Here's our weekly selection of top rated news and opinions, reviewed by NewsTrust members like you. Check the stories below, or visit our home page for daily updates:
http://beta.newstrust.net/

This week, we're launching advertising on our home page, on a trial basis. Though we are non-profit, we need new sources of revenue to support our operations, besides donations. Over the next few weeks, we will measure the impact of advertising on our site and determine how to best use it on NewsTrust. Please tell us what you think:
http://beta.newstrust.net/about/site_feedback

And if you would like to support our citizen initiative, consider making a tax-deductible donation today. Your contribution can help pay for better news feeds, personalized news pages, faster servers, community outreach and a lot more. We're primarily funded through private donations from members like you. Please click here to make your contribution:
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We've also listed below some other ways you can support our cause.

Thanks for helping us find good journalism online!

Fabrice Florin and the NewsTrust Team

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TODAY'S PICKS
Here are today's top rated news and opinions, based on ratings from members like you:

BIODIESEL BOOM SCARES SEED GROWERS
Seattle Post Intelligencer - By Colin McDonald - Feb. 21 (News Report)
MOUNT VERNON -- With Washington poised to become a national leader in "green" fuel, fields of bright-yellow canola flowers soon may be as common a sight as golden wheat in parts of the Palouse and other farm-rich areas east of the Cascades... (3.9 avg. rating)
http://beta.newstrust.net/.f084bef

FIFTH FLEET CHIEF FEARS "MISCALCULATION" BY IRAN
Agence France Presse - Feb. 21 (News Report)
The outgoing commander of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet has expressed concern that a "miscalculation" by Iran in its nuclear standoff with the West could spark an armed conflict in the Gulf region. Vice Admiral Patrick M... (3.6 avg. rating)
http://beta.newstrust.net/.f084cad

VOTERS FACE A LARGE AND DISMAL FIELD
Cleveland Plain Dealer - By Kevin O'Brien - Feb. 21 (Opinion)
Election Day 2008 is still almost two years away, and yet we've got all sorts of campaigns announced and under way. And when you look at the field assembled so far, one rather stunning fact asserts itself: There will be a 44th president of the United States... (3.3 avg. rating)
http://beta.newstrust.net/.f084ad7

PATIENT'S FAMILY SUES JACKSON, HOSPITAL
Associated Press - Feb. 21 (News Report)
Family attorney James McKiernan said in his complaint that a circus-like atmosphere at the hospital because of Jackson's arrival caused "emotional and mental lasting effects" on the Ruiz family. "Manuela Ruiz was dying," the suit said... (3.2 avg. rating)
http://beta.newstrust.net/.f084af7

DEMOCRATS MAY FIND OUT THE HARD WAY
Hartford Courant - By Jonah Goldberg - Feb. 21 (Opinion)
There is an idea out there. Perhaps not a fully formed one. Perhaps more like the whisper of one gusting like a sudden draft through the rafters of the conservative house, causing some to look toward the attic and ask fearfully, "What was that?" This wisp of a notion is simply... (3.2 avg. rating)
http://beta.newstrust.net/.f084c05

MORE TODAY'S PICKS:
http://beta.newstrust.net/stories/todays_picks.htm

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STORIES FOR REVIEW
Please review some of these recent member submissions:

RAPE ACCUSATION REINFORCES FEARS IN A DIVIDED IRAQ
New York Times - By Marc Santora - Feb. 21 (News Report)
... when a 20-year-old Sunni woman from Baghdad appeared on the satellite television station Al Jazeera on Monday night with a horrific account of kidnapping and sexual assault at the hands of three officers in the Shiite-dominated Iraqi National Police, people across the country were... (3.7 from source rating)
http://beta.newstrust.net/.f084bb4

JOINT FORCE WEIGHS MOVE ON SADR CITY
Los Angeles Times - By Borzou Daragahi - Feb. 21 (Special Report)
U.S. and Iraqi forces have moved aggressively in the last week to combat Sunni Arab insurgents in neighborhoods across the capital and to establish a stronger presence in religiously mixed districts long plagued by sectarian violence... (3.7 from source rating)
http://beta.newstrust.net/.f084bdb

THE WOMAN IN THE MIDDLE
Washington Post - By Juliet Eilperin, Michael Grunwald - Feb. 21 (Special Report)
The Democratic majority was only three weeks old, but by Jan. 26, the grass-roots and Net-roots activists of the party's left wing had already settled on their new enemy: Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.), the outspoken chair of the centrist New Democrat Coalition... (3.6 from source rating)
http://beta.newstrust.net/.f084c23

THE "FANTASTIC JOB" NEWSWEEK'S RICHARD WOLFFE CLAIMS HE IS DOING
Salon - By Glenn Greenwald - Feb. 21 (Blog Post)
At the National Press Club last night, White House spokesman Tony Snow sat down for a chat with what appeared to be some of his best friends -- our nation's elite "journalists" assigned to the White House -- and they all sat around amicably bemoaning how terribly unfair the... (3.6 from source rating)
http://beta.newstrust.net/.f084c53

DRUG COMPANY WYETH PAYS BIG FOR CAUSING BREAST CANCER
The Cancer Blog - By The Cancer Blog - Feb. 21 (Blog Post)
Wyeth officials say their hormone replacement therapy Prempro is not the cause of one Ohio woman's breast cancer. But two jury decisions prove otherwise. The first jury, in October, awarded Jennie Nelson and her husband $1... (source not rated)
http://beta.newstrust.net/.f084c65

BRITS SPLIT
Forward Movement - By Jules Crittenden - Feb. 21 (Blog Post)
Brits are halving their force in Iraq. Tony Blair, who long fought within his own party to do the right thing in Iraq, is giving in to political forces he is no longer willing to fight. He's leaving himself soon enough, so he might as well set the terms for the British draw down, to... (source not rated)
http://beta.newstrust.net/.f084bf9

MORE STORIES FOR REVIEW:
http://beta.newstrust.net/stories/stories_to_review.htm

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THIS WEEK'S TOP STORIES (Independent Sources)
Here are this week's top rated stories from independent sources, based on ratings from members like you:

NYT BREAKS OWN ANONYMITY RULES
FAIR - By Byron Calame, Public Editor - Feb. 16 (Special Report)
Paper pushes Iran threat with one-sided array of unnamed officials (4.5 avg. rating)
http://beta.newstrust.net/.f083a24

DICK CHENEY'S DANGEROUS SON-IN-LAW
Washington Monthly - Feb. 19 (Special Report)
In March 2003, when the world's attention was focused on U.S. soldiers heading to Baghdad, twelve senior officials in the Bush administration gathered around a long oak conference table in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, part of the White House complex... (4.4 avg. rating)
http://beta.newstrust.net/.f083f2b

INTERVIEW WITH AL FRANKEN, U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE
Minnesota Monitor - By Joe Bodell - Feb. 19 (Interview)
On February 14th, humorist and Air America radio personality Al Franken made official what political observers have long expected: he will run for the DFL nomination for U.S. Senate in 2008, hoping to face off against incumbent Republican Norm Coleman... (4.2 avg. rating)
http://beta.newstrust.net/.f08427f

UNBEARABLY, PAINFULLY, DEPRESSINGLY FUNNY
Salon - By Glenn Greenwald - Feb. 19 (Blog Post)
The Washington Post's Dana Priest is one of the nation's most accomplished and (in my view) most impressive journalists. Last year, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her superb work in uncovering and informing Americans about the Bush administration's network of Eastern European secret... (4.1 avg. rating)
http://beta.newstrust.net/.f084304

YOUTUBE IS GOOD FOR TV
Buzzmachine - By Jeff Jarvis - Feb. 20 (Opinion)
The days of doing business by telling customers what they cannot do are nearing an end. If your customers want to watch your shows, listen to your songs, read your news, or play your games, can you still get away with telling them they cannot unless they come to you and use your... (3.8 avg. rating)
http://beta.newstrust.net/.f084803

MORE TOP RATED INDEPENDENT STORIES:
http://beta.newstrust.net/stories/toprated_independent.htm

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THIS WEEK'S TOP STORIES (Mainstream Sources)
Here are this week's top rated stories from mainstream sources, based on ratings from members like you:

ARITHMETIC, POPULATION AND ENERGY
Science - By Dr. Albert Bartlett - Feb. 17 (Special Report)
Dr. Albert Bartlett, who made this video, says: "the greatest shortcoming of the human race is the inability to understand the exponential function." So, if you don't have the time to watch this video, then you are part of the problem... (5.0 avg. rating)
http://beta.newstrust.net/.f083c4b

THE HOTEL AFTERMATH
Washington Post - By Anne Hull, Dana Priest - Feb. 19 (Special Report)
The guests of Mologne House have been blown up, shot, crushed and shaken, and now their convalescence takes place among the chandeliers and wingback chairs of the 200-room hotel on the grounds of Walter Reed Army Medical Center... (4.7 avg. rating)
http://beta.newstrust.net/.f08432b

MAKING MARTIAL LAW EASIER
New York Times - Feb. 19 (Editorial)
A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night. So it was with a provision quietly tucked into the enormous defense budget bill at the Bush administration's behest that makes it easier for a... (4.2 avg. rating)
http://beta.newstrust.net/.f084180

WALTER REED COULDN'T HANDLE WOUNDED FROM IRAQ, LEADER SAYS
Los Angeles Times - By Peter Spiegel - Feb. 18 (News Report)
The head of the Army hospital responsible for most of the seriously injured war veterans has acknowledged that the staff responsible for tracking patients after they receive treatment was overwhelmed by the number of wounded when violence spiked in Iraq two years ago... (4.2 avg. rating)
http://beta.newstrust.net/.f083d96

ALMOST EVERYONE LIES, OFTEN SEEING IT AS A KINDNESS
Washington Post - Feb. 19 (Editorial)
Feldman's experiments show that stern-faced judicial proceedings about perjury are as remote from the realities of human behavior as President Bush is from the Nobel Peace Prize. For one thing, lying plays a more complex role in human relationships than the black-and-white legal view... (4.1 avg. rating)
http://beta.newstrust.net/.f084159

MORE TOP RATED MAINSTREAM STORIES:
http://beta.newstrust.net/stories/toprated_mainstream.htm

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HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT NEWSTRUST

If you like what you see, there are many ways you can support our non-profit service. Here are some ideas to get you started. 

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ABOUT NEWSTRUST

NewsTrust helps people find good journalism online. Our next-generation social network features some of the best news and opinions from hundreds of trusted online sources rated by our members. We rate the news based on journalistic quality, not just popularity. 

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