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.
Western Antarctic ice sheet collapse has already begun, scientists warn
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.
DEA settles suit alleging government lie-detector abuses
The Drug Enforcement Administration has agreed to pay 14 contractors $500,000 to settle a lawsuit that accuses the agency of illegally requiring them to undergo highly intrusive lie detector tests to keep their jobs as translators.
The settlement appears to be the first time that a federal government agency has settled allegations involving contractors’ lie detector tests since a 1988 law banned the use of polygraph screening for most private employees, said a lawyer for the group.
Medical experts warn against high levels of radon and radium from fracking
A group of health professionals opposed to hydraulic fracturing penned a letter Wednesday to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, calling on him to take a closer look at radon levels in shale gas before allowing fracking in New York.
The letter, signed by nine people including a representative of the American Lung Association, urges Cuomo’s administration to first examine whether gas from the Marcellus Shale has elevated levels of radon before green-lighting fracking. The state should take a closer look at radiation issues related to shale-gas before proceeding, the letter signers content.
New documents point to CIA rendition network through Djibouti
New evidence culled from a court case involving CIA contractors has revealed flight paths through Djibouti that appear to indicate the country’s role as a hub of the CIA’s rendition network in Africa, according to documents released by the U.K.-based human rights group Reprieve and New York University’s Global Justice Clinic.
The documents could support the case of Mohammad al-Asad, a former CIA detainee who is suing the government of Djibouti for its alleged role in hosting CIA “black sites” – specifically the one where he says he was detained and tortured for two weeks between Dec. 2003 and Jan. 2004. A Senate investigation into the agency’s “detention and interrogation program” had previously confirmed that several individuals had in fact been detained in Djibouti, according to two officials who read the still-classified report and who spoke to Al Jazeera.
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