TV News LIES

Developing nations have launched an impassioned attack on the failure of the world's richest countries to live up to their climate change pledges in the wake of the disaster in the Philippines.

With more than 3,600 people now believed to have been killed by Typhoon Haiyan, moves by several major economies to backtrack on commitments over carbon emissions have put the world's poorest and most wealthy states on a collision course, on the eve of crucial high-level talks at a summit of world powers.

The breach in U.S.-German relations seemed likely to widen Friday after a joint German newspaper and television investigation titled “Secret War” reported that American intelligence and military use this nation for “tapping, code cracking, recruiting informants, observing suspects, kidnapping and abducting foreign enemies.”

What’s more, the reports added: “The Germans have known all that for years.”

The reports come at a time when German-U.S. relations have been taking a beating. In June, documents released by former National Security Agency consultant Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA has spied on the electronic communications of tens of millions of Germans. In October, the news broke that the NSA had even been tapping the phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel for years, even before she became chancellor.

The next time you walk into a shop, consider this:

You may not be using your phone, but it is giving out a unique signal that the retailer may be monitoring. A face scanner may check your age and gender while sensors pick up your body heat to help locate popular parts of the store.

Consumers have become used to players like Amazon closely following their shopping habits online, triggering targeted product recommendations, advertising and offers.

While public health advocates have sung the praises of tap water for years, Coca-Cola has been focusing on its own covert assault on the affordable, healthful, and refreshing beverage.

Unbeknownst to many in the nutrition and public health world, the soft drink giant launched a  "Cap the Tap" program -- aimed at restaurants -- in 2010, described in the following manner on the Coke Solutions Web site:

Capture Lost Revenue By Turning Off the Tap

The CIA is getting international money transfers data under the laws the National Security Council uses to collect Americans' phone records, officials said.

The spy agency's financial records program, which past and current officials said was authorized under the Patriot Act and overseen by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, does not include solely domestic transfers or interbank transactions, The New York Times reported Friday.

Some of America’s largest technology and telecoms companies, including Facebook, Microsoft and AT&T, are backing a network of self-styled “free-market thinktanks” promoting a radical rightwing agenda in states across the nation, according to a new report by a lobbying watchdog.

The Center for Media and Democracy asserts that the State Policy Network (SPN), an umbrella group of 64 thinktanks based in each of the 50 states, is acting as a largely beneath-the-radar lobbying machine for major corporations and rightwing donors.

A former FBI explosives expert was sentenced on Thursday to more than three years in prison for possessing and disclosing secret information, which he has said included intelligence he gave to the Associated Press for a story about a US operation in Yemen in 2012.

The story on Yemen led to a federal leaks investigation and the seizure of AP phone records in the government's search for the information's source.

At least 3,728 prisoners in the United States will spend the rest of their lives in prison for non-violent offenses according to an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) study published on Wednesday.

The study found that 79 percent of these prisoners were convicted of nonviolent, drug-related crimes and 20 percent of nonviolent property crimes like shoplifting. Most of these cases were sentenced under mandatory minimum guidelines, for which judges had no choice but to dole out a life without parole sentence.

“Fairness has departed from the system,” said one judge as he sentenced a nonviolent offender to life in prison without parole.