As a severe recession and unprecedented unemployment sweeps Italy, millions of people are struggling to make ends meet. The number of those receiving food assistance has doubled in the past two years, according to a government report.

The data comes from national statistics institute ISTAT, which published an annual report demonstrating, among other issues, that Italy is witnessing youth unemployment of nearly 40 percent – the highest in Europe.

A reported 23.9 percent of young Italians are …

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Here’s a story that’s been bubbling up for a while but appears to have finally broken through to the larger news cycle, via the Associated Press:

A judge has ruled that a North Texas lesbian couple can’t live together because of a morality clause in one of the women’s divorce papers. The clause is common in divorce cases in Texas and other states. It prevents a divorced parent from having a romantic …

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“School reform” is one of those phrases that everybody, it seems, can get behind. Progressives like it because, hey, it’s reform, and progressives like reform. Conservatives like it because “school reform” implies that government and unions are doing a bad job running the schools, and conservatives are generally skeptical of government control and certainly no fans of unions.

The only people who, occasionally, seem to express doubts about school reform are the schools, teachers, and communities …

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As disaster personnel and volunteers comb through the havoc left by the tornadoes that tore through Oklahoma on Sunday and Monday, they are going to rely on critical federal funding that was severely cut by the massive cuts known as sequestration.

President Obama has already declared a state of emergency for Oklahoma, directing federal aid for state and local recovery. This allows the Federal Emergency Management to provide temporary housing, home repairs, loans for the uninsured …

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AMMAN, Jordan Secretary of State John Kerry says the United States and its Arab and European allies will step up their support for Syria’s opposition to help them “fight for the freedom of their country” if President Bashar Assad’s regime doesn’t engage in peace talks in good faith.

Kerry says if the world can’t find a path toward a negotiated outcome, the result will be more aid to the Syrian rebels.

He spoke ahead of an 11-nation …

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Airbnb, a site that lets people around the world find short-term housing accommodations, suffered a major setback this month when a judge ruled that one of its users broke an “illegal hotel” law in New York City.

The trouble began last September, when Nigel Warren rented out his bedroom in his East Village apartment on Airbnb for three days. Even though his roommate was home and there was no reported misbehavior, New York City’s special enforcement …

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WASHINGTON — Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on Tuesday signaled to advocates that he would support an amendment to the farm bill that will legalize industrial hemp production, according to Tom Murphy of Vote Hemp. Leahy’s office, he said, told the group Rural Vermont that he’d be backing the effort, and a Leahy aide confirmed his support to HuffPost.

Leahy’s backing is a major boost, because his committee oversees the Drug Enforcement Administration, which has …

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Next January, everyone in America will have to have health coverage or run afoul of federal health care law. But what about those 51 million adults who heavily rely on check-cashing stores and money lenders, and who may not have a checking or savings account? If you don’t have a relationship with a bank, it’s going to be tricky to pay for that required coverage.

NPR‘s All Things Considered takes a look at how the situation …

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Ban Ki-moon has warned the world is on course to run out of freshwater unless greater efforts are made to improve water security.

Speaking on the UN’s International Day of Biological Diversity, Ban said there was a “mutually reinforcing” relationship between biodiversity and water that should be harnessed.

“We live in an increasingly water insecure world where demand often outstrips supply and where water quality often fails to meet minimum standards. Under current trends, future demands for …

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The common problem we face is the power of concentrated wealth and monopolistic corporate interests. This has created a crony capitalist economy that uses government to further enrich the wealthy at the expense of the people, often threatening our basic necessities for life.A clear example of this is found in the behavior of the chemical and seed corporation, Monsanto.Monsanto threatens the world’s food supply; this is a major challenge of our era. This struggle is …

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