TV News LIES

The Obama administration said Wednesday it will stop enforcing a law that blocks benefits to partners of military veterans in same-sex marriages.

In a letter to congressional leaders, Attorney General Eric Holder said that a provision in federal law on benefits to veterans and their families defines "spouse" to mean a person of the opposite sex. He says that definition leaves out legally married same-sex couples, and runs afoul of a June Supreme Court ruling.

Winter lacked an Antarctic chill this year in New Zealand, to record effect.

Scientists said on Tuesday that the South Pacific nation had its warmest winter since record-keeping began more than a century ago.

The average nationwide temperature was 9.5C (49.1F) for June, July and August, about 1.2C above average and 0.3C above the previous record set in 1984, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research said. Record-keeping began in 1909.

Endurance swimmer Diana Nyad became the first person to swim the treacherous waters from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage on Monday, arriving in Key West two days after starting her 110-mile trek.

Nyad, 64, arrived at the beach just before 2 p.m. EDT, about 53 hours after she began her swim in Havana early Saturday. She had unsuccessfully tried to swim the Florida Strait four times, mostly recently in 2012.

In the discussion of the significance of chemical warfare and the importance of the U.S. red line, Atlantic National Correspondent James Fallows remains unconvinced that military intervention in Syria is advisable. As do most Americans.

Fallows noted today, "The United States has not acted previously as if chemical-weapons use was an end-of-history, line-drawing occasion," referring to the 1988 use of nerve gas on civilians by Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war. As he put it, "Nerve gas was hideous then. Chemical weapons are hideous now."

The UK has become the drug and alcohol "addictions capital of Europe", a think tank has warned. The Centre for Social Justice - set up by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith - said drink and drug abuse cost the UK £36bn a year.

Its report warned that the UK has become a hub for websites peddling potentially dangerous "legal highs".

The CSJ also criticised the government for failing to tackle heroin addiction and cheaply available alcohol.

The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and other ships in its strike group are heading west toward the Red Sea to help support a limited U.S. strike on Syria, if needed, defense officials said on Sunday.

The Nimitz carrier strike group, which includes four destroyers and a cruiser, has no specific orders to move to the eastern Mediterranean at this point, but is moving west in the Arabian Sea so it can do so if asked. It was not immediately clear when the ships would enter the Red Sea, but they had not arrived by Sunday evening, said one official.

It turns out Uranus has a cosmic companion as it circles the sun from nearly 1.8 billion miles away. Scientists have detected a Trojan - an asteroid-like object that shares a planet's orbit - moving ahead of the ice giant.

The discovery of 2011 QF99 was reported this week in the journal Science. And it was found almost by accident.

For anyone who lives near a natural gas shale, the story of the Hallowich family of Washington County, Pennsylvania, is a familiar one. It begins with a knock on the door from a representative from a multi-billion dollar natural gas company offering an enticing sum of money in exchange for the mineral rights to the land.

Then comes the drilling, followed by reports of headaches, or nosebleeds, or worse. Then the legal fees. Then silence.

What’s not familiar in the case is what may have happened to Chris and Stephanie Hallowich’s children.