To better ensure its staff follows the school’s biblical mandate, Georgia’s Shorter University told its 200 employees late last month to sign a “Personal Lifestyle Statement” rejecting homosexuality, adultery and premarital sex. The New York Daily News reports that those who don’t sign the pledge may lose their jobs. Read full article > >

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Georgia’s Shorter University tells workers to sign pledge they are not gay

UNITED NATIONS — U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of failing to live up to his pledge to halt all security operations against protesters, saying the Syrian leader “has not kept his word.” Assad assured Ban in a telephone conversation Wednesday that all police and military operations had stopped. On Friday, Syria’s U.N. envoy, Bashar al-Jafari, repeated the assertion. But there has been no visible slowing of the crackdown. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said Monday that the steadily mounting death toll in Syria had topped 2,200 civilians, including 39 demonstrators killed since Assad made his pledge to the U.N. chief. Read full article > >

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Assad broke word, U.N. chief says

TO SOME PEOPLE, Thomas A. Drake is a villain, a man who broke his pledge to protect national security secrets. To others, he is a whistleblower and a hero. Most, however, would not confuse him for a spy. Yet Mr. Drake will go on trial in a Maryland federal court this month on multiple counts of violating the Espionage Act, a broad and vague World War I-era law meant to punish those who turn over national security information to the enemy. He could face decades behind bars. Read full article > >

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A case that could be overkill against a whistleblower

President Obama will stand on the U.S.-Mexico border Tuesday and try to take credit for something that eluded predecessors in both parties: successfully cracking down on illegal immigration. It is a record that Republicans roundly dispute. And it has drawn fire from many in Obama’s Latino base, who say the president has stepped up enforcement measures such as deportations while failing to deliver on his pledge to create a path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants. But in using a speech in El Paso to highlight his enforcement record, Obama will signal that he intends to try turning the immigration debate into a political winner among conservative swing voters who back tougher immigration policies. Read full article > >

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Obama’s border visit renews focus on immigration policy

President Obama reversed his order halting new military charges against detainees, implicitly admitting failure for now of his pledge to close the camp.

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White House Says Tribunals Can Resume at Guantánamo

If you want to know what President Obama is up against with his pledge to reorganize the federal government, consider what happened to the last such endeavor.

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The government tends to resist reorganization

Global temperatures are projected rise 3.5 degrees C. over the next 25 years, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday, meaning that governments worldwide will have failed in their pledge to hold global temperature at a 2-degree increase. But there’s hope yet, says Fatih Birol, the chief economist for the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA). read more

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Global Temperature to Rise 3.5 Degrees C. by 2035: International Energy Agency

Republicans are starting to hammer out the details of their Pledge to America, and they include massive budget cuts, an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts, and strict limits on government regulation. In an attempt to slash spending, Republicans have…

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GOP Leaders Ready Agenda

Why was there no permanent ban in the Pledge to America?

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The GOP backs off the earmark ban

Why was there no permanent ban in the Pledge to America?

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The GOP backs off the earmark ban