Kelvin MeltonMail.com

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — As the kidnappers pulled into a quiet, upscale golf course community, they thought they were about to abduct an assistant district attorney who sent a high-ranking gang member to prison for life, authorities said.

But they had the wrong address and when the prosecutor’s father answered the door, they took him instead. For five days, authorities said the kidnappers held 63-year-old Frank Janssen captive in an Atlanta apartment, tormenting his family by sending text messages threatening to cut him into pieces if police were called or their demands weren’t met. They even sent a photo of him tied up in a chair.   Continue reading “9 indicted in kidnapping of NC prosecutor’s father”

Reuters / /Andreas ManolisRT News

News that a powdered version of alcohol, marketed as ‘Palcohol’, was recently approved by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Bureau (TTB) left many scratching their heads. Now, the government has admitted the controversial approval was issued in “error.”

An industry blog run by Robert Lehrman first broke the story about the TTB approval, including marketing language from its producer touting Palcohol as a good way to sneak alcohol into venues.   Continue reading “Feds accidentally approve, then retract, powdered alcohol with snorting potential”

The National Rifle Association of America logoRT News

The tides may be turning within the National Rifle Association: according to a new report, America’s largest gun-lobbying group has helped advance three bills recently that limit firearm ownership, and more could soon be added to that list.

On Tuesday this week, reporters Laura Bassett and Christina Wilkie wrote for the Huffington Post that the NRA has all but abandoned earlier efforts by the group to halt state legislation that attempt to impose restrictions on legally owning guns. Instead, the HuffPost reporters wrote, the organization’s lobbyists have worked directly with lawmakers in order to craft rules agreeable by both sides that force gun owners with domestic violence records to surrender their weapons.   Continue reading “NRA surprisingly credited with crafting new anti-gun laws”

Courtesy DraganflyRT News

Research drones will begin flying over North Dakota the week of May 5, the Federal Aviation Administration announced Monday. North Dakota is the first of six unmanned aerial systems (UAS) test sites to begin flight operations.

The first flights will take place over North Dakota State University’s Carrington Research Center using a Draganflyer X4ES, the Associated Press reports. A second set of missions will fly over Sullys Hill National Game Preserve this summer. The mission will be run by the North Dakota Department of Commerce. None of the scheduled flights will be over private property.   Continue reading “North Dakota to start first US drone flights in May”

William James VaheyMail.com

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The FBI asked for the public’s help Tuesday to identify at least 90 potential victims of a suspected child predator who worked at 10 American and other international schools abroad for more than four decades before committing suicide last month in Minnesota.

William James Vahey, 64, killed himself in Luverne on March 21, the FBI said. That was two days after agents in Houston filed for a warrant to search a computer thumb drive that belonged to Vahey, a U.S. citizen with residences in London and Hilton Head Island, S.C. An employee of the American Nicaraguan School in Managua, where Vahey had recently taught ninth-grade world history and geography, gave the drive to the U.S. Embassy there.   Continue reading “FBI investigates suspected serial child molester”

The Small Satellite Orbital Deployer (Reuters / NASA / Handout )RT News

The United States is increasingly vulnerable to space terrorism, according to a new report, as it is more reliant on its satellites and other installations in space to conduct national security operations.

Because the US depends so much on its holdings in space for a variety of operations, and as it is the“primary guarantor of space access,” it has more at stake in protecting its satellites from an attack or damage from another country’s debris, according to a report from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).   Continue reading “Space terrorism, floating debris pose threats to US”

People inspect the wreckage of a car hit by an air strike in the central Yemeni province of al-Bayda April 19, 2014. (Reuters)RT News

Dozens are reportedly dead in Yemen, including at least three civilians, as the result of a series of drone strikes that started in the southern part of the country on Saturday and is alleged to still be occurring two days later.

By noontime in Washington, DC on Monday, the Associated Press reported that 55 Al-Qaeda militants were among those that had been killed in an hours-long series of strikes that targeted a training camp operated by the group, according to Yemen’s interior ministry. The United States is alleged to have carried out the strikes using unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, but does not legally have to acknowledge any operations conducted by its Central Intelligence Agency and has not commented.   Continue reading “US unleashes three days of drone strikes on Yemen, 55 killed”

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images / AFP RT News

A shocking reminder of the Great Recession of 2008 is evident by the over-67 percent increase in the number of Californian Baby Boomers who have been forced to move back in with their aged parents out of economic necessity.

At a time when many Americans are cashing in their nest eggs in preparation for retirement from the corporate rat race, an increasing number of Californians between the ages of 50 and 64 feel as if they are just starting over.   Continue reading “Boomers’ bust: Number of California adults moving in with parents explodes”

The icebreaker, on which the Russian polar explorers traveled to the Arctic to set up a new drifting station SP-40. (RIA Novosti / Anna Yudina) RT News

A united system of naval bases for ships and next-generation submarines will be created in the Arctic to defend Russia’s interests in the region, President Vladimir Putin said.

He urged the government to provide full state funding for the socio-economic development of the Russian Arctic through 2017-20.   Continue reading “Russia to create united naval base system for ships, subs in Arctic – Putin”

Swan LockettMail.com

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Swan Lockett had high hopes that President Barack Obama’s health overhaul would lead her family to an affordable insurance plan, but that hasn’t happened.

Instead, because lawmakers in her state refused to expand Medicaid, the 46-year-old mother of four from Texas uses home remedies or pays $75 to see a doctor when she has an asthma attack. “If I don’t have the money, I just let it go on its own,” Lockett said.   Continue reading “Affordable Care Act only chips away at a core goal”

Joseph Lewis MillerMail.com

DALLAS (AP) — A disabled 78-year-old church deacon living quietly in East Texas was arrested Monday by federal agents who said he committed a murder 33 years ago and 1,300 miles away.

Authorities say Joseph Lewis Miller fled Pennsylvania after shooting a man in a parking lot outside a hotel in 1981. He was charged with murder and three other felonies, but the case remained unsolved for three decades until investigators translated a previous tip that Miller had been living in Mexico under an alias — the name of a deceased cousin.   Continue reading “Fugitive in ’81 Pennsylvania death nabbed in Texas”

Mail.com

ARDMORE, Pa. (AP) — Two prep school graduates sought to use their sports connections and business acumen to establish a monopoly on drug sales to high school students in the affluent Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia, authorities said Monday.

Neil Scott, 25, and Timothy Brooks, 18, recruited and supplied dealers with marijuana, cocaine, Ecstasy and hash oil to sell to teens at five high schools in the tony bedroom communities, authorities said.   Continue reading “Prosecutors: Prep school graduates ran drug ring”

Students walk near a geiger counter, measuring a radiation level of 0.12 microsievert per hour, at Omika Elementary School, located about 21 km (13 miles) from the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, in Minamisoma, Fukushima prefecture.(Reuters / Toru Hanai)RT News

Katsutaka Idogawa, former mayor of Futaba, a town near the disabled Fukushima nuclear plant, is warning his country that radiation contamination is affecting Japan’s greatest treasure – its children.

Asked about government plans to relocate the people of Fatuba to the city of Iwaki, inside the Fukushima prefecture, Idogawa criticized the move as a “violation of human rights.”

Compared with Chernobyl, radiation levels around Fukushima “are four times higher,” he told RT’s Sophie Shevardnadze, adding that “it’s too early for people to come back to Fukushima prefecture.”   Continue reading “Fukushima radiation killing our children, govt hides truth – former mayor”

Oil spill response contractors clean up crude oil on a beach after a BP oil spill on Lake Michigan in Whiting, Indiana March 25, 2014.(Reuters / Jim Young)RT News

BP, the fifth largest company in the world, is refusing to foot the bill for US government-sponsored studies into its 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, including research into its impact on marine life, according to documents seen by the Financial Times.

The US government in July requested $148 million from BP to fund research work into the consequences of the spill, which started on April 20, 2010 when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sunk in the Gulf of Mexico.   Continue reading “BP caps cash pipeline to research worst oil spill in US history”

Mail.com

HONOLULU (AP) — Officials say a 16-year-old boy is “lucky to be alive” and unharmed after flying from California to Hawaii stowed away in a plane’s wheel well, surviving cold temperatures at 38,000 feet and a lack of oxygen.

“Doesn’t even remember the flight,” FBI spokesman Tom Simon in Honolulu told The Associated Press on Sunday night. “It’s amazing he survived that.” The boy was questioned by the FBI after being discovered on the tarmac at the Maui airport Sunday morning with no identification, Simon said.   Continue reading “Teen OK after riding in wheel well of Hawaii jet”

AFP Photo / Getty Images / Erik S. LesserRT News

US politicians and members of their staff have admitted fears that, if Israel enters a specialized program that would admit more Israelis into the US, Israeli espionage against the US would increase, according to a new report.

The US Visa Waiver Program currently includes 38 nations whose citizens are allowed to visit the US and stay inside the country for 90 days without earning prior approval for a visa from a US consulate. The United Kingdom, France, Germany, and other longtime US allies are on the list, although American lawmakers have been slow to include Israel.   Continue reading “Espionage fears delaying Israeli visa exemption – report”

Artist's rendering of the possible communications application of an upward falling payload. (Image from darpa.mil)RT News

The Pentagon’s research arm, DARPA, is developing robot pods that can sit at the bottom of the ocean for long stretches of time, waiting to release airborne and water-based drones to the surface upon an attack command.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently called for bids to complete the final two phases of its Upward Falling Payloads (UFP) program. The UFP operation is an effort to position unmanned systems around far-flung regions of the sea floor. The housing pods would be left in place for years in anticipation of the US Navy’s need for non-lethal assistance.   Continue reading “DARPA producing sea-floor pods that can release attack drones on command”

AFP Photo / Don EmmertRT News

US special forces have been committing suicide at record levels for the last two years, the head of the US Special Operations Command (SOCom) admitted in a speech on Thursday. He blamed the high numbers on the length and difficulty of combat.

“There is a lot of angst. There’s a lot of pressure out there. My soldiers have been fighting now for 12, 13 years in hard combat. Hard combat,” Adm. William McRaven, the head of SOCom, said at a conference in Florida. “And anybody that has spent any time in this war has been changed by it. It’s that simple.”   Continue reading “US Special Ops forces committing suicide in record numbers”

Students protesting against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline march to the residence of US Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington,DC on March 2, 2014 before going on to the White House. (AFP Photo / Nicholas Kamm)RT News

The Obama administration said Friday that it is giving federal agencies more time to assess a proposed trans-national pipeline, likely keeping a decision about the controversial Keystone XL project from being made anytime soon.

Both the Associated Press and Reuters reported that the decision to further delay any announcement about the project is expected to keep the Keystone pipeline’s future uncertain until after November, when several United States government positions will go up for grabs at mid-term elections.   Continue reading “Obama administration delays decision on Keystone XL pipeline again”

The Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base in Cuba (AFP Photo / Michelle Shephard)RT News

A psychologist considered integral to crafting the CIA’s post-9/11 “enhanced interrogation” tactics slammed an unreleased Senate report on CIA torture as inaccurate while defending his role in working with the spy agency amid a volatile era in US history.

In his first interview in seven years, James Mitchell told freelance reporter Jason Leopold, writing for the Guardian, that he has nothing to apologize for regarding his place in the post-9/11 abuse of prisoners that, as he points out, was legal at the time.   Continue reading “CIA psychologist who developed torture program defends tactics”