TV News LIES

Now there are 135. That's how many medical tests, treatments and other procedures - many used for decades - physicians have now identified as almost always unnecessary and often harmful, and which doctors and patients should therefore avoid or at least seriously question.

The lists of procedures, released on Thursday by the professional societies of 17 medical specialties ranging from neurology and ophthalmology to thoracic surgery, are part of a campaign called Choosing Wisely. Organized by the American Board of Internal Medicine's foundation, it aims to get doctors to stop performing useless procedures and spread the word to patients that some don't help and might hurt.

Security forces in Mexico have participated in the disappearances of hundreds of people from 2006-12, Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch issued a 176-page report, "Mexico's Disappeared: The Enduring Cost of a Crisis Ignored" Wednesday, documenting nearly 250 enforced disappearances during the administration of former President Felipe Calderon.

Toward the end of his presidency, Calderon promised to act on reports of enforced disappearances by the army, navy, and federal and local police, though he failed to do so, a release from Human Rights Watch said.

The stock markets were down sharply today on the release of the last Federal Reserve Board minutes that suggest they are are losing their consensus on the continued printing of more money to plump up the bond markets. The Fed has been pumping out $85 billion a month in the effort to hold deflation at bay.

The math on what they've been doing is that this is roughly equal to a quarter of the Federal government's budget. Not that the taxpayer is funding this, the Fed just prints it, or rather they move electrons around in some computers to buy bonds from rich people and institutions so that they can show a profit and reinvest.

Almost exactly nine months ago on May 22, 2012, I wrote an editorial in the Fort Collins Coloradoan newspaper, Fort Colllins Should Ban Fracking. And yesterday, on Feb. 19, a sharply divided Fort Collins City Council voted 5-2 to ban fracking in the City of Fort Collins.

Nine months ago the conversation around fracking was relatively new in Colorado and few people and environmental groups were directly addressing it. Now, nine months later, very much has changed—fracking is in the news constantly, many environmental groups are engaged in the fight to stop fracking and the issue is escalating wildly throughout the public across the state.

The discovery that so thrilled the scientific community last year may have opened the door to a glimpse of the future: the end of the world (and the universe) as we know it.

At the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science this week, scientists worried the Higgs boston particle--sometimes called the "God particle"--may confirm a universe-ending disaster billions of years in the future.

"Emad Burnat, Palestinian director of Oscar nominated '5 Broken Cameras,' was held tonight by immigration at LAX as he landed to attend the Oscars," documentary filmmaker and Academy branch governor Michael Moore Tweeted to his 1.4 million followers this evening. "Emad, his wife and 8-year-old son were placed in a holding area and told they didn't have the proper invitation on them to attend the Oscars."

According to Moore, Burnat texted him for help after being detained. "Apparently the Immigration & Customs officers couldn't understand how a Palestinian could be an Oscar nominee," Moore continued. "I called Academy officials who called lawyers. I told Emad to give the officers my phone number and to say my name a couple of times."

Astronomers searching for planets outside our solar system have discovered the tiniest one yet - one that's about the size of our moon.

But hunters for life in the universe will need to poke elsewhere. The new world orbits too close to its sun-like star and is too sizzling to support life. Its surface temperature is an estimated 700 degrees Fahrenheit. It also lacks an atmosphere and water on its rocky surface.

The interior of the moon contained water early in its history, suggesting the formation theories of the moon may have to be re-thought, U.S. researchers say.
University of Michigan researchers and colleagues found tiny amounts of water in mineral grains from samples from the lunar highlands obtained during the Apollo missions.

The lunar highlands are thought to represent the original crust that crystallized from a mostly molten early moon, suggesting the lunar interior contained water during this molten stage before the crust solidified, a university release said Monday.