The United States of America, also known as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., the U.S. of A, the States, and America, is a country in North America. A federal republic, the United States shares land borders with Canada and Mexico, and extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Its capital is Washington, D.C.

The present-day continental United States has been inhabited for at least 15,000 years by Native Americans. After 16th-century European exploration and settlement, the English established new colonies, and gained control of others, in the eastern portion of the continent in the 17th and early 18th centuries. On 4 July 1776, at war with Britain over fair governance, thirteen of these colonies declared their independence; in 1783, the war ended in British acceptance of the new nation. Since then, the country has more than quadrupled in size: it now consists of 50 states, one federal district, and a number of overseas territories.

At over 3.7 million square miles (over 9.1 million km²), the U.S. is the third largest country by area. It is also the world's third most populous nation, with nearly 300 million people.

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Dog beaches stir debate in shoreline communities
Wed, 16 May 2012 04:15:55 -0000
Dog-beach debates are occurring at shoreline communities across the USA, where most beaches are deemed off-limits to domestic animals.
Healthy food no more costly than junk food, government finds
Wed, 16 May 2012 18:32:53 -0000
Carrots, onions, pinto beans, lettuce, mashed potatoes, bananas and orange juice are bargains compared to, say, soft drinks, ice cream and f ...
Florida lowers passing grade for writing exam
Wed, 16 May 2012 17:16:00 -0000
The Florida Board of Education has voted to lower the passing grade on a state writing exam after complaints from educators about changes.
Mystery object in Colo. sky prompts FAA probe
Wed, 16 May 2012 16:43:00 -0000
A mystery object that flew over Denver is raising questions and prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to investigate.
Lead poisoning guidelines revised; more considered at risk
Wed, 16 May 2012 18:07:44 -0000
About 200,000 more children will be considered at risk of lead poisoning under new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
Home invasion convict weighed death request
Wed, 16 May 2012 14:54:00 -0000
A man on death row in Connecticut for a brutal 2007 home invasion says that during his hardest days, he has considered asking to be killed.

The Economist: United States

Lexington: Declinism resurgent
Thu, 10 May 2012 15:06:15 -0000
SIX months from polling day, America’s election campaign has opened with a blizzard of tendentious commercials, contrived razzamatazz and mind-numbing trivia. Was the stadium in Ohio at which Barack Obama launched his campaign on May 5th really “half empty”, as a conservative website reported? (Probably not: there were perhaps 14,000 Obama supporters in a stadium that can accommodate some 20,000 people.) Had the vice-president, Joe Biden, embarrassed his boss by expressing support for gay marriage when Mr Obama’s own thoughts were supposedly still “evolving”? (Not for long: within days Mr Obama announced that he now supported it too.) On May 8th Mr Obama popped up to Albany, New York, with a new gimmick. He unveiled a five-point job-creating “to do” list, which he knows the Republicans in a gridlocked Congress will not enact.Some people love elections. But data compiled by the redoubtable Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution show that this one is unfolding against a deep gloom. Four recent surveys have found that on average only 28% of Americans are satisfied with the condition of the country, while 70% are...
Gay marriage: Punctuated equilibrium
Thu, 10 May 2012 15:06:15 -0000
Obama’s on side SINCE evolution is a gradual process, Barack Obama should perhaps not have felt embarrassed by the fact that, more than three years into his presidency, his exact views on gay marriage were still officially “evolving”. Until this week, that is. In an interview on May 9th Mr Obama finally came to a decision. “At a certain point,” he told ABC, “I’ve just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”Strangely enough, Mr Obama reached his decision within days of Joe Biden, the vice-president, saying that for his own part he was “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex marriages. One day after Mr Biden, Arne Duncan, Mr Obama’s education secretary, said that he too thought same-sex marriages should be legal. The sequence of events creates the impression that by accident or design the president was in the end shamed into speaking his mind.Whatever his motive, Mr Obama’s conversion is a step forward for gay rights. The president had already stopped enforcing, but not yet repealed, the...
The tea party strikes: Another moderate shown the door
Thu, 10 May 2012 15:06:15 -0000
UNLIKE colleagues such as Bob Bennett, a senator from Utah unceremoniously dumped by the Republican Party in 2010, Richard Lugar was not caught off guard. He had known for well over a year that he would face a strong, tea-party backed rival in the primary for the Senate seat he has held for the past 35 years. He planned accordingly, voting more conservatively, amassing a $6m war chest and cranking up his get-out-the-vote operation. Nonetheless on May 8th Mr Lugar lost the primary by a whopping 20-point margin to Richard Mourdock, Indiana’s state treasurer and a hero to many tea-partiers.Both Republican and Democrat politicians had described the race as a test of the tea party’s strength. As the victorious Mr Mourdock himself puts it, “Rumours of the death of the tea party have been exaggerated.” Jackie Bodnar, of FreedomWorks, a campaign outfit that supports tea-party groups, says his victory will give impetus to tea-party candidates seeking the Republican nomination for Senate seats in Florida, Texas and Utah, among other races.Those who thought the tea-party movement was wilting after helping to propel...
The economy: Unequal pain
Thu, 10 May 2012 15:06:15 -0000
THE fates of the American economy and the presidency of Barack Obama are inextricably linked, and both of them hit a bump in April. The economy added 252,000 jobs each month between December and February, but that rate seems to be slowing. Payrolls rose by just 154,000 in March and by only 115,000 in April. Unemployment dropped in April, from 8.2% to 8.1%, but for the wrong reason: an exodus of some 342,000 workers from the labour force, as people gave up looking for work. On May 8th Mr Obama sent Congress a “to-do list”, asking it for tax incentives and mortgage refinancing in the hope of boosting private job creation. Yet for much of the past two years the biggest source of job losses has been the public sector.Government payrolls typically swell in economic recoveries, by 5.9% on average during the first 34 months after a recession has ended, according to data from the Bureau of Labour Statistics. Not this time, however: from June of 2009 government employment dropped by 2.7% (see chart). The 2.5m overall rise in employment since the downturn’s end corresponds to 3.1m new private jobs, less 600,000 lost...
The 9/11 trial: Justice delayed
Thu, 10 May 2012 15:06:15 -0000
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants disrupted an arraignment that dragged into the night in the opening act of the long-stalled effort to prosecute them in a military court Source: AP Walid bin Attash, a defendant, was tied to a chair and wheeled into the proceedings after he struggled with guards outside the courtroom Source: AP ...
California’s budget: The Facebook effect
Thu, 10 May 2012 15:06:15 -0000
AMONG those in suspense as Facebook prepares for its initial public offering (IPO) of shares later this month are the bean-counters of California. After all, Facebook, which could be worth as much as $100 billion, is a Californian company and many of its employees, including its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, live there. That means they may soon be paying lots of tax.The IPO’s timing fortuitously coincides with the beginning of California’s annual budget “kabuki”, as a former governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, called the process. This kicks off with the official revision, on May 14th, by the current governor, Jerry Brown, of estimated incomings and outgoings. It drags on through June in the legislature and then, if all goes well, the governor signs something resembling a balanced budget by July 1st, the start of the new fiscal year.Last year Mr Brown proposed spending $89 billion for the current fiscal year, which began on July 1st. As in recent years, however, revenues are falling short of official projections. Jason Sisney of the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office says that the state seems to be facing an...

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