Cuban President Raul Castro said in an interview released Wednesday that he would like to meet President-elect Barack Obama on "neutral ground" - and he suggested the American naval base at Guantanamo Bay.
Penn asked if Castro would meet with Obama in Washington. The Cuban president said he "would have to think about it," but that it would not be fair for either leader to go to the other's territory. Instead he suggested the base at Guantanamo.
Raul Castro to Sean Penn: he'd meet Obama at Gitmo
Israeli world first: Surgeons weld wounds shut with surgical laser
Surgeons of the future may have to learn welding rather than sewing, now that a team of applied physicists at Tel Aviv University have developed an efficient and safe way to close incisions in the skin that they say could also be used on cuts inside the body.
FDA Scientists Revolt Against Corrupt Food and Drug Administration Officials
A group of scientists working in the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health division has revolted against the corrupt managers of its own department, accusing them of committing crimes by claiming, "There is extensive documentary evidence that managers at CDRH have corrupted and interfered with the scientific review of medical devices."
The letter from the FDA's own scientists goes on to say, "It is evident that managers at CDRH have deviated from FDA's mission to identify and address underlying problems with medical devices before they cause irreparable harm, and this deviation has placed the American people at risk."
Bush administration quietly works to torpedo global warming regulations
Top Bush administration figures have been e-mailing sympathetic mayors and other allies encouraging them to oppose Environmental Protection Agency rules to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The Supreme Court last year ordered the EPA to craft a proposal to limit the emissions under the Clean Air Act, but the White House made clear it doesn't like the idea.
The slow death of Gaza
It has been two weeks since Israel imposed a complete closure of Gaza, after months when its crossings have been open only for the most minimal of humanitarian supplies. Now it is even worse: two weeks without United Nations food trucks for the 80% of the population entirely dependent on food aid, and no medical supplies or drugs for Gaza's ailing hospitals. No fuel (paid for by the EU) for Gaza's electricity plant, and no fuel for the generators during the long blackouts.
There can be no dispute that measures of collective punishment against the civilian population of Gaza are illegal under international humanitarian law. Fuel and food cannot be withheld or wielded as reward or punishment. But international law was tossed aside long ago.
FDIC adds 54 more banks to its 'problem list'
In the second quarter, 117 FDIC-insured institutions were on the list. Now, at 171, the number of institutions on the FDIC's "problem list" is at its highest level since late 1995.
"We've had profound problems in our financial markets that are taking a rising toll on the real economy," said FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair in a statement, adding that Tuesday's report "reflects these challenges."
Total assets held by troubled institutions climbed from $78.3 billion to $115.6 billion — a figure that suggests that the nation's top 20 banks aren't on the list, even though they are getting slammed, too, by the growing credit crisis. The FDIC does not reveal the institutions it deems troubled.
TVNL Comment: So we are to believe that every bank in the country made the same mistakes? We are falling for the second biggest scam in US history, the first being the incarnation of the Federal Reserve.
Franken camp finds 6,400 uncounted absentee ballots
With the recount in the razor-thin Minnesota U.S. Senate race continuing into its second week, Democratic candidate Al Franken's campaign says it has uncovered 6,400 rejected absentee ballots and will ask a state board to count at least some of those votes.
Franken's campaign also says several dozen ballots have gone missing.
As mortgages went bad, New Century executives cashed out
While the Irvine subprime lender was failing, key executives continually changed their stock trading plans and often sold within days of colleagues' trades, a Times investigation shows.
No charges have been filed, and attorneys for the company's former top executives say that none of the executives sold stock based on information that had not been disclosed to the public and that the executives retained most of their shares when the company went under.
Prisoners have no right to hot meals, appeal court says
Observing that prisoners have no right to be served food at "the most aesthetically pleasing temperature," the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco overturned a judge's ruling that would have required Pelican Bay State Prison in Del Norte County to turn up the heat on meals to inmates in the security housing unit.
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