The House Committee investigating the firing of US Attorneys by the Justice Department authorized the issuing of subpoenas of top aides to President George W. Bush today in a voice vote. They stopped short of issuing the subpoenas themselves.

“The motion passed to authorize the chairman to issue subpoenas,” said a spokesperson for House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers in an e-mail to RAW STORY.

In the time it takes you to get to the end of this sentence, seven people have been added to the population of the world. At this rate, the United Nations estimates the number of people on the planet will nearly double by the middle of this century. Even with significant reductions in birth rates, the population is expected to increase from 6.7 billion now to 9.2 billion by 2050.

A Chinese court sentenced a former website editor to six years in prison after convicting him of subversion for posting online articles that “amounted to agitation aimed at toppling the Chinese government,” He served 18 months in a “re-education through labor” camp after he was charged with distributing “counterrevolutionary propaganda” during the 1989 pro-democracy campaign.

A media-rights group last month said China led the world in technological and judicial controls over online dissent with 52 people in Chinese jails for internet-related offenses at the end of last year.

FIRE battalion chief Jim Riches brought up his son to be one of New York’s “bravest”, like him. The young Jim followed his father into the New York fire department and died at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

What followed turned his heartbroken father into a relentless opponent of Rudy Giuliani, then mayor of New York. With other families of 9/11 victims, Riches has vowed to torpedo Giuliani’s prospects of winning the White House by attacking his greatest source of strength, his reputation as a hero that day.

“We’re going to follow him around the country,” said Riches. “We want all of America to know he is not the man he says he is.”

On Thursday, NBC’s Today Show explored whether the confessions of alleged 9/11 “mastermind” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed can be trusted, since he claimed to have been tortured after being detained.

“Let’s talk about the issue of torture,” NBC’s Matt Lauer said. “He says in his statement that he didn’t make this statement under duress or pressure, but he does also say that he was tortured by the CIA after his capture.”