Advocacy Group

MONTPELIER -- The initials DFA are those of his high-flying presidential campaign, but Howard Dean's new advocacy group will recruit like-minded candidates seeking lower-tier offices as well as promote the election of Democratic candidate John F. Kerry. Dean, the former Vermont governor who had led in polls for the party's nomination before delegate elections began, is hoping to prove to the political establishment that he retains some of the power he once enjoyed with the legions of followers who helped him raise record amounts of campaign money.

An Israeli advocacy group won a $323 million judgment in a U.S. court against Iran and Syria for supporting Palestinian militants that killed an American teenager and ten others in a 2006 bombing, the group's director said Tuesday. Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center that represents victims of Palestinian violence said Tuesday that the group had won courtroom victories against Iran but never before against Syria. The center was representing the family of 16-year-old Daniel Wultz of Florida, who was among 11 killed when an Islamic Jihad suicide bomber...

The First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston has upheld Maine's campaign disclosure law that requires the National Organization for Marriage to release its donor list. Yesterday's decision pertaining to ballot question committees represents a defeat for the National Organization for Marriage, which previously lost a challenge to Maine's political action committee laws and laws governing independent expenditures and advertising attribution and disclaimers. The latest appeal focused on part of the law that says groups that raise or spend more than $5,000 to influence elections must register and...

Karmaloop is on a $200,000 mission to make its home city of Boston as hip as the clothing it sells. The 12-year-old company - it's an online seller of so-called streetwear that says it is battling McFashion - is investing that amount to establish the Future Boston Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy organization that will be launched Wednesday. The alliance, which Karmaloop says is being formed to help invigorate the local creative economy, will lobby City Hall to relax regulations and allow for more 24-hour services and restaurants.

GRANTS PASS, Ore. -- Long splintered into small groups, commercial fishermen are forming a national organization to promote their image, and to press their interests before Congress. The new group, the Commercial Fishermen of America announced its formation in the middle of November in Seattle. The organization hopes to be operational by next spring. "Given that politics is just becoming ever more omnipresent and unavoidable, we felt it was high time we got organized to represent the interests of all fishermen," said Jeremy Brown, a salmon and albacore troller from Bellingham, Wash., who is...

A consumer advocacy group is calling on government regulators to ban a type of surgical mesh used to treat pelvic collapse, saying it exposes patients to serious risks. Public Citizen sent a petition to the Food and Drug Administration asking the agency to ban pelvic surgical mesh inserted through the vagina. About 75,000 women had prolapse surgery with forms of the mesh last year, according to the FDA. FDA announced last month that complications with mesh are higher than previously estimated, with many women experiencing pain, bleeding and infection.

A prominent advocate of the Cape Wind offshore wind project is shutting down, saying it has achieved its primary goal of building support for offshore wind. Clean Power Now announced yesterday that it was dissolving eight years after it was founded, saying "the core mission has been accomplished. " The group cited the years of regulatory review Cape Wind cleared to become the first US offshore wind farm to win a federal lease. Cape Wind president Jim Gordon praised the group for effective advocacy and leadership.

BEIJING - Liu Ping, 47, a rights activist who has angered officials in China with her advocacy of free elections and support of labor and women's rights issues, has been missing since early this month after she was detained in Beijing by security personnel from her hometown, according to an advocacy group. Wang Songlian, a researcher at Chinese Human Rights Defenders, said Monday that Liu's disappearance was most likely part of a wave of detentions tied to the meetings of China's handpicked Legislature, the National People's Congress, and an advisory body, the Chinese People's...

WASHINGTON - An advocacy group under fire after its employees were caught on camera appearing to advise a purported prostitute and pimp to lie in order to get housing help, said yesterday that it is ordering an independent investigation. The group, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN, said it is refusing new admissions into its service programs. ACORN will work with its advisory council to name an independent auditor and investigator, ACORN chief executive Bertha Lewis said in a written statement.

Karmaloop is on a $200,000 mission to make its home city of Boston as hip as the clothing it sells. The 12-year-old company - it's an online seller of so-called streetwear that says it is battling McFashion - is investing that amount to establish the Future Boston Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy organization that will be launched Wednesday. The alliance, which Karmaloop says is being formed to help invigorate the local creative economy, will lobby City Hall to relax regulations and allow for more 24-hour services and restaurants.

Mohammed al-Gherari lost five family members, including a young niece and nephew, when NATO accidentally struck their compound in the Libyan capital as they slept. Nearly a year later, his grief is compounded by threats and allegations from neighbors who believe he and others who survived the attack were harboring a regime loyalist or hiding weapons for Moammar Gadhafi's forces. At least 72 civilians, a third of them under the age of 18, were killed by NATO airstrikes, according to a report released Monday by Human Rights Watch — one of the most extensive investigations into the...

Billionaire financier George Soros is pledging $2 million to political groups supporting progressive causes and President Barack Obama's re-election, part of an effort by liberal donors to counterbalance large sums of money flowing to Republican candidates. Soros' contributions include $1 million to the advocacy group America Votes and another $1 million pledge to American Bridge 21st Century, an outside "super" political committee supportive of Obama's campaign. So far, GOP super PACs have outraised their Democratic counterparts by tens...

The death of a former neo-Nazi whose group patrols Arizona's desert near the Mexican border for illegal immigrants and drug smugglers is raising questions about his organization's future. Friends of Jason Todd "JT" Ready vowed Friday that U.S. Border Guard's armed patrols will continue, but monitoring groups doubted the operations could be sustained. Authorities say the 39-year-old Ready shot and killed his girlfriend and three others, including a toddler, before killing himself in a Phoenix suburb Wednesday, a murder-suicide stemming from domestic...

More than a decade after Beverly turned down the Community Preservation Act, a group of residents is seeking to build support for the city's adoption of the law. The group recently conducted an online community survey and is planning to meet with organizations across the city with a tentative goal of having a proposal placed on the ballot of the November state election. "There are a lot of good projects in Beverly that we would be able to fund through this initiative," said Robert Buchsbaum, a former member of the city's Open Space and Recreation Committee and...

WASHINGTON - Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, a nonprofit affiliated with Republican adviser Karl Rove, got more than one-third of its revenue in the last seven months of 2011 from a single, unidentified donor, according to documents filed with the IRS. According to the forms, $10 million of the group's $28.4 million in revenue from June 1 to Dec. 31, 2011, came from the donor. The next highest contribution, from a different donor, was $4.3 million. Nonprofits incorporated as 501(c)

DENVER - For three years, Companeros, a small nonprofit in southwestern Colorado, has received thousands of dollars from the Roman Catholic Church to help poor Hispanic immigrants in the rural area with everything from access to health care to guidance on local laws. But in February, the group was informed by the Diocese of Pueblo that its financing from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, an arm of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops devoted to ending poverty, was in danger.

Mohammed al-Gherari lost five family members, including a young niece and nephew, when NATO accidentally struck their compound in the Libyan capital as they slept. Nearly a year later, his grief is compounded by threats and allegations from neighbors who believe he and others who survived the attack were harboring a regime loyalist or hiding weapons for Moammar Gadhafi's forces. At least 72 civilians, a third of them under the age of 18, were killed by NATO airstrikes, according to a report released Monday by Human Rights Watch — one of the most extensive investigations into the...

KAMPALA, Uganda - Four years ago, Frank Mugisha begged his colleagues to join him for his first demonstration in support of gay rights in Uganda. Only four came along. Last week, during a march against gender-based violence led by the gay advocacy group Sexual Minorities Uganda, the Ugandan activist saw more than 30 colleagues walk the streets of Kampala holding gay rights posters. "For us, this is a sign of progress," Mugisha said, pointing to the white tarpaulin under which his group assembled after Monday's hourlong march.