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U.S. sentencing guidelines treat 1 gram of crack the same as 100 grams of powder cocaine. So crack users can get much longer prison sentences than powder users. The U.S. Sentencing Commission holds a public hearing to consider the 20-year-old law.

Visitors and residents of Imperial County are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Salton Sea this weekend. An open house includes field tours and pontoon boat rides. But whether the Salton Sea su

An estimated 2 million Africans die each year of AIDS, and 24 million are infected with HIV. Malaria, cholera and even polio are on the rise in Africa, all hampering social and economic development on the globe's most impoverished continent.

Poverty rates have fallen across much of the globe. But in sub-Saharan Africa, war and disease hamper development. Leaders who cling to power as their nations crumble are also to blame.

A drought has been lingering in the Great Plains for six years. A federal meteorologist calls it the third-worst U.S. drought on record. Farmers in some parts of the country have endured Dust Bowl-like conditions this summer.

Advocates say ending the cycle of poverty in rural Africa depends on putting farmland in the hands of blacks. In South Africa, about 96 percent of commercial arable land is still in the hands of white farmers. But land reform efforts have been slow to get off the ground.

Two Salton Sea experts explain why the fish died and what can be done to clean up the aftermath.

Some three million fish suffocated in the Salton Sea's largest tilapia die-off since 1999. The dead fish clogged a harbor driving away boaters and fouling the air in the Coachella Valley desert.

Chicago passes a city ordinance that would require big retailers like Wal-Mart and Target to pay workers at least $13 an hour in wages and benefits within the next few years.Opponents are calling the measure illegal and planning to sue. Even Chicago's mayor is opposed. But for Chicago's poorest neighborhoods, the main question is whether the ordinance will bring better jobs or chase new ones away.

In a report released Thursday, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee calls the depth and breadth of misconduct by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and ex-Congressional aide Michael Scanlon, "astonishing."