Rushing to wind down its role in Afghanistan by end of 2014, the US military has destroyed over USD 200 million worth of vehicles and other military equipment used by it in the war-torn country, in what has been described as "largest retrograde mission in history".
The massive disposal effort, which US military officials call unprecedented, has unfolded largely out of sight amid an ongoing debate inside the Pentagon about what to do with the heaps of equipment that won't be returning home, the Washington Post reported.
$ 7 billion in gear US sent to Afghan gone to waste
Bev Harris: Nope, this wasn't Zimbabwe, it was Florida.
Two vaults being used in a special election for the Florida House were stolen last week. Unbeknownst to the burglars, they were caught on videotape. The vaults contained a voting machine, the electronic storage device containing all early votes cast, and 850 blank ballots. The motive isn't immediately clear, but here is what we know so far.
In this report, I've gathered some of the answers needed to examine how the burglary might have affected the election.
'The Sopranos' star James Gandolfini dead at 51
James Gandolfini, the New Jersey-bred actor who delighted audiences as mob boss Tony Soprano in “The Sopranos” has died following a massive heart attack in Italy, a source told the Daily News.
“Everyone is in tears,” the source close to the 51-year-old TV tough guy said.
A press-shy celeb who got his start as a character actor and became famous relatively late in his career — thanks to his breakout role on “The Sopranos,” Gandolfini has largely avoided the spotlight since the last season of the beloved show aired in 2007.
Greenpeace says photos show Iceland has resumed whale hunts
Photographs show Iceland has broken a two-year ban on whale hunting, the environmental group Greenpeace charged Wednesday.
"We've just received anonymous photographs showing Iceland has broken the moratorium on commercial whaling, again," Greenpeace said in a Twitter message. The group urged people to share the images "to help expose Iceland's bloody secret."
AP boss: Sources won’t talk anymore
Associated Press’ president Gary Pruitt on Wednesday slammed the Department of Justice for acting as “judge, jury and executioner” in the seizure of the news organization’s phone records and he said some of the wire service’s longtime sources have clammed up in fear.
Pruitt said the department broke its own rules with the seizure, which he said was too broad, and by failing to give the AP notice of the subpoena. Pruitt questioned the DoJ’s actions concerning the subpoena — had the DoJ come to the news organization in advance, “we could have helped them narrow the scope of the subpoena” or a court could have decided, he said.
Red Cross to Guantánamo judge: Don’t give 9/11 defense lawyers our confidential record
“The ICRC goes places, to places of conflict that no one else can go to. We visit and speak to people that no else can speak to,” said attorney Matthew MacLean, arguing that release of Red Cross records would jeopardize its ability to have confidential dialogues with governments worldwide.
Army Col. James L. Pohl, the judge, heard the arguments on the second day of pretrial hearings in the case of five men accused of funding, training and directing the hijackings that killed 2,976 people in New York, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001. The men chose to skip the hearing, a prerogative the judge granted them, until their actual death-penalty trial begins.
Bob Alexander: Nowhere Near the Road to Damascus
I Have Seen the Light! Glory Gee to Beezus I Have Seen the Light! And since being filled with this Grand and Glorious Light I feel compelled to share The Good News of my Epiphany to everyone I know.
Pretty scary opening eh? I remember hearing similar words coming out of the mouth of a friend of mine after he had accepted Jesus Christ as his own personal redeemer and new invisible best friend. It was abso-freakin’-lutely terrifying. One day he was just a regular guy kickin’ around Hollywood trying to pick up a job here and there when WHAMMO!
Journalist Michael Hastings Killed in Car Crash
Journalist Michael Hastings died in a car crash in Los Angeles early Tuesday at the age of 33, according to a statement from his employer, BuzzFeed.
Hastings, who was also a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, was perhaps best known for his candid Rolling Stone interview with General Stanley McChrystal, then the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, that eventually led to McChrystal being relieved of his command.
He was also the author of two books about America's wars: The Operators, detailing the flaws of the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan, and I Lost My Love In Baghdad, about his experiences as a war correspondent in Iraq during his mid-twenties.
'Largest ever' NYS anti fracking rally in Albanay
An anti-fracking demonstration attracted more than 2,000 activists to the eastern side of the Capitol at midday Monday. Pop singer Natalie Merchant led members of the crowd in a rewritten rendition of Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land."
The chorus: "New York is your land, New York is my land/From the Southern Tier to the Catskill Mountains/From the Susquehanna to the Hudson Valley/New York was made to be frack-free."
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