While much of the research is mixed or inconclusive, a variety of human and animal studies have linked chemicals common in household cleaning products with a wide range of health risks.

As is widely understood, though, economic hardship in Michigan has been driven primarily by so-called free trade policies pushed by the Bush administration and John McCain. But John McCain has also used his vote in the Senate to help companies profit at the expense of taxpayers and working people who need jobs.

First, John McCain thinks gender-based pay discrimination is imaginary and opposes legislative efforts to close the gap. This year he skipped a vote in the Senate on the Fair Pay Act, which would have strengthened women workers' ability to sue employers who practice pay discrimination.

ATLANTA - The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles will hear from the attorneys of Troy Davis, a Georgia man on death row, on September 12, 2008, at 9am. Representatives for Davis had filed a petition with the Board requesting clemency this week.

Joblessness grew by an additional 84,000 in August 2008, bumping the national unemployment rate up to 6.1 percent. This is the highest level in five years and the eighth straight month of job losses. The economy has lost more than 600,000 over that time period.

As moderate elements of the Republican Party melt away from supporting the Bush legacy and John McCain, more and more of the hardcore and extremist forces and voices in the Republican Party have eagerly stepped forward.

The series of unfortunate and costly decisions made during the two terms of the Bush administration, combined with economic decline at home, might devastate the US's world standing much sooner than most analysts predict.

(APN) ATLANTA - The Georgia attorney general's office issued a death warrant Wednesday, September 03, 2008, for Troy Anthony Davis, a man convicted of the 1989 murder of Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail.

John McCain is pushing the idea of privatizing veterans' health care. He advanced the idea in recent stump speeches, even after media and congressional investigations in 2007 uncovered how underfunding and privatization of services at some of the country's top military hospitals caused poor care, neglect, and other dangerous conditions for wounded veterans.

LAUREL, MS (8/31/08) -- On August 25, immigration agents swooped down on Howard Industries, a Mississippi electrical equipment factory, taking 481 workers to a privately-run detention center in Jena, Louisiana.

With the Extraordinary Session of the Diet set to open on September 12, Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo is determined to have the current New Anti-terrorism Special Measures Law extended to enable the Maritime Self-Defense Force to continue refueling U.S. and other warships in the Indian Ocean.

This week the Republicans have been working hard to promote the idea that they had nothing to do with the disaster following Hurricane Katrina that killed upwards of 2,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.

In a historic breakthrough, nine employees at a store in Gatineau, Quebec, became the only Wal-Mart workers in North America with a union contract, after an arbitrator imposed a collective agreement on August 15.

Minneapolis police officers with the Ramsey County Sheriff put the free press in jeopardy Monday Sept. 1st by arresting three journalists while they covered public protests in that city at the opening of the Republican National Convention.

I remember when John McCain cruelly trashed Chelsea Clinton when she was a child in the White House. He told reporters that she was "ugly" "because Janet Reno is her father." Of course, McCain would like us now to accord Palin's daughter the respect he wouldn't give Chelsea.

"If Palin has two thoughts about foreign policy, she's managed to keep them to herself. Ditto health care. National energy policy. Fiscal policy. You could make a long list, but I'll stop there..."

In a video recorded message to supporters Monday, Sept. 1st, Barack Obama expressed his best wishes on this Labor Day and renewed his pledge to have a worker-friendly presidential administration.

To counter a multi-million dollar ad campaign launched by anti-worker groups opposed to the Employee Free Choice Act, a number of unions and labor-backed organizations like American Rights at Work, have launched their own ad campaign promoting the proposed bill.

This Labor Day, working people are vowing to increase the struggle to end Bush administration and Republican Party policies that have presided over the second recession in seven years and have failed to bring needed relief.

The other night, the Rev. James Dobson's ministry asked all believers to pray for a storm on Thursday night so that the Obama acceptance speech outdoors in Denver would have to be canceled.