WASHINGTON - September 23, 2011 - The federal government has doled out more than $600 million in benefit payments to dead people over the past five years, a watchdog report says.

Such payments are meant for retired or disabled federal workers, but sometimes the checks keep going out even after the former employees pass away and the deaths are not reported, according to the report this week from the Office of Personnel Management's inspector general, Patrick McFarland.

DETROIT, Michigan (PNN) - September 21, 2011 - If you're the owner of a fairly new General Motors product, you may want to take a close look at the most recent OnStar terms and conditions; the company has altered the parameters under which it can legally collect GPS data on your vehicle.

It is not OK to hate your enemy.

I cannot emphasize this enough.  If you rejoice in the death of your enemy, then you rejoice in the destruction of life… and that is what those whom we revile do.  If we act the same way then we are no better than they are.

DENVER, Colorado (PNN) - September 20, 2011 - The leader of the pro-Constitutional, Rule of Law, common law group known as the Montana Freemen, who courageously resisted federal authorities in the 1990s, died on Tuesday of apparent natural causes at the U.S. government's highest-security prison.

Leroy Schweitzer, 73, was found unresponsive in his cell early on Tuesday, according to a release from the Federal Correctional Complex in Florence, Colorado, where he was serving a bogus 22-year sentence for convictions of various tax, fraud and weapons offenses that were based solely on fabricated evidence by corrupt government officials.

LOS ANGELES, Kalifornia - September 18, 2011 - Texas Rep. Ron Paul won a Kalifornia straw poll, the state Republican Party announced in a statement Saturday night.

A total of 833 ballots were cast during the straw poll, the statement said.

Paul won with 44.9% of the votes, Texas Gov. Rick Perry came in second with 29.3% of the votes, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney came in third with 8.8% of the votes.

MELBOURNE, Australia - September 17, 2011 - Forget “I spy” and hand-held video games; a team of developers is working on technology that will entertain little ones in the back seat with holograms controlled by motion sensors.

The technology, which is similar to Microsoft's Kinetic system, is being developed by the Games and Experimental Entertainment Laboratory (or GEElab as it is more affectionately known) at Victoria's RMIT University.

WASHINGTON - September 10, 2011 - This past Thursday, Terrahawk, LLC  showed off its Mobile Utility Surveillance Tower (MUST) to members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate along with their staffs.

With MUST, law enforcement agencies can quickly set up a mobile surveillance tower for emergency response, crowd control, or general surveillance.

In the line at the store, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized to him and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today: your generation did not care enough to save our environment."

VIENNA, Austria - September 7, 2011 - The emotional moment a group of chimpanzees saw daylight for the first time after being kept in a laboratory for their whole lives has been caught on film.

The video shows the animals edging out of the door hesitantly at first and looking curiously up at the sky.

But they then appear to celebrate their newfound freedom by hugging each other and laughing.

ATHENS, Greece (PNN) - September 1, 2011 - Tax evasion in Greece threatened to take organized form on Thursday when café and restaurant owners refused to pay a 10-point VAT rise, as a deep recession clashes with the government’s increasingly desperate search for revenue.

The steep rise in value added tax on the hospitality sector from 13%- 23% is part of a package of fiscal measures agreed to in return for the country’s second financial rescue by European Union partners.

But for many of Greece’s ubiquitous cafés and souvlaki stands, which have already seen a 20-40% decline in business in the past year as customers rein in spending, the VAT rise is the final straw.