Europe’s 2013 protest season finally kicked off this week. On Saturday, three days after the umpteenth general strike paralyzed Greece, a “citizens’ wave” of indignation washed over Spain with hundreds of thousands of protesters swarming onto the streets of Madrid and over 80 cities in yet another major popular outcry against the ongoing financial coup d’étât. In Madrid, clashes broke out and at least 40 were arrested after police sought to disperse protesters who had …

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While the Obama administration has been issuing dire warnings about the effects of the impending sequestration deal, Republicans have been more sanguine, apparently happy to reduce the deficit and try to blame the president for the pain the cuts will cause.

But of all the hundreds of government programs on the chopping block, one rose above the others to demand unique outrage from GOP leaders, as the Hill reports:

Republicans are condemning the …

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Washington (CNN) — It may be politically quixotic, but Sen. Dianne Feinstein proceeded undeterred Wednesday in seeking an updated version of the assault weapons ban she sponsored in 1994 that expired a decade later.

Fierce opposition by the influential National Rifle Association and conservative legislators, including some Democrats, makes it virtually impossible that the kind of ban proposed by Feinstein will win congressional approval.

The legislative focus has shifted to expanding and strengthening background checks for gun …

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Tuesday’s decision by the Supreme Court in Clapper vs Amnesty Int’l reflects judicial formalism at its worst. The decision abandons fundamental rights and the courts’ constitutional mandate, while placing government agencies above the law, so long as they commit their abuses in secret.

Clapper is a constitutional travesty of the highest order, reflecting the erosion of privacy, judicial independence, and constitutional government all at once. By allowing executive secrecy to insulate violations from review, five Justices …

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US prosecutors and other senior officials who spearheaded the war against drug cartels have quit their jobs to defend Colombian cocaine traffickers, saying their clients are not bad people and that United States drug policy is wrong.

Senior former assistant US attorneys and Drug Enforcement Administration agents are turning years of experience in investigating, indicting and extraditing narcos to the advantage of the alleged traffickers they now represent.

“I’m not embarrassed about the fact that I changed …

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The US government is planning to call an American, possibly one of the 22 Navy Seals involved in the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden, to give evidence at the trial of Bradley Manning about how he discovered digital material later revealed to contain WikiLeaks disclosures, a military court heard on Tuesday.

Prosecutors intend to bring to the witness stand an anonymous man they are calling “John Doe” who would testify how he entered a …

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It’s a place where angels fear to tread; where criminals, frauds and mysterious corpses turn up as regularly as rats in the metro. The Institute for Works of Religion, commonly known as the Vatican bank, was set up in 1942 by Pope Pius XII to manage the vast Vatican finances. Often referred to as the world’s most secret bank, the operation is run by a CEO and overseen by five cardinals who report directly to …

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MEXICO CITY — One of Mexico’s biggest political kingfish sits in a women’s prison in the capital, accused of embezzling millions in funds from her teachers’ union to pay for property, private planes, plastic surgery and her Neiman Marcus bill.

Elba Esther Gordillo, 68, leader of the 1.5 million-member National Union of Education Workers, was arrested late Tuesday afternoon as she landed at the Toluca airport near Mexico City on a private flight from San Diego. …

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More than 100 people, including prominent academics, journalists, lawyers and activists, have signed an open letter to the Chinese government calling for freedom of speech and political reform.

The letter, posted on several Chinese websites, calls on Beijing to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which is part of the UN’s International Bill of Human Rights, the BBC reported.

China signed the bill in 1998, but the parliament never ratified it.

GlobalPost’s senior correspondent Benjamin …

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In his bid for Los Angeles mayor, Eric Garcetti has promoted himself as the greenest of candidates.

The city councilman from Silver Lake has pushed for an expansion of L.A.’s rooftop solar-panel program and the creation of thousands of clean-energy jobs, all to reduce the region’s dependence on oil. Those positions helped Garcetti win the Sierra Club’s endorsement.

Missing from Garcetti’s environmental platform, however, is any hint that he has long stood to profit from a lease …

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