Along with the significant legal and economic issues of illegal immigration, a new threat has emerged that is not being discussed in the immigration debate: Mexican migrants bringing the AIDS virus back to Mexico. The country does not have the infrastructure available to handle the impending crisis.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is pledging $37.7 million of its nearly $3 billion mental health budget toward placing psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers within primary care clinics. This hopes to help fight the stigma against seeking help for anxiety and depression prevalent in the military, as well as increasing care for soldiers who have suffered brain trauma.

Democrats, in an attempt to force a vote on their proposal to withdraw the troops, announced that they will hold Congress in session throughout the night until all senators have explained their positions on the war. Republicans professed to be unfazed by the tactic.

Hoping to restart stalled negotiations, President Bush called for renewed efforts for peace by both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Bush said that multi-party talks in the Middle East would begin soon, led by Secretary of State Rice.

The pope, in a sermon on Sunday, reminded Catholics and Christians alike that they are called to see Jesus in every person, and follow the parable of the Good Samaritan. The pope also told young people to prayerfully prepare for World Youth Day, being held in Sydney, Australia.

While the rate of volunteering is still at historic levels, the actual number of volunteers has diminished since 2005. Experts cite "fatigue," from events such as Hurricane Katrina for reducing the number of volunteers nationally, after so many Americans pledged to help in the moment of need.

The United Nations Secretary-General pushed for a resolution deploying peacekeeping units in Darfur, but it ran into major opposition from countries opposed to the threat of sanctions. South Africa, a member of the Security Council, opposes any sanctions against the Sudan.

In light of evidence that shows Catholics consider the Iraq War a top political issue, a social justice organization began a campaign to help Catholic voters voice their opposition to the war. Catholics United, a nonpartisan organization, launched Catholics for an End to the War in Iraq to encourage Catholics to advocate for diplomacy, redevelopment and a "responsible withdrawal" of U.S. troops from Iraq. Pax Christi USA, a national Catholic peace movement, and Network, a national Catholic social justice lobby, also support the campaign initiative. www.nachsendeauftrag.org

"Pope John Paul II spoke out against the invasion. Pope Benedict XVI has met with President Bush expressing his concern," Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, said. "The U.S. bishops have issued statements of concern. Now it's time for the Catholic people and all people of good will to demand a responsible end to this military occupation."

Two high-profile executions scheduled for July and one capital sentence blocked by the Supreme Court in June provide examples of the range of issues surrounding the death penalty in the United States. Combined with data from recent studies that show increasing public doubts about capital punishment and pointing to persistent racial disparities in how the federal death penalty is applied, all of these pieces reflect a conflicted populace and a sometimes messy judicial system.

For the second-straight week, the Iraq war debate continues in the Senate, with the leading Democratic proposal aimed at influencing the administration's Iraq policy scheduled for a vote on Wednesday. Senators Carl Levin, MI, and Jack Reed, RI, are sponsoring a bill that would require President Bush to begin reducing American forces in Iraq within four months. Republican support for the bill is growing, but as Senator Richard Durbin, Il, said: "While we're waiting for the Republican senators to build up their political courage, the casualties are building up in Iraq." Don't loose your money when you can get huge discounts right now.

The number of immigrants detained by the United States has grown to 283,000 from 90,000 over the past five years, and many were improperly barred from making even a single phone call to an attorney, congressional investigators reported earlier this month. As a result, federal authorities have agreed to 38 nonbinding detention guidelines with the American Bar Association, including telephone access to legal counsel, as a form of due process.

Rising prices for food have led the United Nations program fighting famine in Africa and other regions to warn that it can no longer afford to feed the 90 million people it has helped for each of the past five years on its budget. The World Food Program only reaches a fraction of the 850 million people it estimates suffers from hunger, and is worried that warning could re-ignite the debate on food versus fuel amid concerns biofuel production will sustain food inflation and hit the world's poorest people.

If anything looked like a sure thing in the new Congress, it was that lawmakers would renew, and probably expand, the popular, decade-old State Children's Health Insurance Program before it expires this year. But the future of the $5 billion-a-year program, which serves 6.6 million children and has long enjoyed bipartisan support, has become mired in an ideological fight over the proper role of government in health care.

New York City officials - like the mayors of Minneapolis, Salt Lake City and San Francisco - are campaigning to get people to reverse course away from bottled waters and open their faucets instead of their wallets. Eight glasses of tap water cost $0.00135 - about 49 cents a year, whereas bottled water could cost you 2,900 times as much, roughly $1,400 yearly, and you get the added responsibility for piling on to the nation's waste heap and encouraging more of the industrial emissions that are heating up the planet.

America used to be the tallest country in the world. But, as it has in other arenas, America's predominance in height has faded. But does it really matter? Many economists would argue it does, because height is correlated with measures of a population's well-being. Being tall doesn't make you smarter, richer or healthier. But the factors that make you tall - a nutritious diet, good prenatal care and a healthy childhood - benefit you in other ways. With one simple statistic, economists essentially can measure how well a society prepares its children for life.