Media covers U.S. war dead's return after 18-year ban
The media was permitted on Sunday to cover the arrival of a U.S. soldier's coffin at the Pentagon's main mortuary in Delaware late for the first time in 18 years.
Geithner denies White House sidestepping CEO pay limits
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner denied on Sunday the Obama administration was crafting bailout initiatives to allow companies to evade limits on executive pay and other restrictions imposed by Congress.
In fact, two previous scientific papers have also found evidence contradicting the official story about 9/11 Firms Move to Fight Overseas-Profit Tax
In one of the biggest battles between the business community and the White House, corporate lobbyists are intensifying efforts to block an Obama administration proposal to raise taxes on overseas profits. Executives say the measure, which could cost U.S.-based multinationals $100 billion over the next decade, would hamper economic recovery efforts.
Obama Aid Calls for the Firing of Top Bank Executives
Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor and chair of the congressional oversight committee monitoring the goverment's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), is now calling for the firing of the nation's top bank executives if the economy is to have any chance of recovery. Warren says that letting banking leaders off the hook for the mess their companies are in will plunge the country into an even deeper hole.
The Profile Police
As high school students flock to social networking sites, campus police are scanning their Facebook and MySpace pages for tips to help break up fights, monitor gangs and thwart crime in what amounts to a new cyberbeat.
Brain Researchers Open Door to Editing Memory
Suppose scientists could erase certain memories by tinkering with a single substance in the brain. Could make you forget a chronic fear, a traumatic loss, even a bad habit.
Gun-Free Zones Are a Magnet for Attacks Like the Tragedy In Binghamton
By John R. Lott, Jr.
Time after time multiple- victim public shootings occur in “gun free zones” — public places where citizens are not legally able to carry guns. The horrible attack today in Binghamton, New York is no different. Every multiple-victim public shooting that I have studied, where more than three people have been killed, has taken place where guns are banned.
"If a killer were stalking your family, would you feel safer putting a sign out front announcing, “This home is a gun-free zone”? But that is what all these places did."
You would think that it would be an important part of the news stories for a simple reason: Gun-free zones are a magnet for these attacks. Extensive discussions of these attacks can be found here and here. We want to keep people safe, but the problem is that it is the law-abiding good citizens, not the criminals, who obey these laws. We end up disarming the potential victims and not the criminals. Rather than making places safe for victims, we unintentionally make them safe for the criminal.
New Jewish settlement town may be death blow to hopes for Israel peace
The sign in big, red Hebrew letters reads “Welcome to Mevasseret Adumim, the Harbinger of the Hills”. A three-lane road with roundabouts leads up the hill to a police station and street lamps line the flyover that links the new town to neighbouring Ma'aleh Adumim, one of the largest Jewish settlements in Israel.
There are no houses, cars or people in Mevasseret Adumim: it is a town laid out, waiting to be built. That is because international pressure has so far prevented construction from going ahead. The area is the last piece of open land linking Arab East Jerusalem to the West Bank and critics said that to develop it would bury the very notion of a two-state solution to the Middle East crisis.
US to pursue missile shield plan
US President Barack Obama said Sunday he would move forward with a plan to base a missile defence shield in central Europe despite Russian objections, saying the threat posed by Iran remained real.
Karzai bows to international calls to scrap Afghan 'rape' law
Afghanistan is to review legislation which the UN says would legalise rape within marriage after a dramatic reversal from the president, Hamid Karzai, who signed the rules into law last month.
‘Rigged’ face scan airport security risk
AIRPORT face scanners designed to stop terrorists getting into the UK have been “rigged” to cut passenger queues and are creating an “unacceptable” security risk, a confidential Whitehall e-mail has claimed.
UK border officials at Manchester airport allege the machines have been recalibrated so that passengers shown as having just a 30% likeness to their passport photographs are being let into the country.
Widow with frozen US fortune dies in poverty
A widow living in Cuba whose fortune was trapped in a Boston bank by the US trade embargo has died at the age of 108 without having ever received her money. Mary McCarthy died in her rundown Havana mansion after failing to get treatment for respiratory problems due to a shortage of cash, according to her godson and heir, Elio Garcia. "She had been suffering the embargo for 50 years," he said.
Knights Templar hid the Shroud of Turin, says Vatican
Medieval knights hid and secretly venerated The Holy Shroud of Turin for more than 100 years after the Crusades, the Vatican said today in an announcement that appeared to solve the mystery of the relic’s missing years.
U.S. Currency Exchange Controls
By Patrick Wood
Could President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner suddenly impose currency exchange controls on the United States and the U.S. dollar? This report will explore this notion and its possible consequences.
Police 'assaulted' bystander who died during G20 protests
The man who died during last week's G20 protests was "assaulted" by riot police shortly before he suffered a heart attack, according to witness statements received by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
NKorean rocket appears to fizzle, prompts outcry
The rocket launched by nuclear-armed North Korea on Sunday appears to have fizzled in the Pacific Ocean, but positioned a defiant Kim Jong Il to make demands from an international community worried that it indicates the capacity to fire a long-range missile.
Obama resumes Iran threat rhetoric
President Barack Obama vows not to shelve the controversial US missile plans until an "Iranian missile threat" is eliminated.
Let's Play Pretend!
By Peter Schiff
When elementary school kids want to escape the confines of their circumstances they pretend to be pirates, princesses, and Jedi knights. Now, with the relaxation of "mark to market" valuation rules announced yesterday by the accounting trade's self-regulatory body, our bankrupt financial institutions can escape their own reality by pretending to be solvent.
Justice Dept under microscope after Stevens trial
The bungled trial of former GOP Sen. Ted Stevens tainted more than just the Justice Department. It probably tipped the balance of a close election, and the fallout from that is far from over.
Obama said N. Korea 'broke the rules.' Now what?
North Korea's successful rocket launch Sunday - despite the failure to orbit a satellite – boosts the rogue state's chances of one day building a nuclear-tipped Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. But it leaves the US and her Asian allies in a quandary over their long-term strategy toward Pyongyang
Estimated U.S. taxpayer cost for bailout jumps
U.S. congressional budget analysts have raised their estimate of the net cost to taxpayers for the government's financial rescue program to $356 billion, an increase of $167 billion from earlier estimates.
Obama outlines sweeping goal of nuclear-free world
Declaring the future of mankind at stake, President Barack Obama on Sunday said all nations must strive to rid the world of nuclear arms and that the U.S. had a "moral responsibility" to lead because no other country has used one.
Thousands flee bomb attacks by US drones
AMERICAN drone attacks on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan are causing a massive humanitarian emergency, Pakistani officials claimed after a new attack yesterday killed 13 people.
Some carried scary names like "Three Strikes and You're Out," as in cast out of society. The harshest penalties for drug offenders, the Rockefeller laws, were named after a New York governor battling a 1970s heroin epidemic.
Legal U.S. Arms Exports May Be Source of Narco Syndicates Rising Firepower
A Narco News investigation into the flow of arms across the U.S. border appears to lead right back to the systemic corruption that afflicts a vast swath of the Mexican government under President Felipe Calderon and this nation’s own embrace of market-driven free-trade policies.
As Home Values Fall, Property Tax Revolt Brews
Homeowners watching the value of their houses slowly ebb are storming tax offices from Ann Arbor, Mich., to Atlanta, demanding that county officials reassess their homes and lower their property taxes.
£15bn for Government snoop network? Just use Facebook
Cambridge University researchers have revealed how the profile information Facebook releases to search engines could be exploited by spammers or even governments.
Conyers Again Seeks Bush Prosecutor
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has renewed his call for a special prosecutor to conduct a criminal inquiry into “war on terror” policies of the Bush administration, including whether “enhanced interrogation techniques” used on alleged terrorist detainees violated international and federal laws against torture.
Obama Endorses Soros Plan to Loot America
By Cliff Kincaid
At the G 20 summit in London, President Barack Obama won rave reviews from reporters, many of whom clamored like school kids for the chance to ask him a question at his news conference, but the official conference document proves that plans are being made for what can only be described as the further looting of American taxpayers in order to feed unaccountable and corrupt global entities.
No Debt Left Behind
By The Mogambo Guru
Over at Whiskey & Gunpowder, an essay by Don Stott of coloradogold.com reveals that we are more alike than we thought, in that he, too, is “astonished at the credulity and unabashed total economic illiteracy of the American and even the world’s public. We’re headed for hyperinflation, with prices of everything going through the roof, and America is buying stocks rather than gold and silver?”
Israel set up Syria
Looking back its clear to see how Israel set up Syria to get their troops removed from Lebanon so that Israel could invade. This is another reason to stand against globalization. Now Syria complies with its 1 UN resolution. But Israel ignores nearly 100 of them.
Barbaric Israel
A nation that has violated “every norm of civilized behavior and international law” since its founding in 1948 is held virtually blameless by the U.S. corporate media – Israel sycophants of the lowest order. “Now members of the Israeli Defense Force themselves are coming forward to admit that they committed war crimes” – but the U.S. press is censoring their confessions! Even when Israeli soldiers openly testify to committing “murder” in Gaza, as reported by the Israeli press, the U.S. corporate media “keeps the people of this country ignorant” of the crimes against humanity bankrolled by American taxpayers.
FBI database links long-haul truckers, serial killings
The FBI suspects that serial killers working as long-haul truckers are responsible for the slayings of hundreds of prostitutes, hitchhikers and stranded motorists whose bodies have been dumped near highways over the last three decades.
Why North Korea launched its rocket
One of the world's most isolated states, North Korea was hoping to become a member of a very exclusive club.
If North Korea's attempt to put an object into orbit had succeeded, then this impoverished country, hidden behind one of the last Cold War frontiers, would have joined the handful of countries with the independent capability to launch their own satellites.
George Galloway In Canada
George Galloway’s virtual tour of Canada has gained enourmous publicity, thanks to the Harper government and a few local Zionist organizations. His speeches, as scheduled, are taking place - transmitted to Canada from… the Unitet States of America.
Japan child robot mimicks infant learning
The creators of the Child-robot with Biomimetic Body, or CB2, say it's slowly developing social skills by interacting with humans and watching their facial expressions, mimicking a mother-baby relationship.
NKorea launches rocket, defying world pressure
North Korea defiantly carried out a provocative rocket launch Sunday that the U.S., Japan and other nations suspect was a cover for a test of its long-range missile technology.
Blair steps up fight to be crowned first 'President of EU'
Tony Blair has emerged as the leading candidate to become the first permanent president of the European Union after Gordon Brown gave his grudging blessing to the plan. The former prime minister has stepped up his campaign for the job, which he wants to use to build a bridge between Europe and the new Obama administration.
Economist: US collapse driven by 'fraud' (Video & Transcript)
The financial industry brought the economy to its knees, but how did they get away with it? With the nation wondering how to hold the bankers accountable, Bill Moyers sits down with William K. Black, the former senior regulator who cracked down on banks during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. Black offers his analysis of what went wrong and his critique of the bailout
Geithner is charging, is covering up. Just like Paulson did before him. Geithner is publicly saying that it's going to take $2 trillion — a trillion is a thousand billion — $2 trillion taxpayer dollars to deal with this problem. But they're allowing all the banks to report that they're not only solvent, but fully capitalized. Both statements can't be true. It can't be that they need $2 trillion, because they have masses losses, and that they're fine.
These are all people who have failed. Paulson failed, Geithner failed. They were all promoted because they failed, not because... Complex instruments were deliberately created so that swindlers could exploit them. If you leave the failed CEO's in place, their not going to disclose the truth. Their deliberately leaving the failed CEO's in place because they don't want to disclose the truth.
Stiglitz: Bank Plan Makes Taxpayers Suckers
Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz lambastes the Obama administration’s plan for ridding banks of toxic assets as a boon for Wall Street and a bust for Main Street.
Pushing an Organ Commodities Market
Psychiatrist Sally Satel, of the American Enterprise Institute, has written about being diagnosed with eventual renal failure and her efforts to jump ahead of the organ waiting list (before going on dialysis) by finding someone to give her a kidney. (Her efforts failed until the author Virgina Postrel heard of Satel's illness and gave her one of hers--an act of utter selflessness since the two women did not know each other at the time.) Ever since her illness, Satel has been pushing for the creation of an organ market in which people would be able to sell a kidney, a slice of liver, etc.
Celebrities including Kate Winslett, Dame Helen Mirren, Clive Owen, Sir Michael Caine and the Irish actor Colin Farrell have all fallen victim to legislation that allows California's state government to take possession of bank accounts, stocks and the contents of security deposit boxes if they are dormant for longer than three years.
NATO leaders agree to resume direct talks with Russia
The leaders of NATO member states have agreed here on Saturday to relaunch talks with Russia in the framework of the NATO-Russia Council (NRC), suspended by the alliance unilaterally after the Russia-Georgia military conflict.
Top British judge attacks European Court
Lord Hoffmann, the second most senior Law Lord, accused the Court of going beyond its jurisdiction and imposing "uniform rules" on states.
In a lecture to fellow judges, published this week, Lord Hoffmann said the European Court, in the French city of Strasbourg, was unable to resist the temptation to "aggrandise its jurisdiction" by laying down a "federal law of Europe".
Gunman 'lying in wait' kills 3 Pittsburgh officers
A gunman wearing a bulletproof vest and "lying in wait" opened fire on officers responding to a domestic disturbance call Saturday, killing three of them and turning a quiet Pittsburgh street into a battlefield, police said.
U.S. Delivered Weapons to Israel in March, Group Reveals
A leading international rights group has revealed that the United States delivered hundreds of tons of unspecified weapons to Israel in March - only weeks after its war on Gaza that killed hundreds of civilians - saying the new shipment of munitions raises the question whether U.S. President Barack Obama would act to prevent further Israeli attacks "that may amount to war crimes."
But, unofficially, the authorities acknowledge there have been many more.
Almost all are connected to people-smuggling and drug-smuggling rings, confined to the Spanish-speaking immigrant communities.
Gays killed in Baghdad as clerics urge clampdown
Two gay men were killed in Baghdad's Sadr City slum, a local official said on Saturday, and police said they had found the bodies of four more after clerics urged a crackdown on a perceived spread of homosexuality.
NATO picks Dane as new secretary-general after overcoming Turkey's objections
NATO leaders appointed Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as NATO's new secretary-general Saturday after overcoming Turkish objections to a leader who angered Muslims around the world by supporting the right to caricature the Prophet Muhammad.
Police Fear 'Serial Killer' Was Just DNA Contamination
A notorious German serial killer known as "the Phantom of Heilbronn" might not exist. Police believe DNA evidence which pointed to a 15-year trail of crimes across Germany was a case of contaminated cotton swabs.
The UK Minority Report: Has 'Precrime' Finally Arrived?
By Patrick St James
A recent article in the UK Independent entitled, Police identify 200 children as potential terrorists, heralds what looks to be the unofficial beginning of British law enforcement's own "Pre-crime" program. For the first time, we can begin to see intelligence gathering and emerging technologies converging in a culture of pre-emptive law enforcement
Egyptian student cleared in Florida explosives trial
A U.S. jury acquitted an Egyptian student on Friday of two explosives charges that could have sent him to prison for up to 20 years in a case that resulted in a terrorism conviction against another student.
The UK Border Agency plans to start exchanging fingerprint data with the US, Canada and Australia in the near future
The organisation, which gained full executive agency status on 1 April 2009, says in a business plan issued on the same day that that it plans to work with the USA, Canada and Australia to "introduce a system of appropriate data protection arrangements for fingerprint checks and data sharing". This is intended to help identify and bar foreign criminals from entering the country, and is planned for "early 2009".
Blackwater murderers to return to Iraq?
Most of the guards working for private US-based firm Blackwater will possibly return to Iraq despite its role in a massacre.
US to fight 'anti-Israeli crap' at UN
US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said that the new US administration wants to rejoin the sometimes troubled UN Human Rights Council, to – among other things – "battle the anti-Israel crap."
Tax Day party count nearing 2,000 U.S. cities
While WND has been tracking 400 individual tea parties across the nation, the American Family Association has announced its count is nearing 1,600 – for Tax Day alone.
AIG’s airplane business and its ties to covert U.S. ops
By Wayne Madsen
WMR previously reported on Sir Allen Stanford’s aviation fleet and its curious links to covert U.S. intelligence operations. American International Group (AIG) is also in the aviation business and its subsidiary, International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC), is one of the largest aircraft leasing businesses in the world.
The Smooth Criminal Transition from Bush/Cheney to Obama
By Larry Chin
To sober, clear-eyed observers of history and political deception, the ascension of Barack Obama held the promise for unprecedented new dangers: a revitalized New World Order, led by the Anglo-American empire’s neoliberal criminal faction and an iconic, deceptive new facilitator; and a continuation of Bush/Cheney criminality and war, under smarter and much more effective management.
Now, just months into their tenure, the Barack Obama administration has more than fulfilled the promises he made to his elite constituency, deepening the mass destruction of Bush/Cheney, while charming its victims all over the world into enjoying their own demise.
Another Example of How Gun Control Kills
Gun control laws not only result in needless deaths of those who otherwise could have armed and protected themselves, but they also inoculate the people to the fact that we're all responsible for protecting ourselves and our own families in the first place, and therefore brainwash us into believing we should ultimately place our fate in the hands of the state.
Rocket Fuel Chemical Found in Baby Formula
When a parent puts a bottle of baby formula to a child's lips, the parent might not know exactly what ingredients are in that thick, nutritionally packed mix. But rocket fuel? That's not an ingredient many expect to find.
Crackdown on illegals produces crime decline
Following a crackdown on illegal immigration, officials in Prince William County in northern Virginia are reporting their numbers reveal a significant decrease in violent crimes committed.
FBI rules out Taliban claim on New York killings
The FBI on Saturday ruled out Pakistani Taliban militant leader Baituallah Mehsud's claim that he was responsible for an attack on a U.S. immigration assistance center in New York state in which 14 people were killed.
The Economist gulps, reconsiders its Obama endorsement
You just can’t find a newspaper with more solid economic credentials than the Economist. So a lot of people were surprised when it endorsed a radical, inexperienced candidate like Barack Obama. Now the respected economic publication seems to be having second thoughts.
Barney Frank and Ron Paul team up on hemp
Liberal Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and libertarian Rep. Ron Paul, the Texas Republican who made a fine show in the GOP presidential primaries last year, find common ground today on hemp farming:
Their new bill, "The Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2009 otherwise known as HR 1866, would remove restrictions on the cultivation of non-psychoactive industrial hemp. They claim nine other sponsors, nearly equally divided between the parties.
Pentagon fires Khadr's lawyer
He had become the most vocal opponent of the trial of Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr, taking on a position more akin to politician than lawyer and launching a two-year public and media campaign that landed him on the front pages of newspapers and inside glossy magazines.
Fannie, Freddie Bonuses Total About $210 Million
In a compensation program that has drawn angry protests from lawmakers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac expect to pay about $210 million in retention bonuses to 7,600 employees over 18 months, according to a letter from the mortgage companies' regulator.
Explosives Found in World Trade Center Dust
The scientific paper Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe conclusively shows the presence of unignited aluminothermic explosives in dust samples from the Twin Towers, whose chemical signature matches previously documented aluminothermic residues found in the same dust samples.
Italian Union Says 2.7 Million Protesters in Rome
As many as 2.7 million people have joined a protest in Rome to protest the Italian government’s response to the economic crisis, the Associated Press said, citing CGIL, the country’s biggest national labor union.
Activists protest bailouts near Wall Street
Several hundred demonstrators protested near Wall Street on Friday against the handling of the U.S. economic crisis, government bailouts of private banks and corporations and bonuses paid out at insurer AIG.
Banks with taxpayer money could buy toxic assets
Banks that received billions of dollars of taxpayer money to bolster their capital could place bets on the same toxic assets that got them into trouble in the first place -- and with government support.
Anti-NATO protesters burn French border post
Anti-NATO protesters set ablaze a hotel and former frontier post on the Franco-German border on Saturday and riot police fired volleys of tear gas and shock grenades to try to contain growing violence.
Inquiry into torture allegations announced
MPs are to undertake the most far-reaching inquiry into Britain's role in human rights abuses in decades as allegations mount to suggest that officials repeatedly breached international law.
New York Times threatens to shut Boston Globe
The New York Times Co (NYT.N) has threatened to shut The Boston Globe unless the newspaper's unions agree to $20 million in concessions, the Globe reported on Friday, quoting union leaders.
From Twin Towers to Twin Camelots
By Alexander Cockburn
The world falls in love with a charismatic young president, his stylish wife, and their charming young children. In the campaign for the presidency he has defeated his opponent in part by charging Republican failure in the war against America’s enemies.
Britain should not fear asking for IMF cash
Britain should not be afraid or ashamed of taking money from the International Monetary Fund, a senior Cabinet minister has told the Daily Telegraph.
Biden vows to tackle gun violence after NY massacre
United States Vice President Joe Biden says a new approach must be taken to deal with senseless gun violence after the shooting deaths of 14 people in New York state.
Hedge fund paid Obama adviser Summers $5.2 million
Lawrence Summers, a top economic adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama, was paid about $5.2 million by hedge fund D.E. Shaw in the past year, financial disclosure forms released by the White House showed on Friday.
Administration Seeks an Out On Bailout Rules for Firms
The Obama administration is engineering its new bailout initiatives in a way that it believes will allow firms benefiting from the programs to avoid restrictions imposed by Congress, including limits on lavish executive pay, according to government officials.
Obama for nuke-free world
US President Barack Obama called for a world without nuclear weapons on Friday after arriving in France for a Nato summit, where he won French endorsement of his new Afghanistan strategy.
IMF sale will hit gold price
Gold prices are expected to slump by five per cent before the end of this month to $855 per ounce as leaders of G-20 nations agreed on Thursday that the International Monetary Fund should sell gold from its reserve to help stimulate the world economy.
Analysts say the prices may dip further by June once the supply of the precious metal rises due to sale by the IMF. The IMF can sell up to 403.3 tonnes, which is the equivalent of one-eighth of its holdings.
Suspected N.Y. shooter may have lost job
The gunman who went on a murderous rampage in a roomful of immigrants at the American Civic Association in Binghamton, N.Y. on Friday was an immigrant and a gun owner. But little else was known about him Friday, and it remained unclear what triggered his rage. More handiwork of those that want more gun control? Was the shooter a mind controlled assassin?
The US Should Fear Its Friends
By Ivan Eland
President Warren Harding once said, "I have no trouble with my enemies," but noted that his friends "keep me walking the floor nights." That maxim should have applied to U.S. foreign policy since 9/11 and even before that.
Suspected US missile attack kills 13 in Pakistan
A suspected US missile strike on a militant hideout early Saturday killed at least 13 people and injured several more in Pakistan's tribal region bordering Afghanistan, an intelligence official said.
Unseen Footage: Riot police attack peaceful protesters at G20
Riot police use shields and batons in unprovoked attack on peaceful protesters. It took place at the Climate Camp on Bishopsgate in the City of London during the first day of the G20 protests on Wednesday 1st April 2009.
Senate OKs Measure Calling on Fed to Name Firms
In an unusual political challenge to the Federal Reserve, the Senate on Thursday called on the central bank to disclose the names of institutions that receive emergency loans and pushed for a study to determine the "appropriate" number of regional fed banks.
During a ride-along with a Temple University senior journalism student, the officer, William Thrasher, who is white, was quoted as calling the residents of the predominantly black 22d District "animals" and the violence that happens there "typical n- s-" or "TNS.
Maryland Police Accused of Beating Shackled Teen, Covering It Up
Two Baltimore police officers beat a teenager with a baton and a pool stick while he was handcuffed and shackled, then tried to cover up the attack with their sergeant's help, according to a federal indictment unsealed Wednesday.
Darkside of the Looking Glass
Anyone interested in why the Naked Short Selling/Fraudulent Stock Transaction crisis is the largest financial crisis to hit our market system in the last hundred years should pay close attention to the presentation - it doesn't get any clearer.
Exposing lies about U.S. guns and Mexican crime
An ATF spokesperson explained to CNSNews.com that the bureau does not actually count, acquire, inspect, or warehouse the weapons confiscated in Mexico; and it does not know for sure how many guns in total have been confiscated by Mexican authorities, or how many confiscated guns may not have serial numbers.
