Nepal’s bloody, decade-long civil war officially ended today with a public holiday to celebrate a peace deal between Maoist guerrillas and an alliance of seven political parties.
The pact, which ends a war that has claimed 14,000 lives, will see the Maoist guerrillas lock up their weapons under supervision of the United Nations and subsumed into […]

Legions of Web users and Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and other major Internet providers dodged a legal morass Monday when the California Supreme Court ruled they cannot be sued for posting or distributing libelous material written by others.
In a 34-page ruling, the state’s high court overturned a lower court decision that had stripped immunity against such […]

A component of red wine recently shown to help laboratory mice live longer also protects animals from obesity and diabetes, researchers reported Thursday.
The new research helps confirm and extend the possible benefits of the substance, resveratrol, and offers new insight into how it works — apparently by revving up the metabolism to make muscles burn […]

STEM cells have helped dogs with muscular dystrophy to walk again. Doctors hope a similar approach in humans could lead to more complete improvement than the other leading contender for a cure - an RNA-blocking drug now in clinical trials.
Full Story: New Scientist (via Great News Network).

Embryonic stem cells, the controversial and versatile cells […]

The United States has removed Vietnam from a list of countries which it says severely violate religious freedom.
The list is published by the state department and includes Iran, China, Sudan and North Korea.
Vietnam was removed from the list just days before President George W Bush travels to Vietnam for a meeting of the Asia Pacific […]

Republican George Allen of Virginia will concede the election for his U.S. Senate seat to Democratic challenger Jim Webb on Thursday, sources close to the senator said Thursday.
A victory for Webb will give the Democrats control of the Senate, as well as the House of Representatives.
Full Story: CNN.
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Separating anatomy from what it means to be a man or a woman, New York City is moving forward with a plan to let people alter the sex on their birth certificate even if they have not had sex-change surgery.
Under the rule being considered by the city’s Board of Health, which is likely to be […]

Nathan Newman on the elections:
Let’s be clear– this wasn’t just a good night for Democrats. It was a good night for progressives, and no media spin that these new elected officials are “conservatives” changes who they are. The media is always marvelling that “new” Democrats are so much more conservative than “traditional” liberal Democrats of […]

I haven’t posted anything about Haggard here, so I’ll leave you with a few words from Trevor Blake on American Samizdat:

I advocate the decriminalization of drug use among adults and sex work among adults. I don’t care whether or not Pastor Haggard used drugs or bought sex. I think it is generally wrong to ‘out’ […]

Democrats erased the Republican Senate majority Wednesday with a cliffhanger victory in Montana, hours after taking control of the House in an election that delivered a rebuke of GOP scandal, the Iraq war and the course of a nation.
With Democrats now assured of 50 Senate seats, the battle for outright control came down to Virginia, […]