Saturday, Jul 06th
Last update06:04:07 AM GMT
The farm bill, one of the last major pieces of legislation that could clear Congress before the election, carries out major changes to the federal safety net for farmers, replacing their direct payments, even when they don't plant crops, with greater emphasis on crop insurance and a new program to protect farmers from revenue losses.
The declassified documents, dated between 1992 and 2004, are heavily blacked out and offer little new information about what the U.S. knew about the al-Qaida plot before 2001. Many of the files are cited in the 9/11 Commission report, published in 2004.
The commission determined the failure that led to 9/11 was a lack of imagination, and U.S. intelligence agencies did not connect the dots that could have prevented the attacks.
The United States and Israel jointly developed a sophisticated computer virus nicknamed Flame that collected critical intelligence in preparation for cyber-sabotage attacks aimed at slowing Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon, according to Western officials with knowledge of the effort.
The massive piece of malware was designed to secretly map Iran’s computer networks and monitor the computers of Iranian officials, sending back a steady stream of intelligence used to enable an ongoing cyberwarfare campaign, according to the officials.
The reigning theory of particle physics may be flawed, according to new evidence that a subatomic particle decays in a certain way more often than it should, scientists announced.
This theory, called the Standard Model, is the best handbook scientists have to describe the tiny bits of matter that make up the universe. But many physicists suspect the Standard Model has some holes in it, and findings like this may point to where those holes are hiding.
While the tri-state Susquehanna River Basin Commission has taken no action to slow, stop, or even significantly regulate high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing, this Lutheran Synod, based entirely in the heavily fracked Susquehanna River Basin, now stands for a moratorium.
A group of Roman Catholic nuns began a nine-state bus tour protesting proposed federal budget cuts Monday, saying they weren’t trying to flout recent Vatican criticisms of socially active nuns but felt called to show how Republican policies are affecting low-income families.
The tour was organized by Network, a Washington-based Catholic social justice group criticized in a recent Vatican report that said some organizations led by nuns have focused too much on economic injustice while failing to promote the church’s teachings on abortion and same-sex marriage. The Vatican asked U.S. bishops to look at Network’s ties to another group of nuns it is reorganizing because of what the church calls “serious doctrinal problems.”
The most contentious motion to be argued at hearings this week in U.S. District Court in Portland, Ore., concerns allegations KBR deliberately concealed knowledge sodium dichromate was present at the Qarmat Ali, Iraq, water treatment plant it was contracted to repair. Members of the Oregon National Guard, on duty in Iraq, were assigned in 2003 to guard the plant during repairs, and have allegedly suffered health problems from exposure to the chemical, The Portland Oregonian reported Monday.
Perhaps more disturbing still was that the riots, which began with an anti-immigrant demonstration, were incited by Israeli politicians representing the increasingly influential hard-right. They fired up the crowd, calling the refugees “infiltrators,” and a “cancer,” and accusing them of violence and rape. It was a classic example of “othering” – eliminationist rhetoric that led directly to action by the xenophobic crowd.
Overlying that dismal reality is another: There's a severe shortage of HIV specialists in the South, which exacerbates access to treatment for people living with the disease in the region, according to one of the nation's leading AIDS advocacy organizations.
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