Why progressives need to think beyond the mantra of creating a "middle class America."

We want a decent home to call our own, healthcare to heal us when we are sick or old, education to improve our minds and job prospects, healthy food and clean water to nourish us, income to provide for all our needs and even some affordable luxuries, a career to give us social status and a sense of self-worth, and a pension for our golden years.

These seemingly universal desires define the post-WWII American Dream, and are still the reference point for both left and right. The "Golden Age of American Capitalism" from the mid-1940s to the early 1970s is commonly seen as the triumph of the middle class, a time when the fruits of a robust capitalist economy extended to tens of millions.

But today we are trapped in the fault lines of a violent global economy, and these dreams seem as archaic as waking up at dawn with the grandparents, children and cousins to milk cows, bake pies and plow fields.

However outdated the American Dream, organized labor and liberals desperately cling to it as they retreat in the face of the Republican and corporate blitzkrieg. In this war, the battlefield is social spending and the public sector, and for the losing side the situation is dire. (The critique that follows is not of the rank and file or all unions, but rather the dominant tendencies among many labor leaders and large national unions.)

Bangor, Me. - The mother got the call in the middle of the night: her 3-day-old baby was going through opiate withdrawal in a hospital here and had to start taking methadone, a drug best known for treating heroin addiction, to ease his suffering.

The mother had abused prescription painkillers like OxyContin for the first 12 weeks of her pregnancy, buying them on the street in rural northern Maine, and then tried to quit cold turkey - a dangerous course, doctors say, that could have ended in miscarriage. The baby had seizures in utero as a result, and his mother, Tonya, turned to methadone treatment, with daily doses to keep her cravings and withdrawal symptoms at bay.

As prescription drug abuse ravages communities across the country, doctors are confronting an emerging challenge: newborns dependent on painkillers. While methadone may have saved Tonya's pregnancy, her son, Matthew, needed to be painstakingly weaned from it.

Infants like him may cry excessively and have stiff limbs, tremors, diarrhea and other problems that make their first days of life excruciating. Many have to stay in the hospital for weeks while they are weaned off the drugs, taxing neonatal units and driving the cost of their medical care into the tens of thousands of dollars.

Like the cocaine-exposed babies of the 1980s, those born dependent on prescription opiates - narcotics that contain opium or its derivatives - are entering a world in which little is known about the long-term effects on their development. Few doctors are even willing to treat pregnant opiate addicts, and there is no universally accepted standard of care for their babies, partly because of the difficulty of conducting research on pregnant women and newborns.

• Calls to vice girls made on untraceable cell phones
• He thwarted police with three-minute calls to sister of victim
• They believe he may have murdered four prostitutes in Atlantic City in 2006
• Search widened to Nassau County

The serial killer dubbed the Craigslist Ripper has a sophisticated understanding of police investigation techniques and 'may be a cop', it was claimed today.

The startling new theory emerged as it was revealed the last man to see suspected victim Shannan Gilbert believes the prostitute is still alive.

Officers in Long Island where four bodies of of vice girls have been dug up, are convinced the killer could be in law enforcement because:

New York (WABC) -- Two rallies took place in Manhattan on Saturday; one protesting war, the other supporting unions.

A boisterous, anti-war rally in Manhattan on Saturday with activists demanding an end to U.S. involved conflicts.

Hundreds of demonstrators took part in the Union Square rally on Saturday afternoon.

Protestors said if the U.S. would pull out of the wars it's involved in, the government wouldn't need to cut spending on programs such as Medicare, Head Start and Medicaid.

Kunio Shiga must have felt like the last man on earth.

The feeble 75-year-old was discovered stranded alone in his small farmhouse on Friday, surrounded by fallen trees, dead pigs and garbage strewn by the deadly March 11 tsunami in Japan.

He doesn't know where his wife is, and his neighbors have all fled his city of Minami Soma because it's within the 12-mile zone of a radiation-leaking plant. Authorities had ordered evacuations but Shiga, who has trouble walking, and was unable to leave.

"You are the first people I have spoken to" since the earthquake and tsunami, Shiga told the Associated Press.

With the man's permission, local police were notified of his dire situation.

On the afternoon of December 21, 2007, twelve jurors filed into a Boulder courtroom, ready to issue their verdict for the city's most sensational trial in years.

Over the previous two weeks, these jurors and everyone else in the packed courtroom had heard all about the very short life of Jason Jay Midyette. On February 24, 2006, the eleven-week-old had been rushed to Children's Hospital in Denver, where doctors had found him damaged almost beyond comprehension, with dozens of broken bones and a massive head injury that had left him comatose. Jason never regained consciousness; he died a week later, the victim of what the county coroner would rule a homicide.

Jason's death captured headlines in Colorado and beyond - not just because of the horrific nature of his passing, but because of his parents: Alex and Molly Midyette, the son and daughter-in-law of J. Nold Midyette, a wealthy architect and Boulder real-estate mogul. And as more than a year passed without any charges being filed, without any new details emerging, people began to wonder if in Boulder, a city still haunted by the ghost of JonBenét Ramsey, justice could be bought and sold.

But in May 2007, a Boulder grand jury indicted both Alex and Molly for child abuse resulting in death. Molly was the first to go to trial. She'd sat in the courtroom as doctors testified that they were struck by how long Jason's parents waited before they sought help, as social workers and police officers described an uncooperative family that seemed to care more about its own well-being than the child's.

Finally, Molly had taken the stand - the only witness called by her lawyer, superstar Denver defense attorney Craig Truman. She didn't know anything was wrong with Jason until it was apparently too late, she told the court. She didn't know how to explain all the damage inflicted on her baby, the brain contusion and the broken bones. "I have no idea," the emotional 29-year-old law-school graduate said. "I can't explain any of them."

A bomb squad recovered the bodies of two more people Saturday who had been missing after a fireworks storage bunker blast in Hawaii, bringing the death toll to five, officials said.

The blast near the Waikele Business Center at a former military bunker where fireworks were warehoused occurred Friday, killing three people and leaving two the others missing.

The bodies of the two missing men were found Saturday, Honolulu Fire Department Capt. Gary Lum told The Associated Press.

Officials said the bunker burned throughout the day Friday and had been too hot and unstable to enter.

A police robot searched the facility Saturday to see whether explosions had stopped and whether the temperature had dropped low enough for rescuers to risk going in, Lum said.

"It wasn't as hot as yesterday but it was still warm. The bomb team went in ... in protective equipment and they were able to retrieve one victim at a time," he said.

Highly radioactive water filling an underground trench at the troubled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant are expected on Sunday to be moved to a nearby storage inside the No. 2 reactor turbine building, local media reported.

The water inside the basement of the No. 2 reactor turbine building and the trench connected to it is highly contaminated because it is believed to be originating from the No. 2 reactor core, where fuel rods have partially melted, Kyodo News reported.

The water in the trench is planned to be moved to a "condenser" inside the No. 2 reactor turbine building. The condenser has a capacity to store 3,000 tons of liquid.

Shots rang out in a suburban Philadelphia social hall where a teenage party was being held, killing two people and sending eight others to hospitals, authorities said Saturday.

Police in Chester, where a state of emergency was declared last summer because of crime concerns, said a suspect was taken into custody after officers were called to the Minaret Temple No. 174 around 11:30 p.m. Friday and found "numerous victims."

Police said nine people were transported to Crozer Chester Medical Center, where a spokesman said one died soon afterward and another died Saturday afternoon. Four other victims remained in stable condition, and three had been discharged, the spokesman said. A 10th person was treated at Taylor Hospital and was released.

The social hall had been rented for a party, and many teenagers were present when the shots were fired, police said. Detectives were investigating the cause of the shooting and declined to release further information. A man answering the phone at the hall said he had come in to see the condition of the building but declined to comment further.

The Delaware County Daily Times newspaper said neighbors and community leaders planned a candlelight vigil at the scene Saturday night.

The RCMP has confirmed that one of its officers used a Taser to subdue an 11-year-old boy after a stabbing in Prince George, B.C.

Police used the electrical stun weapon after responding to a 911 call about an incident at a home in the city at about 5:30 p.m. PT Thursday.

After officers arrived at the residence, "police confirmed that a 37-year-old male had been allegedly stabbed by an 11-year-old male," RCMP Supt. Brenda Butterworth-Carr, commander of the Prince George detachment, said in a statement Friday.

Butterworth-Carr said officers located the young suspect at a nearby property.

"Efforts were made to get the individual out of the house, and when he emerged from the home, a Conducted Energy Weapon was deployed by a member," Butterworth-Carr said.

The police statement provided no details about what led police to use the stun gun.