TV News LIES

"Expansion of this authority is necessary to permit DOD to conduct revenue-generating commercial activities to protect such operations and would provide an important safeguard for U.S. military forces conducting hazardous operations abroad," the request for legislation says. It was first reported by my colleagues at Inside Defense.

On top of DIA's inexperience in running such ops, there is the basic question of why they need to do this and how they would coordinate with their colleagues at CIA, questions certainly not answered by the legislative proposal.

Two members of the US Coast Guard in Alaska have been found dead, prompting concerns that a killer could have struck at a remote island outpost. A captain at the Kodiak Island Station said they were unsure what happened and a suspect could still be at large.

The base and schools in the area were put on lockdown and residents of the island were told to remain vigilant. The names of the victims will be released after their families have been notified, the coast guard said.

American scientists have drawn up plans for a new generation of nuclear-powered drones capable of flying over remote regions of the world for months on end without refuelling.

The blueprints for the new drones, which have been developed by Sandia National Laboratories – the US government's principal nuclear research and development agency – and defence contractor Northrop Grumman, were designed to increase flying time "from days to months" while making more power available for operating equipment, according to a project summary published by Sandia.

Explosions rocked four cities across Iraq today, including a bombing near the Foreign Ministry in Baghdad where the annual Arab League summit is due to be held next week.

A total of 27 people were killed and 161 wounded in the explosions in the capital as well as in Kirkuk, Salaheddin, Karbala, Hilla and Ramadi, according to Health Ministry and police officials. The highest toll was in Karbala, where 13 people were killed and 58 others wounded, Health Ministry local spokesman Jamal Mehdi said in a telephone interview.

The firings came shortly after the two whistleblowers protested an order to saw off the fused arm bone of a dead Marine so he could fit in his dress uniform and casket.

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The Air Force said Friday it will impose harsher penalties on the former commander and chief deputy of the Dover Air Force Base mortuary after a federal probe found they retaliated against subordinates for reporting systematic problems there, including cases in which body parts were lost.

The announcement was made in response to an investigation by the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal agency that protects whistleblowers. The probe found that Edmondson, Dean and another supervisor had provided phony reasons to fire or punish four mortuary workers who had exposed problems there.

Can being an atheist in America get you killed? If police in the small Texas town of Petrolia are to be believed, the answer to that question is yes.

It is also not yet clear if Ramirez really was an atheist, or if that was the real reason for the killing. The two nameless tipsters told police that’s what Green said to them to justify him actions, and claimed that Ramirez had reached for a gun as well. It is possible that the two had a separate disagreement leading up to the alleged murder.