AFP – He was the spitting image of the killer, had the same first name and was near the scene of the crime at the fateful hour: Carlos DeLuna paid the ultimate price and was executed in place of someone else in Texas in 1989, a report out Tuesday found. Even “all the relatives of both Carloses mistook them,” and DeLuna was sentenced to death and executed based only on eyewitness accounts despite a range of signs he was not a guilty man, said law professor James Liebman. Read Article
Nature – The town of Ozersk, deep in Russia’s remote southern Urals, hides the relics of a massive secret experiment. From the early 1950s to the end of the cold war, nearly 250,000 animals were systematically irradiated. Some were blasted with ?-, ?- or ?-radiation. Others were fed radioactive particles. Some of the doses were high enough to kill the animals outright; others were so low that they seemed harmless. After the animals — mice, rats, dogs, pigs and a few monkeys — died, scientists dissected out their tissues to see what damage the radioactivity had wrought. They fixed thin slices of lung, heart, liver, brain and other organs in paraffin blocks, to be sliced and examined under the microscope. Some organs, they pickled in jars of formalin. Read article
Gizmodo – Kodak may be going under, but apparently they could have started their own nuclear war if they wanted, just six years ago. Down in a basement in Rochester, NY, they had a nuclear reactor loaded with 3.5 pounds of enriched uranium—the same kind they use in atomic warheads. But why did Kodak have a hidden nuclear reactor loaded with weapons-grade uranium? Read Article
CBS — Surveillance aircraft used by the U.S. military overseas could soon be coming to the skies above Los Angeles County. KNX 1070?s Charles Feldman reports the Federal Aviation Administration is making it easier for local law enforcement agencies to fly unmanned drones. The FAA has streamlined the process that would allow agencies to fly smaller, unarmed versions of the drones that hunt down terrorists in places such as Pakistan and Afghanistan. Read Article
Reuters – Up to 8,000 companies doing business with the Pentagon may be qualified to join a newly expanded U.S. effort to guard sensitive information on private networks, a senior Defense Department official said Monday. The Pentagon on Friday invited all of its eligible contractors to join the voluntary pact aimed at fighting what U.S. officials have described as growing cyber threats that allegedly originate, above all, in Russia and China. Read Article
NBC – A rise in prescription drug abuse involving Xanax and similar anti-anxiety pills in recent years has prompted some doctors in the U.S. to rethink the frequency with which they dole out the prescription. Between 2004 and 2009, New York City emergency room visits involving Xanax and other anti-anxiety prescription drugs known as benzodiazepines increased more than 50 percent. That’s up from 38 out of 100,000 New Yorkers in 2004 to 59 out of 100,000 New Yorkers. Read article
Bloomberg – Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Merrill Lynch & Co. employees discussed helping naked short-sales by market-maker clients in e-mails the banks sought to keep secret, including one in which a Merrill official told another to ignore compliance rules, Overstock.com Inc. (OSTK) said in a court filing. The online retailer accused Merrill, now part of Bank of America Corp., and Goldman Sachs of manipulating its stock from 2005 to 2007, causing its shares to fall. Read Article
Reuters – Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul effectively ended his White House bid on Monday, saying he would no longer campaign actively in states that have yet to hold primary elections. Read article
Guardian – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been warned by its internal research team that there could be a permanent doubling of oil prices in the coming decade with profound implications for global trade. “This is uncharted territory for the world economy, which has never experienced such prices for more than a few months,” the report warns. Read Article
CBC – At least 72 civilians, a third of them under the age of 18, were killed by NATO airstrikes, according to a report released Monday by Human Rights Watch — one of the most extensive investigations into the issue. The New York-based advocacy group called on the Western alliance to acknowledge the casualties and compensate survivors. Read Article
Washington Post – Seems no one is immune from the tender mercies of the TSA pat-down. First, we learned that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was subjected to a handsy search. And now we learn of the latest high-profile search-ee: former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Yeah, the guy who was once an advisor to presidents, the one who helped negotiate the end to the Vietnam War…and, oh yeah, he’s got a Nobel Peace Prize. Read Article
MiamiHerald – Hispanic, Democratic and independent-minded voters are the most likely to be targeted in a state hunt to remove thousands of noncitizens from Florida’s voting rolls, a Miami Herald computer analysis of elections records has found. Whites and Republicans are disproportionately the least-likely to face the threat of removal, the analysis of a list of more than 2,600 potential noncitizens shows. The list was first compiled by the state and furnished to county election supervisors and then The Herald. Read article
Financial Times – The situation in the euro zone has become so bleak that it is giving rise to the most improbable rumours. The latest to make the rounds of European hedge fund managers suggests that the euro will be tied to the dollar at close to parity, a dramatic fall from its current level of just under $1.30 and one that would involve the printing of hundreds of billions of euros. Read Article
NY Times – Police officers stopped people on New York City’s streets more than 200,000 times during the first three months of 2012, putting the Bloomberg administration on course to shatter a record set last year for the highest annual tally of street stops. Data on the 203,500 street stops from January through March — up from 183,326 during the same quarter a year earlier — was sent to the City Council from 1 Police Plaza late on Friday under a legal requirement spawned by public outrage over the 1999 fatal police shooting in the Bronx of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed black street peddler. Read Article
The Week – Soon, Congress will begin drafting legislation reauthorizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which serves as the legal framework for domestic espionage against external threats. And while FISA doesn’t affect spy activities overseas, the attention it generates will shift scrutiny to the National Security Agency and its growing and astonishing capabilities. Read Article
NYtimes – The state budget shortfall in California has increased dramatically in the last six months, forcing state officials to assemble a series of new spending cuts that are likely to mean further reductions to schools, health care and other social programs already battered by nearly five years of budget retrenchment, state officials announced on Saturday. Read article
Reuters – More than half of kids who were part of a new study from California tested positive for secondhand smoke exposure — despite only a handful of their parents admitting to lighting up. Parents may think kids are only exposed if they’re around someone actively smoking a cigarette, researchers said, or are unaware of where else their children might be breathing in smoke. Read article
Bloomberg – JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said the firm suffered a $2 billion trading loss after an “egregious” failure in a unit managing risks, jeopardizing Wall Street banks’ efforts to loosen a federal ban on bets with their own money. The firm’s chief investment office, run by Ina Drew, 55, took flawed positions on synthetic credit securities that remain volatile and may cost an additional $1 billion this quarter or next, Dimon told analysts yesterday. Losses mounted as JPMorgan tried to mitigate transactions designed to hedge credit exposure. Read Article
Sun Sentinel – Criminals, beware the gardener. This city has a new way of fighting crime: Employees who are out and about, trimming trees or picking up litter on the beach, are officially on the lookout for signs of a crime. A group of about 70 landscapers and garbage truck drivers got training from the Broward Sheriff’s Office this week so they know what to look for. Another group of about 35 will train next week. Read Article
BBC – The US State Department says the shipment will help Bahrain “maintain its external defence capabilities.” Arms sales were frozen last year after the Bahraini government suppressed pro-democracy demonstrations. Amnesty International says 60 people have been killed since the protests began in February 2011. Read article
Press TV – Somalia’s al-Shabab fighters say a US assassination drone attack has left at least 38 people dead and dozens of others wounded in the Horn of Africa state, Press TV reports. The airstrike is said to have taken place in Somalia’s southwestern district of Badade, a Press TV correspondent reported. The US military uses remote-controlled drones in Somalia for reconnaissance operations and targeted killings. Read Article
Wired – Since the Patriot Act broadly expanded the power of the government to issue National Security Letters demanding customer records, more than 200,000 have been issued to U.S. companies by the FBI. But the perpetual gag orders that accompany them are rarely challenged by the ISPs and other recipients served with such letters. Just how rare these challenges are became more evident following the recent release of a 2010 letter from the Justice Department to a federal lawmaker. Read Article
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