iFuller

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security conducted a threat assessment of local pro- and anti-abortion rights activists before an expected rally last year, even though they did not pose a threat to national security.

Pennsylvania Democrat Rep. John Murtha, an outspoken critic of the Iraq war who in 2006 accused U.S. Marines of killing "innocent [Iraqi] civilians in cold blood," died Monday aged 77.

While Shon R. Hopwood was serving in a federal prison in Pekin, Ill., the former bank robber transformed himself into an accomplished Supreme Court practitioner -- getting two cases heard by the court and several others in lower courts. Regarding one filing, former U.S. solicitor general Seth Waxman said, "It was probably one of the best cert. petitions I have ever read."

ep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a longtime fixture on the House subcommittee that oversees Pentagon spending, died after complications from gallbladder surgery, according to his office. He was 77. Although Murtha went in for "routine minimally invasive surgery," doctors at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, "hit his intestines," a source close to the late congressman told CNN.

The congressman's large intestine was damaged during gallbladder surgery and the complications led him to be hospitalized, a Pennsylvania congressman and longtime friend said.

Obama administration launches plan to limit Chicago-area locks and gates from opening to prevent the giant carp from dominating the Great Lakes.

Labeling confusion: In a profile of China dissident Du Daozheng, the Times calls the noble dissenters "liberals" and the authoritarian Communist regime "conservative" without clarifying that in the West, the Communists are the leftists and the anti-communists are on the right.

Michael Wines on the bright side of Communist rule -- no pesky "political machinery" to worry about: "In the past decade...authorities have moved against air pollution problems with a tenacity that some environmentalists in developed nations, pitted against industry lobbyists and balky political machinery, can only envy."