Social Issues

DEATH_WEB_20121211_0006

**FILE** Demonstrators chant slogans against the death penalty at a Sept. 21, 2011, rally in Jackson, Ga., for Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis, who was executed later that day for the 1991 murder of a police officer. (Associated Press)

DEATH_WEB_20121211_0005

**FILE** William "Billy" Mitchell, 35, of Folkston, Ga., seen here in an undated photo, was executed in 1987 for the 1974 murder of a 14-year-old boy during a convenience store robbery. (Associated Press)

DEATH_WEB_20121211_0004

**FILE** This undated photo provided by the Idaho Department of Correction shows death row inmate Paul Ezra Rhoades. Rhoades was convicted of three murders in Idaho Falls and Blackfoot in 1988 and sentenced to death for two of them. (Associated Press/Idaho Department of Correction)

DEATH_WEB_20121211_0001

**FILE** An anti-death penalty protester in Jackson, Ga., is helped off the ground Sept. 21, 2011, after hearing about a delay of the execution of Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis by the U.S. Supreme Court. Davis was convicted of killing off-duty Savannah officer Mark MacPhail. (Associated Press)

20121210-211333-pic-914696030.jpg

“You can release an innocent person from prison but you can't release them from the grave,” said Randy Steidl, a former death row inmate in Illinois. (Associated Press)

20121210-184501-pic-689855937.jpg

Nafissatou Diallo, a hotel housekeeper who had contended she was sexually assaulted by then-International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, agreed to a settlement Monday in court in New York. The amount of the settlement was kept confidential. Mr. Strauss-Kahn did not attend the hearing. (Associated Press)

20121210-181427-pic-337542032.jpg

Kevin Clash, seen here in January 2011 with the “Sesame Street” puppet Elmo, for whom he was the longtime voice, has been hit with yet another sexual-abuse lawsuit by a man who claims Mr. Clash seduced him when the plaintiff was a minor. (Associated Press)

APTOPIX Strauss Kahn _Lea.jpg

Nafissatou Diallo, who claimes she was sexually assaulted by former International Monetary Fund leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn, arrives at a courthouse in the Bronx borough of New York on Monday, Dec. 10, 2012. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

MORSI_WEB_20121210_0011

An Egyptian protester with a mask on his face and a sticker with Arabic that reads "No for the constitution of the Morshid" during a protest against President Mohammed Morsi near the presidential palace in Cairo on Dec. 7, 2012. (Associated Press)

CLIFF_WEB_20121210_0006

**FILE** House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, walks through Statuary Hall on Capitol Hill in Washington on Dec. 7, 2012, before her news conference. (Associated Press)

CLIFF_WEB_20121210_0002

**FILE** House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, speaks to reporters at Statuary Hall on Capitol Hill in Washington on Dec. 7, 2012. (Associated Press)

20121209-202949-pic-60410466.jpg

“The only obstacle standing in the way of middle-income tax relief are the Republicans’ unwillingness to ask the top 2 percent to pay their fair share,” says Nancy Pelosi. (Associated Press)

20121209-195707-pic-992488210.jpg

“Why is it that we don’t have a farm bill? It isn’t just the differences of policy. It’s the fact that rural America with a shrinking population is becoming less and less relevant to the politics of this country, and we had better recognize that and we better begin to reverse it.” - Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack (Associated Press)