[Telegraph.co.uk]
America's leading commodities regulator has launched an unprecedented investigation into possible market manipulation in the US crude oil market amid record prices which continue to cripple various parts of the global economy.

[Reuters]
If elected president, Barack Obama said one of the first things he wants to do is ensure the constitutionality of all the laws and executive orders passed while Bush has been in office.

[Salon.com]
Jessica Yellin, currently a CNN correspondent who covered the White House for ABC News and MSNBC in 2002 and 2003: I think the press corps dropped the ball at the beginning. When the lead-up to the war began, the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings. And my own experience at the White House was that, the higher the president's approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives...to put on positive stories about the president.

[Yahoo! News]
Delegates from 111 nations have agreed to a landmark treaty to ban cluster bombs. But crucially, the United States, Russia, China, India, Israel and Pakistan—all major producers and stockpilers of cluster bombs—were absent from the Dublin talks, and thus not part of the agreement.

[The Washington Post]
Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a sophisticated "political propaganda campaign" led by Bush and aimed at "manipulating sources of public opinion" and "downplaying the major reason for going to war."

[Chicago Tribune]
New cases of post-traumatic stress disorder jumped by roughly 50 percent in 2007 amid increased violence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Records show roughly 40,000 troops have been diagnosed with PTSD since 2003. Officials believe that many more are likely keeping their illness a secret.

[rationalrevolution.net]
What are the historical results of talking with the "enemy" and of not doing so?

[Progressive Media USA]
More of the same. Senator John McCain has voted with Bush 100% of the time in 2008 and 95% of the time in 2007.

[BBC News]
The leaders of 12 South American nations have formed a regional body aimed at boosting economic and political integration in the region. At a summit in Brazil, they signed a treaty which created the Union of South American Nations (Unasur).

[Yahoo! News]
Ex-Guantanamo inmate finds distracted, uninterested audience at the U.S. Congress. I did nothing wrong and I was treated like a monster, he said, describing acts of torture such as being suspended by his wrists for hours on end, receiving electrical shocks and enduring simulated drowning.

[BBC News]
Ministers are to consider plans for a database of electronic information holding details of every phone call and e-mail sent in the UK.

[Real Clear Politics]
Today's voters are less likely to be white, less likely to be married, and less likely to consider themselves Christians than voters of just a few decades ago.