme court ban on executing prisoners with learning disabilities.

The execution of Warren Hill at 7pm local time on 19 February would be the first completed death sentence in Georgia since that of Troy Davis. The 2011 judicial killing of Davis, in the wake of substantial …

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esterday over 35,000 people rallied in Washington D.C. for urgent action on climate change, which, according to organizers, was the largest climate march in U.S. history. Activists called on the Obama Administration to do much more to tackle climate change, including rejecting the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would bring carbon-heavy tar sands oil from Canada through the U.S. to a world market.

“For 25 years our government has basically ignored the climate crisis: now people in …

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Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today.

Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films.

Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com/user/jsjkim, …

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