American news reports quite often talk of things like sufficient votes in Congress, Senators blocking a reform bill, or a power shift in the House of Representatives.

But who are these shadowy characters and institutions?

Together they are the United States Congress – the centre of American power and a political force that is largely unknown or misunderstood.

Simply put, the congress makes laws while the White House runs the country.

Billionaires Bill and Melinda Gates have earned worldwide praise for their decision to use a large portion of their wealth to fund the world’s largest private charitable foundation.

For the last two weeks, some of America’s most powerful men have been camping out among the Redwood trees just north of San Francisco.

It’s the annual gathering of the Bohemian Club at Bohemian Grove in Monte Rio.

There, as they have done since 1893, the club’s members of artists, presidents, politicians, businessmen and academics meet to talk about life, business and world issues.

The Bohemian Club

The American political scene has never been short of colourful characters, from allegations of cross-dressing and marital affairs, to George Bush and Sarah Palin.

Carrying on this tradition is a new force brewing in America, fronted by Sarah Palin, known as the Tea Party movement.

Linked to the Republican right-wing but even more conservative in nature, the Tea Party has attracted a huge amount of media attention and has become a vocal source of opposition.

The image of a trench-coat CIA man, lurking in the dark corners of the worlds’ capital cities, scoping out top secret information has long been most people’s idea of intelligence gathering.

That may have been the case once, but in the 21st century as the US government ploughs more and more of its intelligence budget into hiring private contractors, the intelligence industry has been privatised and corporatised.

On Thursday, the United States Senate passed a new set of laws that will control how America’s banking industry will operate.

The rules are designed to avoid repeating an economic crisis like that faced in 2008, when the US was on the brink of economic depression. They are also designed to avoid another taxpayer bailout of any kind.

But some experts believe that although the changes may avoid another 2008 crisis, they’re not good enough to avoid any crisis. Here’s a summary of the strengths and weaknesses of the game’s new rules.

On Monday night, missing Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri added another strange twist to his tale by turning up unannounced at Pakistan’s embassy in Washington.

He went missing over a year ago in Saudi Arabia. Then in June, two videos of him turned up on YouTube – one claiming he had been kidnapped by the CIA, and the other claiming he was studying in America on his own free will.

On June 27, the FBI arrested 10 people in America – 8 of whom are married couples – and charged them with not identifying themselves as spies for the Russian government.

Such charges are rarely used, and sound a bit self-defeating if you’re a spy.

Nevertheless, their arrest proves the Cold War-era of spy tricks and espionage (giving classified information to foreign governments) is still very much alive.

Being a spy

There are two kinds of spies that operate in a foreign country.

It’s tempting to dismiss the anti-government ‘patriot’ groups re-emerging in the US as little more than clubs for men who refuse to outgrow their boyhood Armageddon fantasies.

But that would be a mistake. Members of the more extreme variety can be found dressed in camouflage fatigues, crawling through the countryside in states such as Texas and Michigan, and conducting military exercises in preparation for a coming war with the government.

Unfortunately for BP and America, efforts at blocking the leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico haven’t worked. In fact, the latest attempt may have made the leak worse by 20%.

It’s now officially the worst oil disaster in US history, and White House officials are suggesting it’s their worst environmental disaster of any kind.

Now experts are pointing out a well-known problem within the industry – that the technology to fix a well is a long way behind the technology to drill a well.

Failed attempts