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Iron supplements can help some women with fatigue even if they are not officially anaemic, according to researchers in Switzerland.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- The battle over Gov. Scott Walker's agenda has attracted millions of dollars from out of state, campaign volunteers from across the country and months of concentrated attention from the two major political parties....

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Gov. Scott Walker, fresh from becoming the nation's first governor to survive a recall election, wants to go about mending Wisconsin's political divide in an egalitarian way: over brats and beer....

A star-studded musical celebration

RENO, Nev. (AP) -- A firefighting aircraft crashed into rugged terrain near the Utah-Nevada border as it dropped retardant on a 5,000-acre wildfire, killing the two Idaho men on board....

VOA News | Conflicts in Syria continue as Putin and European Council president Van Rompuy have "divergent assessments" about what to do.

The re-emergence of some vaccine-preventable diseases has prompted the California legislature to consider a bill that would make it more difficult for parents to opt out of vaccinating their kids.

Eight years ago, the city of Indianapolis decided to implement a new payment plan for sewer hookups.  A major project to connect about 180 homes to the city’s sewage system left homeowners looking at a $9,278 assessment.  A few of them chose to pay the full assessment up front, but the city also offered installment plans, allowing payments to be made monthly, for up to 30 years.

As it turns out, the 30-year installment plan was a very wise choice, while people who paid up front got utterly and totally screwed.  As the Washington Post explains:

The very next year, the city changed its mind about how to pay for new sewage projects, reasoning that the old method discouraged people from abandoning septic systems for the healthier city sewage lines. By that point, some people had paid as little as $309, and more than a quarter of affected properties had paid less than $1,000.

Under the new financing scheme, the outstanding payments were forgiven, but the city denied refunds to those who paid in full.

Thirty-one homeowners sued for the refund and won in lower state courts. The Indiana Supreme Court, however, upheld the city’s decision as rational.

The new payment plan involved a much lower up-front cost for all homeowners of only $2,500.  The rest of the cost was folded into slightly higher rates and fees.  This makes sense from the standpoint of persuading residents to hook up to the city sewer system, because even when a $9000 assessment is spread over a 30-year installment plan, the total sum still causes many people to recoil.  Of course, they’re not really paying any less under the new system – in fact, if those elevated sewer fees remain in place forever, long-term residents would eventually end up paying more – but they won’t feel bad, because the bulk of the cost is hidden from them.  Much of modern government operates according to this principle.

The United States Supreme Court settled the matter in a 6-3 decision today, upholding the Indiana Supreme Court and telling the poor saps who forked over the $9,278 up front to consider it an expensive lesson in the folly of surrendering a single nickel to the government before it’s absolutely necessary to do so.

The fleeced homeowners argued for relief under the Equal Protection Clause, since it’s manifestly unfair to charge one person nine thousand dollars for the exact same service his neighbor obtained for just over three hundred bucks.  That sounded reasonable to Justices Roberts, Alito, and Scalia, but the rest of the Supreme Court decided it was simply too much to ask the city government to either issue refunds to those who paid up front, or maintain parallel payment systems for its old and new projects.  They had a “rational basis” for giving those early payers the shaft, as Justice Steven Breyer explained in the majority opinion.

There were also concerns that ruling in favor of the plaintiffs would open the floodgates for countless other aggrieved taxpayers to seek redress for unequal treatment by official bodies… and we can’t have that, because much of government relies on arbitrarily treating groups of citizens unequally, just as it depends on the ability to hide its true cost from them.

When Tiger Woods ended his 30-month wait for a PGA Tour title in March, the golf world was excited by the prospect of the 14-time major champion blitzing the Masters field on his old stomping ground at Augusta.

A second man has died following a road accident in County Fermanagh.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- TITLE: "Heard it Before"...

Daily Mail | "U.S. president personally approves or vetoes each strike."

BRUNSWICK, Ohio — An 18-year-old high school senior died of injuries suffered in a weekend car crash just hours before his graduation, raising the death toll to four students. A fifth student was injured.

The MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland released a statement from Kevin Fox's family Monday morning saying ...

Syrian rebels say they are no longer committed to the nominal truce in Syria, in a blow to the peace plan brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan.

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A firefighting aircraft crashed into rugged terrain near the Utah-Nevada border as it dropped retardant on a 5,000-acre wildfire, killing the two Idaho men on board.

The air tanker went down Sunday afternoon in the Hamblin Valley area of western Utah, Bureau of Land Management officials ...

How mosquitoes survive rainfall

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Call it a pox on both the Republican and Democratic houses....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Call it a pox on both the Republican and Democratic houses....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Call it a pox on both the Republican and Democratic houses....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Call it a pox on both the Republican and Democratic houses....