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PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) -- A bomb tore through a bus carrying government employees and other civilians in northwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing 18 people in an attack that served as a reminder of the continued militant threat despite a significant drop in violence over the past year, officials said....

Driving examiners and coastguards are to hold a series of strikes from Friday against government plans they say will hit jobs and pensions.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The fan votes - not just the odds - are in "The Hunger Games" favor at the MTV Movie Awards....

EU officials are expected to press Russian President Vladimir Putin to take a stronger line on Syria during a summit in St Petersburg.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Authorities say two pilots were killed when their air tanker crashed while fighting a wildfire in western Utah....

The Beatles have been declared the biggest selling singles act during the Queen's 60-year reign.

Fresh evidence has emerged that the Rwandan military is aiding rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Human Rights Watch says.

Hours after the late-night announcement Saturday by Rep. Thad McCotter (R-Mich.) that he will end his write-in bid for renomination and retire from Congress, Republicans from Lansing to Washington began focusing on Michigan’s 11th District and what comes next.

By just about all early reports, the answer is pure chaos.

Six-termer McCotter, who briefly ran for the GOP presidential nomination before deciding to seek re-election, suffered considerable embarrassment two weeks ago when election officials decided his campaign had only filed 244 acceptable signatures on petitions out of the 1000 required to appear on the August primary ballot. As McCotter announced he would try to win the Republican primary as a write-in candidate, the embattled lawmaker’s problems were compounded by the announcement that the state attorney general was investigating possible fraud in the collection of signatures for his petitions.

His abrupt reversal leaves Kerry Bentivolo, Vietnam War veteran and teacher, as the lone candidate on the Republican ballot in the 11th District (Wayne and Oakland Counties). Bentivolo, who also raises reindeer, is a Ron Paul supporter who wants to abolish the federal income tax.

But GOP leaders are likely to search for another candidate who, under state election law, would have to win nomination through write-ins or stickers placed on the ballot (which, contrary to several published reports, are legal in Michigan).  Former State Sen. Loren Bennett announced yesterday he is running, and that he has 100 volunteers to help him.

One source who requested anonymity told HUMAN EVENTS that former state legislator and stalwart conservative Rocky Raczkowski, who narrowly lost a race against Democratic Rep. Gary Peters, was seriously exploring a write-in bid in the 11th. Raczkowski, whose Oakland County home is now in the 11th, was a co-chairman of McCotter’s campaign this year.

Another Oakland County GOPer who is also reportedly considering becoming a write-in candidate, the same source said, is conservative State Sen. Mike Kowall.  Earlier this year, Kowall became a candidate in the 11th District after McCotter declared for president.  When McCotter decided to run for re-election, Kowall remained in the race and pointed out that he disagreed with the congressman on his stances in favor of Davis-Bacon legislation and organized labor’s cherished “card check” proposal.  But Kowall eventually deferred to McCotter.

Still another GOP prospect is attorney David Trott, who reportedly came close to challenging McCotter this year.  Trott is considered likely to use his own vast wealth if he chooses to run.

So no one really knows what will happen in the Republican primary August 11.  For his part, McCotter will be remembered by those who reported on him for his love of history and the works of thinkers such as Russell Kirk, his unapologetic chain-smoking and passion for rock music.  Simply put, he was a true American original in Congress.

Just when the American economy was looking like a global bright spot, a spate of bad news last week showed that the U.S. also has succumbed to a major slowdown — sending President Obama and his team scrambling to explain Friday's disappointing unemployment numbers.

"Nobody is happy with the rate ...

Good grief. Democrat Elizabeth Warren told reporters this weekend that if elected she would be the first Native American Senator from Massachusetts.

Cherokee Indians dispute her claims. They set up a website demanding the truth from Elizabeth Warren on her phony Indian ancestry. Although she claimed to be Native American when she was hired at Harvard there are no Native Americans in Elizabeth Warren’s genealogy.

A 6.6-magnitude earthquake struck off the southern coast of Panama on Sunday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

You would think $1 trillion in spending stimulus and $2.5 trillion of Fed pump-priming would produce an economy a whole lot stronger than 1.9 percent gross domestic product, which was the revised first-quarter number. And you’d think all that government spending would deliver a whole lot more jobs than 69,000 in May.

But it hasn’t happened.

The Keynesian government-spending model has proven a complete failure. It’s the Obama model. And it has produced such an anemic recovery that, frankly, at 2 percent growth, we’re back on the front end of a potential recession. If anything goes wrong — like another blow-up in Europe — there’s no safety margin to stop a new recession.

And that brings us to the grim May employment report, which generated only 69,000 nonfarm payrolls. It’s the third consecutive subpar tally, replete with downward revisions for the two prior months. It’s a devastating number for the American economy and a catastrophic number for Obama’s re-election hopes. All momentum on jobs and the economy has evaporated.

Inside the May report, the data is just as bad. The unemployment rate rose slightly from 8.1 to 8.2 percent. The so called U6 unemployment rate, tracking the marginally employed or completely discouraged, increased to 14.8 percent from 14.5 percent. And labor earnings are barely rising at 1.7 percent over the past year, almost in line with the inflation rate. In fact, through April, after-tax, after-inflation income is scarcely rising at 0.6 percent for the past year.

The private workweek also fell in May. So did the manufacturing workweek and aggregate hours worked for all employees. The small-business household survey did rise, but that follows declines in the prior two months.

Barack Obama doesn’t get this, but businesses create jobs. And firms have to be profitable in order to hire. Yet the president is on the campaign trail criticizing Mitt Romney by degrading the importance of profits. Huh?

Without profits, businesses can’t expand. And if they don’t expand, they can’t hire. And if they don’t have profitable rates of return, they’re not going to attract new capital for investment.

Which brings us to a couple of important reasons for the virtual freeze in hiring.

First, there’s the fiscal tax cliff. If all the Bush tax rates go up, incentives will go down and liquidity will leave the system. You can’t pick up a newspaper these days and not find a story about how the fiscal cliff is elevating uncertainty and slowing U.S. growth. House Speaker John Boehner asked Obama for help in extending the Bush tax cuts this summer. But Obama said no. Instead, he wants to raise marginal tax rates on successful upper-income earners, capital gains, dividends, estates and many successful corporations.

Where’s the corporate tax reform that would lower rates and broaden the base and end the double-taxation of the overseas profits of American companies? A business tax cut would help enormously, but it’s nowhere in sight. Neither is the Keystone Pipeline, which is a surefire job-creator. Obama’s too busy trashing Bain Capital profits and Romney’s business career, both of which, by the way, have recently been praised by former president Bill Clinton. (It was Clinton, you might recall, who lowered investment taxes and presided over an economic boom.)

A second uncertainty facing businesses is the Supreme Court decision on Obamacare due in a few weeks. If all those crazy tax-and-regulation mandates are deemed unconstitutional, it’s Katy bar the door as businesses put profits to work and hire. But they’re not going to move until they see that court decision.

Then there’s the whole European mess with the threat of banking contagion from Spain, Greece and Italy. That could blow up the whole world economy if it goes completely sour. The Europeans should guarantee all bank deposits, interbank loans and bank debt until this story is straightened out. But they’re not. So the problem festers.

And now European companies are withdrawing money from local banks and investing in dollars (especially through Treasury bonds that are yielding an incredibly low 1.5 percent). But the rapid rise of King Dollar is generating commodity deflation, which is a deterrent to manufacturing production. According to the May ISM report, manufacturing is slowing.

The Fed may yet launch a new quantitative easing to stop commodity deflation and accommodate the gigantic worldwide dollar demand. But the merits of this move are dubious. On the other hand, an extension of the Bush tax cuts right now would stop the economic and job slide and re-establish certainty.

In fact, all the countries around the world should move to the supply side with lower tax rates to spur economic-growth incentives. Europe, China and Latin America ought to go back and read Ronald Reagan’s speeches and examine his actions when he faced a similar crisis 30 years ago. It would be an hour or two well spent.

Ministers must send clear signals that they believe in new forms of green technology if they want firms to invest in them, a think tank says.

Asian markets drop after weaker-than-expected jobs data from the US triggers concerns about the health of US economic recovery.

The suspect in a Toronto mall shooting remained on the loose Sunday, one day after he allegedly opened fire in a busy food court, killing one person and injuring seven.

The SNP claims growing cross-party support at Westminster for its campaign to halt a planned 3p rise in fuel duty in August.

Student leaders describe as "truly awful" the record of Scottish universities on admitting students from poorer backgrounds.

Nintendo reveals plans for the Miiverse on the eve of announcements about the Playstation and Xbox at the E3 games show.

E3 brings new Mario games, but what is his appeal?

NEW YORK (AP) -- The prototype space shuttle that arrived in New York City by air earlier this spring is on the move again, this time by sea....