How will they vote on same-sex marriage and affirmative action? The court's newest justices, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, have voted together in 97% of cases this term. » read more
Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/MCT
Boxes of unclassified documents sit on a cart at the National Declassification Center in College Park, Maryland
In the darkened stacks of a nondescript building in the suburbs outside Washington, dozens of federal employees wearing protective gloves spend day after day sifting through millions of pages of secret documents, some of them nearly a century old. The 70 staffers of the National Declassification Center are charged with deciding anonymously and quietly which of the nations old secrets can be laid bare for the world to see. » read more

The absence of clouds exposed a striking tapestry of water, ice, land, forests, and even wildfires of Alaska. (NASA / MCT) | More top photos from McClatchy
On Christmas Eve 1965, an Air Force crew of 6 disappeared while targeting the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos. Decades later, their story is told.
One of the nation's most secretive intelligence agencies is pressuring polygraphers to push the ethical and legal boundaries of a program designed instead to catch spies and terrorists.
Top secret intelligence reports reveal that U.S. drones have targeted & killed hundreds of suspected lower-level Afghan, Pakistani & unidentified other militants in scores of strikes.
Technological advances might unlock vast natural gas deposits, increase domestic oil production and turn the U.S. into the next Middle East. But, it may not be enough.
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