JENNIFER C. KERR | The Associated Press:Two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report from Congress. The study by the Government Accountability Office, expected to be released Tuesday, said about 68 percent of foreign companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes over the same period.Collectively, the companies reported trillions of dollars in sales, according to GAO's estimate. "It's shameful that so many corporations make big profits and pay nothing to support our country," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who asked for the GAO study with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.An outside tax expert, Chris Edwards of the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, said increasing numbers of limited liability corporations and so-called "S" corporations pay taxes under individual tax codes. "Half of all business income in the United States now ends up going through the individual tax code," Edwards said.

The Independent reports:The mystery of what killed off the Neanderthals about 30,000 years ago comes a step closer to being solved with a study suggesting that they formed a tiny population that had been teetering on the brink of extinction.Neanderthals first appeared in Europe at least 300,000 years ago but they disappeared after the arrival of anatomically modern humans, Homo sapiens, who first arrived in Europe 50,000 years ago. This has led to speculation about whether the Neanderthals interbred with the new arrivals to form a hybrid population that became submerged in the human gene pool, or were instead wiped out by them, either through competition for resources or by violence.The latest evidence, an analysis of DNA recovered from a 38,000-year-old fossilised thigh bone, suggests the Neanderthals did not interbreed with modern humans but were eradicated by them.

As I write this, many progressives have lost hope that a Barack Obama victory will mean a real change in direction for this country. Obama now supports the death penalty as well as retroactive immunity for telecommunication companies that gave data on U.S. citizens to government intelligence agencies, violating our constitutional rights. Worst of all, Obama offers no far-reaching plan of action to address the dire ecological crisis -- resource depletion, species extinction, climate change -- that threatens our immediate future. At a time when we need leaders who speak truth to power, he is playing the old political game. What kind of policies would offer a meaningful response to our current situation? Unfortunately, the changes we need seem so far beyond the limits of current political discourse that it might be laughable if it weren't tragic. With the earth's population expanding and burgeoning middle classes in China and India demanding a fairer share of dwindling resources, the American lifestyle needs to be radically downscaled. We are four percent of the earth's population consuming 25 percent of its energy, and this cannot continue.

ColoradoChange writes: Denver officials weren't planning to reveal details about where activists would be detained in the event of mass arrests during the Democratic National Convention until after the event had started, but those plans were quickly dashed this week when CBS 4News reporter Rick Sallinger not only revealed that protesters would be locked up in a city-owned warehouse, but he also obtained clear video footage inside the facility, a building that includes barbed wire-topped cages and signs warning of stun-gun use.

On Gawker: Most of what we know about Scientology's "supreme ruler" we learned from South Park: 75 million years ago, the evil alien brought humans to earth in a spaceship and killed them; the psychic trauma of the event has affected us ever since. The Church of Scientology, embarrassed by the story, has always tried to hide its existence. Until now. The Church has been playing a cat-and-mouse game with YouTubers, getting it removed in many cases; we have the audio of founder L. Ron Hubbard explaining it all, his creepy voice sounding like it's narrating the weirdest Power Point presentation of all time.