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Read the Latest News from US. Get the most read news and happenings in the United States and the world through The Huffington Post.

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Federal Judge John Roll was killed during a shooting in Arizona that also involved an attack on U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.U.S. Marshal for Arizona David Gonzales confirmed to the Associated Press that the U.S. District Judge had died. He offered no other details on the shooting.More...

Judge John Roll Dead: Killed In Arizona Shooting

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The movie Sideways put the Santa Ynez Valley on the map--and not just for aging burnt-out urban dwellers unlucky in love--a steady stream of wine-curious souls head here to wake up their taste buds at the valley's more than 70 wineries and tasting rooms. The feeling here is far less pretentious--and more family-friendly and idiosyncratic--than many other California wine-country regions. Dig a bit deeper and you'll find some pretty odd phenomena coexisting amidst the oenophiles: idyllic green hills, split-pea worship, a super-swanky dude ranch, wine-trail jeep tours, cuckoo clocks galore, cupcake and wine pairings, European fairy tales, a trolley drawn by draft horses, and aebleskivers (baseball-shaped Danish pancakes). Santa Ynez Valley towns: Ballard, Buellton, Los Alamos, Los Olivos, Santa Ynez, and Solvang.

Santa Ynez Valley: Wineries, Bookstores, And Aeblskivers

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We are a practical people who take pride in quickly finding answers to our problems.  Whether working on ourselves, for which the self-help industry has an inexhaustible set of remedies, or our society, for which politicians and interest groups have an unending series of proposals, we are constantly in search of answers. But answers only help if we are asking the right questions.'Do I use this or that diet?' may be the wrong question if, in fact, weight gain is due to factors that a diet alone may not address. We thus recognize that the question: 'why do I constantly lose and then regain weight?' might lead us down a different and more revealing path.More...

The Right Questions

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In an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fla.) spoke emotionally about the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the tragedy that unfolded in Tucson, Ariz. on Saturday.Holding back tears, Wasserman-Schultz described her colleague and close friend as "a fighter" when asked about her condition as she remains hospitalized.More...

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz Reacts Emotionally To Arizona Shooting (VIDEO)

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Rebecca Traister, author of Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women, says that while she was out on her book tour, answering questions about who represented the future for women in American politics inevitably led her to have Gabrielle Giffords' "name on [her] lips, all day every day":

Of course, the human losses of today's attacks in Arizona are immeasurably greater than any political or social toll. But it would be irresponsible to fail to note that a young, highly educated, ambitious Jewish woman like Gabrielle Giffords, despite her centrism, represents much that is revolutionary and hopeful about the changing face of American politics, as well as about the new and varied paths and possibilities available to women. She is the kind of politician this nation could barely have imagined existing just a decade or two ago. And so, when I have been asked about which women are not yet national stars but have the peculiar, groundbreaking alchemy it might take to someday become the nation's first female president, again and again my answer has included the same name: Gabrielle Giffords.

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Rebecca Traister: Giffords 'Represents Much That Is Revolutionary And Hopeful' In Politics

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For years now, Apple Computer has held a firm grip on the consumer electronics gadget market. With huge hits like the iPod MP3 player, the iPod Touch media player, the iPhone cellular phone device, and lately the iPad, Apple is consistently hitting the consumer nail-on-the-head. So why is it so hard for competitors to keep pace, much less surpass any of Apple's offerings? I believe that Apple's intent (and business model) is to have its competitors shooting at moving targets; targets that Apple itself uses to keep the competition busy shooting at "technological shadow puppets".Due to the advancements of electronic technologies, the consumer electronics sector has been really busy (and very competitive) in the last 10 years or so.

Advancements like lower powered devices, battery life improvements, sharper screens, touch enabled interfaces, and the like, have created a surge in new and innovative gadgets for the masses. So, in what seems like a very cut-and-dry market like electronic devices, why isn't the playing field for device manufacturers more level? Why is Apple the device giant that it is right now?

CES 2011: Are Apple Competitors Focusing on the Wrong Target?

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Las Vegas is known for glamour and showmanship, and CES is always rich in both. This year Polaroid had Lady Gaga inventing glasses that take pictures, Sony had a spaceman DJing underneath a 3D TV the size of an Olympic swimming pool, Lenovo took over a bar in The Venetian to showcase the latest in their Thinkpad range and Intel's Mooley Eden incorporated an avatar of himself into the launch of their new 2nd Generation Core Processor. All very impressive but what about the little guys? Away from the big boys with stands the size of small counties there are thousands of start-ups and small enterprises from across the world who come to CES to hawk their wares. Spending some time on the fringes of the show throws up some weird and wonderful products. So in the spirit of sticking up for the underdog, here's my pick of some of the odder things CES had to offer:More...

Six Finds From the Fringes of CES

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WASHINGTON -- Will the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and 20 others in Arizona turn public opinion in favor of tougher gun control measures? The evidence is mixed at best. While public opinion has generally turned against stricter gun-control measures over the last twenty years, majorities continue to support greater restrictions on the sort of semi-automatic weapon used in the Tucson shootings.For the last 20 years, the Gallup organization has tracked whether Americans "feel that the laws covering the sale of firearms should be made more strict, less strict or kept as they are now." As Gallup explained in a report last November, that support has declined gradually over the last two decades to the point that a "record low 44%" now support stricter gun laws, while a majority prefer laws that are kept as they are currently (42%) or made less strict (12%).More...

Americans Favor Semi-Automatic Weapons Ban, Wary Of 'Gun Control'

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This is the third of five excerpts from law professor Laura Dickinson's book, Outsourcing War and Peace: Preserving Public Values in a World of Privatized Foreign Affairs.  Find first part one here and part two here.It seems from what Prof. Dickinson writes in the following that even without hiring and training more auditors and contracting officers, a recommendation that virtually every analyst and group which has studies private military contracting, has been making for years, the government has long had the means to ensure performance and accountability on the part of PMC it hires simply by writing in specific standards into the contracts it issues. Why it hasn't done so is one of life's little mysteries.More...

Outsourcing War and Peace: Part 3

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