Pressed to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars to settle clergy sex abuse lawsuits, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony turned to one group of Catholics whose faith could not be shaken: the dead.
Under his leadership in 2007, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles quietly appropriated $115 million from a cemetery maintenance fund and used it to help pay a landmark settlement with molestation victims.
Cardinal Mahony used cemetery money to pay sex abuse settlement
The Historic Report on Recent CIA Abuses That You're Not Allowed to See
He said he had read the first 300 pages as promised, prompting a question about whether "enhanced interrogation techniques" were key to getting Osama bin Laden. And here is how he answered that question:
Nor'easters More Fierce With Global Warming, Scientists Say
The two key ingredients in a big snow: just cold-enough temperatures and a lot of moisture. Combine the chilled air converging on the East with the massive moisture coming from the Gulf of Mexico region and you've got the "perfect setup for a big storm," Kevin Trenberth, of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, told The Huffington Post in an email.
As Trenberth explained, the ideal temperature for a blizzard is just below freezing -- just cold enough to crystalize water into snow. Below that, the atmosphere's ability to hold moisture to create those snowflakes drops by 4 percent for every one degree Fahrenheit fall in temperature.
Support grows for U.S. "drone court" to review lethal strikes
During a fresh round of debate this week over President Barack Obama's claim that he can unilaterally order lethal strikes by unmanned aircraft against U.S. citizens, some lawmakers proposed a middle ground: a special federal "drone court" that would approve suspected militants for targeting.
While the idea of a judicial review of such operations may be gaining political currency, multiple U.S. officials said on Friday that imminent action by the U.S. Congress or the White House to create one is unlikely. The idea is being actively considered, however, according to a White House official.
Mental health experts get access to detainee’s CIA file
An Army judge is giving a military mental-health board access to an alleged al Qaida deputy’s secret CIA file, covering the time when agents waterboarded the man and subjected him to a mock execution with a power drill, to help evaluate if he can go on trial.
Saudi-born captive Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, 48, is facing a death-penalty trial as accused mastermind of the Oct. 12, 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole off Yemen in which 17 American sailors were killed. The trial could start next year.
In North Carolina, owners' rights to refuse fracking rise to surface
The Rheas ultimately decided to stay at home in North Carolina and retired in rural Lee County outside of Raleigh. What they didn’t realize is that the new home they bought sits above the Deep River Shale basin, an area potentially rich with deposits of natural gas that makes it the next likely location for fracking.
To make matters worse, because of two arcane laws known as split estates and forced pooling, they may not even have the right to say whether gas companies can drill on their property.
Saudi Arabia’s Child-Rape Case: Female Activists Fight to Prevent Abuse
The torture and murder of 5-year-old Lama Al Ghamdi could hardly have been more horrific—and news of it, repeated in countless Twitter feeds, has enflamed opinion around the world.
But the fact that this story of one little girl’s death and one father’s monstrosity went public is also a sign of just how hard women in Saudi Arabia are working to fight the cruel misogyny embedded in the kingdom’s version of Islamic law. And among those women is a daughter of the king.
New Study Offers Proof: Asteroid Wiped Out Dinos
The idea that a cosmic impact ended the age of dinosaurs in what is now Mexico now has fresh new support, researchers say.
The most recent and most familiar mass extinction is the one that finished the reign of the dinosaurs — the end-Cretaceous or Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event, often known as K-T. The only survivors among the dinosaurs are the birds.
Michigan Supreme Court rules that medical marijuana dispensaries are not allowed
It is illegal to sell medical marijuana through private shops, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled Friday in a decision one lawyer called “the end of the road” for the hotly debated issue.
In a 4-1 decision, the state’s highest court affirmed an Appeals Court finding that Michigan’s 2008 medical marijuana law does not allow people to sell pot to each other, even if they’re among the tens of thousands who have state-issued marijuana cards.
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