By Ronald W. Powell. UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER July 3, 2008 The city of San Diego filed an appeal Thursday of a federal court ruling last month that allowed Blackwater Worldwide to operate a military training facility in Otay Mesa. The legal challenge was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. On June 17, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Huff ruled in favor of Blackwater in a lawsuit in which it alleged the city interfered with its permits for an indoor Navy training center in O… Continue

According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, a statistic is a “collection, analysis, i… Continue

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — They're the most fickle voters, and potentially the most powerful. Thus, with party nominations secure, John McCain and Barack Obama now are pushing toward the center to win them over. Meet "the mushy middle," a complex chunk of people likely to decide the presidential election but difficult to reach and very hard to please. "Yes, we can!" isn't floating their boat. Nothing much is, from either candidate. They aren't uniformly conserva… Continue

June 30, 2008 The Huffington Post News Team Sen. John McCain's campaign on Monday launched the McCain "Truth Squad" - a group of political and Vietnam contemporaries who would counter attacks on the Senator's military record. In hopes of nipping any criticism in the bud, the campaign brought on board a man quite familiar with how these types of attacks gain legs: Bud Day, a fellow POW who was part of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that worked so hard to defame Sen. John Kerry's own Vietnam… Continue

By PAUL ELIAS, Associated Press Writer SAN FRANCISCO - A federal judge on Wednesday tossed out a lawsuit by an Islamic organization that accused the Bush administration of illegally wiretapping its telephones without warrants. … Continue