Democrats scold Obama on signing statements
Artificial brain '10 years away'
A detailed, functional artificial human brain can be built within the next 10 years, a leading scientist has claimed. Henry Markram, director of the Blue Brain Project, has already simulated elements of a rat brain.
He told the TED Global conference in Oxford that a synthetic human brain would be of particular use finding treatments for mental illnesses.
Many translators unfit in any language
U.S. troops say companies that recruit military translators are sending linguists to southern Afghanistan who are unprepared to serve in combat, even as hundreds more are needed to support the growing number of troops.
Some translators are in their 60s and 70s and in poor physical condition - and some don't even speak the right language.
White House declines to disclose visits by health industry executives
Invoking an argument used by President George W. Bush, the Obama administration has turned down a request from a watchdog group for a list of health industry executives who have visited the White House to discuss the massive healthcare overhaul.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sent a letter to the Secret Service asking about visits from 18 executives representing health insurers, drug makers, doctors and other players in the debate. The group wants the material in order to gauge the influence of those executives in crafting a new healthcare policy.
Group Plans Lawsuit To Unveil the CIA’s Pentagon Papers
The CIA and other agencies are sitting on a trove of documentary evidence of actual and suspected wrongdoing under the Bush administration, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation plans to file a lawsuit Wednesday to force the intelligence community to come clean, the group says.
Jordan Begins Revoking Palestinians' Citizenship
Fearing that Israel is hatching a plan to declare Jordan the official Palestinian state, Jordanian officials have begun revoking Palestinians' citizenship en masse, stirring panic.
Jordan's population is roughly 70 percent Palestinian, making the difficulty of this move quite obvious.
However, Jordan authorities say it is aimed at preventing Israel from forcing Palestinians out of Gaza. The former Palestinian citizens of Jordan will be allowed to stay as residents, so long as they obtain "yellow ID cards" from the government.
Toyota's first fuel cell vehicle will be priced "shockingly" low
According to an article in Ward's Auto (subs req'd), when Toyota puts its first production hydrogen fuel cell vehicle up for sale in 2015, the price will be so low it will "shock" the U.S. auto industry. Justin Ward, advanced powertrain program manager-Toyota Technical Center, said that economies of scale will be in place to drop the price down to something that is surprisingly low.
Bush US Attorney arranged lenient plea deal with company paying terrorists; Lawyer who helped secure plea deal? Obama’s future Attorney General
The US Attorney who arranged the plea agreement for Chiquita, Jeffery A. Taylor, had been sworn in just six months earlier, in September 2006, under a controversial provision of the Patriot Act which enabled him to hold that position until May of this year without ever being confirmed by the Senate.
Prior to that appointment, Taylor served in the Justice Department as a counselor to Attorney Generals John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales. In early 2006, he participated in discussions of the forthcoming attorney firings with Kyle Sampson, who was the chief coordinator of the firings and whose resignation Mar. 12, 2007 marked a major turning point in the scandal.
Israeli settlers on horseback 'set fire' to Palestinian-owned olive trees
Israeli settlers on horseback set fire on Monday to at least 1,500 Palestinian-owned olive trees in the occupied West Bank and others stoned cars, a Palestinian security official said.
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