More disturbing stories of priests' molestations of children -- and questionable actions by church leaders -- emerged in 12,000 pages of once-confidential personnel files.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles posted the documents on its website Thursday night, an hour after a Los Angeles judge ended 5-1/2 years of legal wrangling over the release of the files with an order compelling the church to make the documents public within three weeks.
Priest files reveal disturbing stories of child molestation, coverup
US military struggling to stop suicide epidemic among war veterans
Libby Busbee is pretty sure that her son William never sat through or read Shakespeare's Macbeth, even though he behaved as though he had. Soon after he got back from his final tour of Afghanistan, he began rubbing his hands over and over and constantly rinsing them under the tap.
"Mom, it won't wash off," he said. "What are you talking about?" she replied."The blood. It won't come off."
On 20 March last year, the soldier's striving for self-cleanliness came to a sudden end. That night he locked himself in his car and, with his mother and two sisters screaming just a few feet away and with Swat officers encircling the vehicle, he shot himself in the head.
Hospital chain defies NLRB rulings after court decision
A California-based hospital company says it will not comply with at least two National Labor Relations Board rulings from the past year after a federal court invalidated three of President Barack Obama's recess appointments to the NLRB last week.
Prime Healthcare Services, which owns 21 hospitals in California and three other states, told Reuters on Wednesday that it had informed one of its employee unions that it would not follow an NLRB ruling mandating the collection of union dues even after a collective bargaining agreement has expired, or a ruling compelling employers to provide unions with certain materials during internal investigations.
Big Gas Comes Clean: Carcinogens Used in 1 Out of 3 Fracking Operations
Those alarmed by the widespread adoption of fracking in recent years have tried desperately to expose the water-chemical cocktail that gas companies inject into the ground to access gas deposits. Unfortunately, the industry does not require disclosure of this fluid’s ingredients, even though it’s very likely to end up in the public water supply.
Up until now it’s been deny, deny, deny, but a recent industry report has exposed fracking for the deadly practice that it is.
More...
Alex Baer: Helping Amygdalas Jump to the Left
Those differences are the birth pangs of empathy, so mutter away, and to your heart's content. Welcome to humanity. We are not ants or otherwise able to experience the hive mind, so we have to grow our awareness and empathy fresh, every day. And yes, tending that particular garden can be a real drag at times.
UN panel finds Israeli settlements violate rights
The United Nations' first report on Israel's overall settlement policy describes it as a "creeping annexation" of territory that clearly violates the human rights of Palestinians, and calls for Israel to immediately stop further such construction.
The report's conclusions, revealed Thursday, are not legally binding, but they further inflame tensions between the U.N. Human Rights Council and Israel, and between Israel and the Palestinians. Israeli officials immediately denounced the report, while Palestinians pointed to it as "proof of Israel's policy of ethnic cleansing" and its desire to undermine the possibility of a Palestinian state.
Prairie2: The Sound of the Guns
"The economy has collapsed! And it's Obama's fault!" That's the rightwing reaction to the 0.1% shrinking of the GDP in the 4th quarter, never mind that the year overall was pretty good considering the Republican agenda.
The reality is that the GDP is being depressed by the loss of exports to Europe because of their idiotic austerity measures, and the reduction in military spending as the endless war on terror is finally coming to an end. That, and the Mitt Romney crowd's practice of closing down high tech factories and shipping them to China, - also the 'job creators who run corporate America are driving down wages.
A fracking horror story: groundwater contaminated with lead, methane, propane, ethane, ethene, barium, magnesium, strontium and arsenic
Judy Armstrong Stiles had no idea what she was signing away when she and her husband Carl agreed to let Chesapeake Energy operate natural gas wells on their Bradford County land.
That was three years ago. For Carl, it was a lifetime.
Soon after the company started using hydraulic fracturing to develop the horizontally drilled wells, both she and her husband began suffering severe rashes. They also complained of stomach aches, dizziness, fatigue, aching joints and forgetfulness, Stiles told Shalefield Stories in November 2012.
CIA nominee had detailed knowledge of "enhanced interrogation techniques"
John Brennan, President Barack Obama's nominee to head the CIA, had detailed, contemporaneous knowledge of the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" on captured terrorism suspects during an earlier stint as a top spy agency official, according to multiple sources familiar with official records.
Those records, the sources said, show that Brennan was a regular recipient of CIA message traffic about controversial aspects of the agency's counter-terrorism program after September 2001, including the use of "waterboarding."
Page 379 of 1157
