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Twenty-five years ago, the Nuclear Freeze campaign mobilized hundreds of thousands of Americans to demand an end to the testing, production, and deployment of new nuclear weapons. At that time, advocating the complete abolition of nuclear weapons was a fringe position confined to a few utopians on the left. Even most antinuclear activists struggled getting past the "you can't put the genie back in the bottle" common sense of pundits and arms control experts.

US economic, military and political dominance is likely to decline over the next two decades, according to a new US intelligence report on global trends. The National Intelligence Council (NIC) predicts China, India and Russia will increasingly challenge US influence. It also says the dollar may no longer be the world's major currency, and food and water shortages will fuel conflict.

The change promised by U.S. President-elect Barack Obama will extend to the Energy Department, where the next energy secretary is likely to focus more than ever on renewable and alternative energy sources and less on traditional fossil fuels like crude oil. Steven Chu, Obama's pick to be energy secretary, will play a major role in implementing the incoming president's plan to resuscitate the U.S. economy with millions of new green energy jobs that will cut America's polluting emissions and the country's addiction to foreign oil supplies.

A Sept. 17 House Workforce Protections Subcommittee hearing considered the impact of the Department of Labor's (DOL) worker health risk assessment proposal, a rule critics say was developed in secret and that could weaken and delay the enactment of future workplace health standards. "I have called this hearing today on the Department of Labor's proposed risk assessment regulation, because, quite frankly, I'm troubled by the agency's attempt to rush through this rule without a full consideration of its effect on the health and safety of the American worker," said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., in her opening statement.