Barack Hussein Obama officially began his second term as the nation’s 44th president Sunday, taking the oath of office in a low-key ceremony at the White House.
It was a crisp and flawless 30-seconds of history in the Blue Room between Obama and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. The two flubbed the 35-word oath four years ago, but not Sunday. With Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha standing behind him, Obama quickly repeated the oath from Roberts, who this time carried a note card.
Obama is sworn in for a second term
Federal scientists can again research gun violence
Mark Rosenberg and his colleagues were forced to stop their work at the point of a gun — or at least at the insistence of National Rifle Association.
In 1996, Rosenberg was director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC). It was then that Congress, at the behest of the National Rifle Association, stopped federally funded gun-related research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which includes NCIPC.
Scientists find Camp Lejeune water contamination went back to 1953
Federal health officials have determined that water contamination at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune exceeded safe levels as far back as August 1953, four years earlier than previous findings.
The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry also found that water had been contaminated at two additional water distribution systems on the base.
“This a big deal,” said Jerry Ensminger, a retired Marine master sergeant who was stationed at Lejeune and whose daughter died of a rare form of leukemia in 1985 at age 9. “You’re talking tens of thousands of more people being exposed.”
Kansas’ Black & Veatch, with history of problems in Afghanistan, now has another
Black & Veatch’s latest trouble in Afghanistan comes with a federal audit, published in December, that determined that the company failed to provide an installation plan for millions of dollars in electrical equipment that sat unused for months in a warehouse near the city of Kandahar.
The U.S. Agency for International Development had awarded a $3.4 million contract to Black & Veatch in 2009 to provide technical assistance, training and support to the country’s national power utility. Afghanistan ranks among the countries with the lowest energy production in the world.
Alabama civil rights pioneer James Hood dies at 70
A US civil rights pioneer who confronted racial segregation in Alabama in the 1960s has died aged 70. James Hood died in his hometown of Gadsden in Alabama, a local funeral home said in an obituary notice.
Mr Hood was one of two black students to enter the all-white University of Alabama in June 1963. Their path was blocked by then Alabama Governor George Wallace and his state troopers until President John F Kennedy intervened.
Fed missed warning signs in 2007 as crisis gained steam
Top policymakers at the Federal Reserve felt for most of 2007 that problems in housing and banking were isolated and unlikely to tear down the U.S. economy as they ultimately did.
Even as crisis signals started flashing red with the freezing of credit markets during the summer, Fed officials believed the troubles would be moderate and short-lived, according to transcripts of the 2007 meetings released on Friday after the customary five-year lag.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, then president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, said during an emergency telephone call on August 10 of that year that most of Wall Street was still doing fine.
‘Monsignor meth’ owned porn store, liked sex in the rectory: report
A former Catholic priest busted on charges of selling crystal meth would appear at his Connecticut church dressed as a woman and was fond of sex in the rectory, according to a published report.
Msg. Kevin Wallin, 61, resigned as spiritual leader of St. Augustine’s Parish in Bridgeport in 2011, but he continued to receive a stipend from the Roman Catholic Diocese until his Jan. 3 arrest on drug charges.
Scientists Call on President to Reject the Keystone XL Pipeline
Eighteen of the nation’s top climate scientists released a letter to President Obama today urging him to say no to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.
“Eighteen months ago some of us wrote you about the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, explaining why in our opinion its construction ran counter to both national and planetary interests,” wrote the scientists. ”Nothing that has happened since has changed that evaluation; indeed, the year of review that you asked for on the project made it clear exactly how pressing the climate issue really is.”
Nato stops sending prisoners to Afghan jails after reports of torture
Nato forces in Afghanistan have stopped sending prisoners to some Afghan jails after reports of torture and have asked Kabul to investigate allegations of abuse by members of a US-backed paramilitary police force.
The ban on transfers revives concerns about human rights in Afghan prisons, first raised in 2011 by a United Nations report. The report detailed widespread abuse, including the ripping out of detainees' toenails and the twisting of their genitals, and prompted Nato-led troops to halt prisoner transfers for several months.
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