TV News LIES

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the GOP's 2013 gubernatorial candidate, filed a petition Tuesday with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to uphold Virginia's anti-sodomy law.

Cuccinelli wants the court to reconsider a March 2013 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit striking down the state's "crimes against nature" statute. The 4th Circuit ruled that the law did not pass muster in light of the Supreme Court's 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision, which struck down the latter state's anti-sodomy law as an unconstitutional criminalization of Americans' sexual conduct. The Virginia law, however, remained on the books.

The Tokyo Electric Power Co. said it has noted a rise in radioactive tritium in sea water within the port at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The density of tritium in samples of sea water doubled in the past 10 days to a record 1,100 Becquerels per liter, an indication contaminated ground water may be seeping into the Pacific Ocean, the company reported Monday.

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The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote Tuesday, struck down a core provision of the Voting Rights Act that singles out part of the country for special treatment.

The outlawed provision, Section 4, identifies all or parts of 16 states, mainly in the South. A separate provision, Section 5, not struck down by the Supreme Court, forces them to get permission -- or "preclearance" -- from the U.S. Justice Department or a three-judge federal panel in Washington to make any changes in how people vote in their jurisdictions, no matter how innocuous.

Elevated levels of methane and other stray gases have been found in drinking water near natural gas wells in Pennsylvania's gas-rich Marcellus shale region, according to new research. In the case of methane, concentrations were six times higher in some drinking water found within one kilometer of drilling operations.

"The bottom line is strong evidence for gas leaking into drinking water in some cases," Robert Jackson, an environmental scientist at Duke University in Durham, N.C., told NBC News. "We think the likeliest explanation is leaky wells," he added.

Every June a few US supreme court cases get a reputation for being blockbusters, and this year has been no different. We're still awaiting decisions on cases concerning gay marriage and the Voting Rights Act. But the blockbusters can obscure smaller cases with profound effects. On Monday, the court quietly delivered a destructive, toxic decision on workplace harassment that is as significant as anything else this year.

Vance v Ball State University, which concerned the interpretation of a section of the Civil Rights Act, shouldn't have even reached America's highest court – but it did, and the court's right wing grabbed ahold and used it to further gut workplace protections.

Rep. Darrell Issa made nearly $60 million in 2012, according to a financial disclosure he filed with the House earlier this month.

The California Republican, who earned at least $59.4 million last year, is one of the richest men in Congress. Issa was worth more than $355 million at the end of 2012 — an amount that appears to have jumped roughly $100 million since his last filing.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, a million former U.S. smokers took up the habit again and kept puffing for at least two years, a researcher says.

Dr. Michael F. Pesko, an instructor in Weill Cornell Medical College's Department of Public Health in New York, said an examination of data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and found 950,000 to 1.3 million adult former smokers resumed smoking, representing a 2.3 percent increase nationwide.

There was no increase in the months and years following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the study found.

Still angry about the idea of an Islamic cultural center opening near Ground Zero, a group of Idaho gun enthusiasts decided to fight back with a new line of pork-laced bullets.

South Fork Industries, based in Dalton Gardens, Idaho, claims its ammunition, called Jihawg Ammo, is a “defensive deterrent to those who violently act in the name of Islam.”