The Food and Drug Administration is seriously considering whether to approve the first genetically engineered animal that people would eat — salmon that can grow at twice the normal rate. The developer of the salmon has been trying to get approval for a decade.
But the company now seems to have submitted most or all of the data the F.D.A. needs to analyze whether the salmon are safe to eat, nutritionally equivalent to other salmon and safe for the environment, according to government and biotechnology industry officials. A public meeting to discuss the salmon may be held as early as this fall.
A British court said Friday that suspected Taliban captives face the risk of mistreatment in a Kabul jail, but rejected an attempt to ban British troops from handing them over to Afghan security forces.
The human foetus feels no pain before 24 weeks, according to a major review of scientific evidence published today. The connections in the foetal brain are not fully formed in that time, nor is the foetus conscious, according to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
A top German court has ruled that it is not a criminal offence to cut off the life support of a dying person if that person has given their consent. The Federal Court of Justice acquitted a lawyer who had advised the daughter of a comatose woman to cut off her feeding tube.
In the United States today, true investigational journalism is rare. Much of the news circulated by mainstream media is only a presentation of information handed down from the government. Major media functions as a gatekeeper of information, creating consensus among Americans on an array of topics including the popularly held beliefs about September 11, 2001. An atmosphere has been created where questioning the official explanation or asking for a reinvestigation is seen as blasphemy. Individuals who do so are labeled anarchist, conspiracy theorist, domestic terrorist, and antigovernment. Politicians and other public figures who have voiced concerns about the 9/11 Commission Report have been invited on national news programs only to be pressured to renounce previous statements about 9/11 and publicly reject any affiliation to the group 9/11 Truth. While a critical analysis of the 9/11 Commission Report is absent from mainstream media, a number of questions go unanswered and unrecognized by most Americans.
Federal scientists studying the history of water contamination at Camp Lejeune, N.C., have learned of another source of leaking fuel — this one less than a football field away from a drinking well that once served thousands of Marines and their families. The well was closed in December 1984 after benzene was found in the water.
The CIA has hired Xe Services, the private security firm formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, to guard its facilities in Afghanistan and elsewhere, according to an industry source.
The Helou family is so worried about getting expelled to Gaza by Israeli authorities that they're all but trapped in this West Bank town. They couldn't even leave to get their disabled son the best possible surgery to let him walk.
People who sign petitions calling for public votes on controversial subjects don't have an automatic right to hide their names, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday as it sided against Washington state voters worried about harassment because of their desire to repeal that state's gay rights law.
