The proposed price of an exclusive new prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, rose by $20 million in a year because designers added meeting rooms and a medical clinic for 15 former CIA captives, including accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, a military spokesman saidMonday.
Last year, the military estimated it would cost $49 million to build a new Camp 7, Guantanamo's name for its clandestine high-value detainee lockup. Last week, the U.S. House Armed Services Committee earmarked $69 million in its proposed budget for 2015 Defense Department spending to build the new prison.
Price for new prison at Guantanamo rises to $69 million
Alex Baer: KISSS: Keep It Simple, Stop Struggling
Time to add another "S" to that old acronym, about Keeping It Simple, Stupid: The updated version is Keep It Simple, Stop Struggling.
It's advice that the Brazilian police are handing around to European and American tourists who are in town for the World Cup. The actual tip is closer to "do not react, scream, or argue," and is meant to help newbies to the country avoid a popular kind of robbery in which being murdered is the farewell thank-you gift from muggers.
Bob Kincaid: Letter From Summersville Hospital
My Dear Fellow Americans
Sitting here in a hospital room in Summersville, West Virginia waiting to find out if a combination of genetic Calvinism, environmental toxins and my own mistakes have finally caught up with me, I heard playing on my roommate’s television an advertisement for some politician whom the announcer told me would “go to Washington and fight against Obamacare.” I am furious at a time when I probably shouldn’t be, but I may as well make the best of it.
Seldom do I pause to answer in writing the mad, hateful ravings of a right-wing, self-absorbed, Republican candidate for elected office; for if I did, I would never be able to get to the microphone to do it via radio every night. But since the question of healthcare is a matter of importance to Americans of good will across this once-great nation, and since I’m sitting in a hospital bed instead of behind the mic anyway, I feel compelled.
Western Antarctic ice sheet collapse has already begun, scientists warn
The collapse of the western Antarctic ice sheet is inevitable and is already underway, scientists said on Monday.
The melt will cause up to four metres (13 feet) of additional sea-level rise over the coming centuries, devastating low-lying and coastal areas around the world – from Bangladesh to New Jersey – that are already expected to be swamped by only a few feet of sea-level rise.
But the researchers said the sea-level rise – while unstoppable – was still several centuries off, potentially up to 1,000 years away.
Libya boat capsize: At least 36 migrants dead
At least 36 migrants drowned when their boat sank off the Libyan coast earlier this week, officials said, following the recovery of more bodies on Sunday.
The navy said it rescued 52 people when the boat sank on Tuesday, but survivors say there were 130 people on board.
On Saturday Libya's interior minister urged the European Union (EU) to do more to help stem the tide of migrants.
Israel’s Aggressive Spying in the U.S. Mostly Hushed Up
When White House national security advisor Susan Rice’s security detail cleared her Jerusalem hotel suite for bugs and intruders Tuesday night, they might’ve had in mind a surprise visitor to Vice President Al Gore’s room 16 years ago this week: a spy in an air duct.
According to a senior former U.S. intelligence operative, a Secret Service agent who was enjoying a moment of solitude in Gore’s bathroom before the Veep arrived heard a metallic scraping sound. “The Secret Service had secured [Gore’s] room in advance and they all left except for one agent, who decided to take a long, slow time on the pot,” the operative recalled for Newsweek. “So the room was all quiet, he was just meditating on his toes, and he hears a noise in the vent. And he sees the vent clips being moved from the inside. And then he sees a guy starting to exit the vent into the room.”
Wyoming rejects science standards, won't teach man-made climate change
Wyoming, the U.S.'s leading coal-producer, has become the first state to reject new K-12 science standards put forward by national education groups after officials objected to the teaching of man-made global warming as a fact.
The Wyoming Board of Education decided recently that the Next Generation Science Standards needed more review after questions were raised over the treatment of global warming.
Board President Ron Micheli said the review will look into whether "we can't get some standards that are Wyoming standards and standards we all can be proud of."
Pesticides to blame for honeybee colony collapse disorder, not mites
Though parasitic mites continue to infect and kill honeybees, a new study suggests they are not to blame for colony collapse disorder (CCD), the phenomenon blamed for rapidly depleting the world's honeybee population -- pesticides are.
Harvard researchers, working with beekeepers in Massachusetts, kept tabs on 18 bee colonies, six hives in three different locations -- from October 2012 to April 2013. Half the colonies were treated with a non-lethal dose of two neonicotinoid pesticides.
9/11 remains returned to World Trade Center site
The unidentified remains of those killed at the World Trade Center have returned to the World Trade Center site in a solemn procession on a foggy Saturday morning.
The remains were moved from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner on Manhattan's East Side at dawn, accompanied by a police motorcade and several police and fire department vehicles with lights flashing but no sirens.
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