"Having spent more than $30 million to help elect their allies to Congress, the major drug companies are devising ways to capitalize on their electoral success by securing favorable new legislation and countering the pressure that lawmakers in both parties feel to lower the cost of prescription drugs, industry officials say.

If you happen to sound like you're older than 54, don't even bother calling in to any of the talk shows on Chicago's WLS-AM radio station. Michael Packer, operations manager of the ABC-owned news/talk station, sent a confidential memo to staffers ordering them to screen out "any old sounding callers" no matter what they have to say. (Maybe they're worried that old people can still remember a time when radio stations carried something other than rantings from right-wing gasbags.)

Wisconsin's huge deer herd is infected with chronic wasting disease (CWD), a deadly dementia that is a mad cow-type disease in deer, filling their brains with swiss cheese-like holes and plaque. The best available scientific evidence indicates that CWD, like British mad cow disease, could infect and kill humans. Rather than learn from Britain's mistakes and take a precautionary approach, Wisconsin has launched a PR and advertising campaign to belittle human health concerns and promote hunting.