RT News

American health is in decline as new data finds that one in four US kids are on food stamps as of fiscal year 2011 and the younger generation is more prone to death and poorer health levels compared to their counterparts in other developed nations.

Almost 20 million children out of 73.9 million under the age of 18 were in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps, in 2011, according to data from the United States Department of Agriculture and US Census Bureau.
Continue reading “Over a quarter of US kids on food stamps, under-50s dying young – reports”

Mail.com

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — George Prescott Bush is gearing up to run for a little-known but powerful office in a state where his family already is a political dynasty and where his Hispanic roots could help extend a stranglehold on power Republicans have enjoyed for two decades.

The 36-year-old Fort Worth attorney says he is close to settling on campaigning for Texas land commissioner next year. He doesn’t expect to make up his mind until he knows what Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a fellow Republican, decides to do.
Continue reading “AP Interview: George P. Bush weighing run in Texas”

Mail.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — A defense contractor whose subsidiary was accused in a lawsuit of conspiring to torture detainees at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison has paid $5.28 million to former prisoners held there and at other U.S.-run detention sites in Iraq during the war.

The settlement on behalf of 71 former inmates marks the first successful effort by lawyers for former inmates at Abu Ghraib and other detention centers to collect money from a U.S. defense contractor in lawsuits alleging torture. Another contractor, CACI, is expected to go to trial over similar allegations this summer.
Continue reading “Iraqis held at Abu Ghraib, other sites receive $5M”

RT News

Owners of wrongfully repossessed houses could now get up to $125,000 as ten major US banks agree to settle federal complaints. This will end a foreclosure review process begun by a 2011 enforcement action.

Under the new agreement, those people who had their homes seized and then sold would get the biggest pay offs, while banks who failed to modify people’s loans in light of a change of income would get off more lightly. The settled compensation is anywhere between $1000 and $125,000.
Continue reading “US banks agree an $8.5 billion foreclosure settlement”

Mail.com

CHICAGO (AP) — With no signs of trauma and nothing to raise suspicions, the sudden death of a Chicago man just as he was about to collect nearly $425,000 in lottery winnings was initially ruled a result of natural causes.

Nearly six months later, authorities have a mystery on their hands after medical examiners, responding to a relative’s pleas, did an expanded screening and determined that Urooj Khan, 46, died shortly after ingesting a lethal dose of cyanide. The finding has triggered a homicide investigation, the Chicago Police Department said Monday.
Continue reading “Chicago lottery winner died from cyanide poisoning”

Mail.com

NEW YORK (AP) — Bank of America reached an $11.6 billion settlement with government mortgage agency Fannie Mae to settle claims resulting from mortgage-backed investments that soured during the housing crash, bringing it a step closer to clearing up its legacy of bad home loans.

Under the deal announced Monday, Bank of America will pay $3.6 billion in cash to Fannie Mae and buy back $6.75 billion in loans that the bank and its Countrywide Financial unit sold to the agency from Jan. 1, 2000 through Dec. 31, 2008. That includes about 30,000 loans. The bank is also paying $1.3 billion to the agency for failing to deal with foreclosures fast enough.
Continue reading “Bank of America in mortgage claims settlement”

Borei class nuclear submarine Vladimir Monomah at the “Sevmash” shipyard before its launch in Severodvinsk. (RIA Novosti/A. Petrov)RT News

Super-modern, powerful and almost noiseless Russian nuclear submarine Vladimir Monomakh has been put in water to become the third ship of the Borei project. The cruiser is about to begin sea trials and mooring to become fully operational in 2013.

Vladimir Monomakh was laid down at Russia’s largest shipbuilding complex Sevmash, located on the shores of the White Sea in the town of Severodvinsk in northern Russia on March 19, 2006 – the 100th anniversary of the Russian submarine fleet.
Continue reading “Silent sub: Russian noiseless Borei class nuclear submarine immersed”

RT News

China’s rapidly-expanding rival to GPS, called BeiDou, has become available to customers across Asia-Pacific for the first time. It aims to claim a fifth of the satellite services market in the region in just three years.

Previously, the satellite constellation was only used by the country’s military and government services. Now, it is being commercialized.
Continue reading “Satellite Wars: China unveils ‘cheaper’ answer to GPS”

RT News  Birthmarks, be damned: the FBI has officially started rolling out a state-of-the-art face recognition project that will assist in their effort to accumulate and archive information about each and every American at a cost of a billion dollars.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has reached a milestone in the development of their Next Generation Identification (NGI) program and is now implementing the intelligence database in unidentified locales across the country, New Scientist reports in an article this week. The FBI first outlined the project back in 2005, explaining to the Justice Department in an August 2006 document (.pdf) that their new system will eventually serve as an upgrade to the current Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) that keeps track of citizens with criminal records across America .
Continue reading “FBI begins installation of $1 billion face recognition system across America”

RT News  The military uses unmanned aerial vehicles to strike insurgents without being detected, and the FAA will soon regulate UAVs in America for policing purposes. Is journalism next to embrace drone technology to stay, literally, on top of the news?

The Federal Aviation Administration is expected to have guidelines for domestic drone use set in stone by 2015, and by the end of the decade some agencies say that as many as 30,000 UAVs will be up in the air at any time. On the heels of the armed forces and law enforcement agencies, though, the news gathering industry — professional journalists — are examining what benefits they could reap by watching breaking events unfold from the sky without risking life and limb for the sake of a story, or that one phenomenal photo.
Continue reading “TV stations to start using military drones”

With each passing day, it becomes more obvious why the Bilderberg group and the International Bankers have chosen Mitt Romney to be the next U.S. President.  It is also crystal clear why Israel is singing his praises. 

Palestine is nothing more than an Israeli concentration camp, and Mitt Romney is saying that Israel’s economy is better due to a better culture?  I wouldn’t be surprised to see this plastic piece of trash use the same anology on the poor and middle class (what’s left of it) compared to the rich and wealthy here in the U.S.  If nothing else, Mitt Romney’s obsession with Israel, putting that nation ahead of his own country should be a major red flag in everyone’s book.
Continue reading “Romney comments at fundraiser outrage Palestinians”

Wall Street Journal  NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — It’s an audiotape the New York Police Department hoped you would never hear.

A building superintendent at an apartment complex just off the Rutgers University campus called the New Brunswick Police 911 line in June 2009. He said his staff had been conducting a routine inspection and came across something suspicious.

“What’s suspicious?” the dispatcher asked.
Continue reading “‘What?’ Confused 911 caller outs NYPD spying in NJ”

RT News  In a phenomenon that seems to be worsening with each and every hour, a widespread fiscal crisis in California is quickly propelling the state into bankruptcy, city by city.

Within a matter of only one month, three cities in California have officially sought bankruptcy protection, with a request out of San Bernardino on Tuesday being just the latest episode in recent surge of unfortunate fiscal news on the West Coast. Coming off of similar measures by way of officials in Stockton and Mammoth Lake, California is experiencing a departure into the deep end across the entire state that no authority seems ready to handle.
Continue reading “California cities ‘may cease to exist’?”

RT News  Hold onto your holsters, folks: shooting a cop dead is now legal in the state of Indiana.

Governor Mitch Daniels, a Republican, has authorized changes to a 2006 legislation that legalizes the use of deadly force on a public servant — including an officer of the law — in cases of “unlawful intrusion.” Proponents of both the Second and Fourth Amendments — those that allow for the ownership of firearms and the security against unlawful searches, respectively — are celebrating the update by saying it ensures that residents are protected from authorities that abuse the powers of the badge.
Continue reading “Indiana legalizes shooting cops”