Adnan Syed, the convicted killer featured in the hit podcast Serial, was granted a new trial Thursday in the 1999 slaying of his former girlfriend.
Baltimore City Circuit Judge Martin Welch vacated Syed's conviction, saying his original attorney "fell below the standard of reasonable professional judgment." Syed's current attorney Justin Brown posted the news in all-caps on Twitter: "WE WON A NEW TRIAL FOR ADNAN SYED!!! #FreeAdnan"
'Serial' podcast's Adnan Syed gets new trial in murder case
CIA knew it had the wrong man, but kept him anyway
By January of 2004, when German citizen Khaleed al Masri arrived at the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret prison in Afghanistan, agency officials were pretty sure he wasn’t a terrorist. They also knew he didn’t know any terrorists, or much about anything in the world of international terror.
In short, they suspected they’d nabbed the wrong man.
Still, the agency continued to imprison and interrogate him, according to a recently released internal CIA report on Masri’s arrest. The report claims that Masri suffered no physical abuse during his wrongful imprisonment, though it acknowledges that for months he was kept in a “small cell with some clothing, bedding and a bucket for his waste.” Masri says he was tortured, specifically that a medical examination against his will constituted sodomy.
TVNL Comment: If nothing else, the CIA has been consistent in its criminality.
Pentagon lifts ban on transgender troops
Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced Thursday that the military will no longer discriminate against transgender troops, knocking down one of the last barriers to service based on sex.
The move, nearly a year in the making, came despite last-minute concerns were raised by top brass about how to deal with the medical, housing and uniform issues for troops who are transitioning to the other sex.
NASA reveals solar system Internet for interplanetary communication
A new system deployed by NASA is expected to help the development of an interplanatery space communications system that functions much like the Internet does on Earth.
NASA installed software on the International Space Station to make communication faster and easier, and it is expected to lead to an Internet system that may cover the entire solar system in the future, the agency announced.
Dems release parallel Benghazi report ahead of GOP
Democrats on the House Select Committee on Benghazi released their rebuttal to the Republican-led committee’s argument on Monday, before the GOP leaders published their own report.
The 339-page Democratic report aims to refute allegations expected to be made by Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) in what they have long claimed is a partisan witch hunt.
Nuclear reactor at Indian Point plant in N.Y. shut down again after leak found
One of two reactor units at a nuclear power plant near New York City has been taken offline for the second time in four months after leakage was found in a pipe that pumps water into the facility, officials said Friday.
Reactor Unit 2 at the Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, N.Y., was shut down Thursday after discovery of the malfunction. Officials said the leak was found in a non-radioactive part of the plant.
Pink Snow Looks Awesome, But Is Another Climate Change Indicator
Some call it pink snow, some call it watermelon snow — and now, a new study is calling it yet another symbol of the drastic melting in the Arctic.
The appearance of the so-called pink snow, which Arctic explorers have observed for centuries, is the result of a red algae that likes to bloom in the frozen water. In a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications, researchers found that those algal blooms are causing the ice to melt faster, and the algae is likely to grow more rapidly as climate change melts even more of the Arctic into the liquid water that feeds them.
House Democrats end gun-vote sit-in
Democrats ended their sit-in on the House floor at around 1 p.m. Thursday afternoon, after more than 24 hours of stalling proceedings to call for action on gun control legislation.
Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) spoke while surrounded by his Democratic colleagues to close the protest, which lasted through the night after beginning shortly after11:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Supreme Court upholds college affirmative action program
The Supreme Court today voted to uphold a component of the University of Texas’ admissions policy that takes race into account.
In a 5-3 vote, the justices upheld the judgment of the court of appeals, which had ruled in favor of the state’s using race in admissions.
This case is the second trip to the Supreme Court for Abigail Fisher, a white woman who was denied admission to the University of Texas and then filed a lawsuit challenging the university’s use of race in admissions.
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