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Working with Minnesota's Project 515, two Minnesota lawmakers, State Senator Yvonne Prettner Solon (D-Duluth), and Erin Murphy (D-St. Paul) announced today that they plan to author the states first bill's that would ensure equal and fair treatment for all Minnesota families that are experiencing severe health issues and the death of a loved one. Under current law, committed, same-sex partners do not have the automatic right that married couples have to control the remains of their partner after death.

Trees in the western United States are dying twice as quickly as they did three decades ago and scientists think global warming is to blame.In their surveys, ecologists found that a wide range of tree species were dying including pines, firs and hemlocks and at a variety of altitudes. The changes can have serious long-term effects including reducing biodiversity and turning western forests into a source of carbon dioxide as they die and decompose. That could lead to a runaway effect that speeds up climate change.'The trend was pervasive across a wide variety of forest types, across all elevations, in trees of all sizes and among major species,' said Phillip van Mantgem of the US Geological Survey (USGS). 'At the same time, the rate of new establishment of trees didn't change.'If these trends continued, he said, forests will become sparser and store less carbon. 'It introduces the possibility that western forests could be come net sources or carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, further spe

INDIANAPOLIS -- A Planned Parenthood clinic where an undercover video exposed workers failing to report an alleged statutory rape also received a state reprimand last year for sloppy abortion record keeping.

BOOK FORUM Wednesday, February 4, 2009 12:00 PM Featuring author David Post , Temple University Law Professor; Clive Crook , Chief Washington Commentator of the Financial Times and Senior Editor of The Atlantic ...

President Barack Obama has signed an executive order closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and what remains of the secret CIA prisons. John Bellinger, former legal adviser to former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, offers his insight.

The state Supreme Court will decide whether a baby girl will stay with the lesbian couple in Fayette County that wants to adopt her. A judge in Fayette County has already called for the child, who is just more than a year old, to be removed from the home in favor of a more 'traditional' home with a mother and a father. READ MORE

A majority of Floridians believe gay people should be able to adopt children. A Quinnipiac University poll of 1,370 Floridians showed 55 percent favor doing away with a state law that prohibits gays from adopting compared to 39 percent who want to keep the ban. Democrats and independent voters were in the majority favoring of eliminating the ban while Republicans and white evangelical Christians supported the law. READ MORE

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A neo-Nazi group has joined the state's 'Adopt-A-Highway' volunteer litter pickup program, taking advantage of a free speech court fight won four years ago by the Ku Klux Klan.

Des Moines Area Community College officials will freeze the president's salary, call off most out-of-state travel and leave a dozen jobs vacant to offset a statewide budget cut and brace for another one as Iowa ...

Yesterday, The Senate overwhelmingly confirmed the nomination of Hillary Clinton as President Barack Obama's secretary of state after a one-day delay forced by Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas who said he still had questions about the possible conflict-of-interest related to the overseas fund raising activities of her husband, former President Bill ClintonDuring her confirmation hearing last week Clinton had promised address issues faced by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees, particularly relating to domestic partner benefits and State Department policies that make it difficult for the partners of foreign service officers to travel and live at overseas posts. Issues of inequality and unfair treatment at the State Department were highlighted last year when the departing Ambassador to Romania Michael Guest, an openly gay man, criticized Clinton predecessor, Condoleezza Rice failure to deal with them.