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Advocates for prisoners have long argued that confinement conditions in prisons violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. On Tuesday, they made their case before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, complete with a replica prison cell in the hearing room.

One privilege — or burden — of the Oval Office is that each inhabitant gets to decide how dirty to get his hands in wartime. Although the CIA program is classified, published accounts say President Obama has decided to take personal responsibility for making decisions about whom drones will target and kill.

Vannak Prum was forced to work on a Thai fishing boat for three years before he escaped by jumping overboard. With little oversight, rogue captains buy men like Prum from traffickers and use them to plunder the fishing grounds of surrounding nations. One expert calls it "a perfect storm of slavery and environmental degradation."

The actor stars in Aaron Sorkin's new HBO drama The Newsroom, playing an anchorman inspired to give up fluff pieces and return to hard-hitting journalism.

Federal Reserve officials signaled rising concerns about the economy in a statement released Wednesday. They decided to keep short-term interest rates near zero and to continue a program designed to push down long-term rates. The Fed also issued a revised forecast with lower growth rates and higher unemployment rates over the next few years.

Robert Siegel talks to Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton on the Federal Reserve's renewal of the so-called "Operation Twist."

The inventory of homes for sale in California is low, even in areas with high foreclosure rates. That's made any available home enticing to buyers. But with so few houses for sale, bidding wars have returned. In many cases, investors are squeezing out the families trying to buy.

Court battles almost certainly will continue over whether police can check the immigration status of anyone detained for any reason.

At least a dozen of the cases are full-blown investigations of possible Muslim radicals in the military community. The stepped-up scrutiny comes in the wake of the 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, that left 13 dead.

The settlement stems from FCC charges that Comcast-NBCU violated merger conditions.