I recently wrote a story for NYC Indymedia's Indypendent newspaper/website about the FSRN funding crisis. You can read it here.

So far, I have received a few comments on the story and comments made by my sources.

The Bush administration has agreed to delay Medicare payment cuts for doctors. To the dismay of physicians, patients, and insurance companies, the cuts were supposed to go into effect today. As FSRN's Leigh Ann Caldwell reports, this is the not the first time the President and Congress have had to step in and delay payments to the program.

Click here for newscast for Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

In 2006, the Bush Administration began systematically closing the libraries of the Environmental Protection Agency. These libraries, scattered throughout the United States, held the official records of the Agency, contained one of the most comprehensive collections on new pesticides and chemicals in the world and are used by lawyers, scientists and the general public. By 2007, the newly elected Democratic Congress put a stop to the closures, and ordered that the libraries be restored. But as of now, it appears the agency's new chemical library will not be reopened. Jes Burns spoke to Jeff Ruch, the Executive Director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, to find out the current status of the library system.

How green is your home? How about your office? The buildings we live in consume almost half of all the energy we use in this country. With the price of gas, attention has shifted to fuel-efficient vehicles lately, but transportation accounts for only about half as much energy use as buildings. So what can we do to green the places we work and live? FSRN's Tanya Snyder toured a green building to find out the answer.

Click here for newscast for Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

A new Palestinian town has just been given the go ahead in the West Bank – it will be the first one to be built there since Israel moved in more than forty years ago. And the first planned community there that is not a Jewish settlement. A developer has just secured the funding, although it has not yet completed the plans or received final approvals. Already thousands of customers have registered, emphasizing the Palestinian need for affordable housing. Irris Makler spoke to the developer Bashar al Masri in Ramallah who says this is an idea that's time has come.

Click here for newscast for Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

The Los Angeles Social Forum convened for the first time this weekend. Inspired by the World Social Forum, grassroots activists from around Southern California converged on the USC campus to discuss the gamut of progressive causes. With the recent nation-wide attention given to the issue of immigration, organizers placed a special focus on legal strategies to defend undocumented immigrants from detention and deportation. Dan Fritz files this report from KPFK.

Click here for newscast for Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

The Iraqi government has opened up production of some of its oil fields to international companies. The US State Department has been helping write contracts and work out negotiations with some of the companies and the Iraqi government, which raises questions about the reason for the invasion of Iraq. FSRN Correspondent Matt Laslo reports from Washington.

Click here for newscast for Monday, June 30th, 2008

Congress has funded clandestine military operations against Iran, to the tune of up to $400 million in secret spending. That's according to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who writes in the New Yorker that both Republican and Democratic leaders agreed to a request, called a Presidential Finding, to fund covert operations to back dissident group and to collect intelligence about Iran's nuclear weapons plans. Hersh writes that Bush made the secret request to Congress despite the National Intelligence Estimate report that made clear that Iran put an end to its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Hersh was interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now today, where he said that it looks as if the United States is ready to attack Iran immediately.