A British man who plotted to shoe-bomb a plane for al-Qaida will on Monday begin a series of appearances as a star witness for the US government, testifying from London against Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law and propagandist.
Saajid Badat, who became a valuable turncoat after being jailed in 2005, is due to be beamed via video link into the Manhattan courtroom a few blocks from Ground Zero where Suleiman Abu Ghaith is on trial for conspiring to kill Americans and giving support to the jihadist network.
British al-Qaida turncoat to testify in trial of Bin Laden's son-in-law
Next fracking controversy: In the Midwest, a storm brews over 'frac sand'
Sand has become a valuable – and deeply divisive – commodity in the upper Midwest. Hydraulic fracturing, a method of extraction also known as fracking that has boosted oil and natural gas production across the United States, requires sand, and there's plenty of it here.
And so in dozens of small towns and rural townships in Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa and especially Wisconsin, the demand for frac sand, as it's called, has brought a surge of new mining activity. Scores of companies have poured in, eager to take advantage of the thick sandstone that underlies the bluffs and ridges of the region's picturesque river country.
Fukushima's children at centre of debate over rates of thyroid cancer
When doctors found several tiny nodules on his 12-year-old daughter's thyroid gland, Toshiyuki Kamei refused to let parental fear get the better of him. The symptoms are not uncommon, and the probability that they will develop into something more serious is low.
Yet Kamei can be forgiven for occasional moments of doubt: his daughter, Ayako, is one of almost 400,000 children who were living in Fukushima on 11 March 2011 – the start of the world's worst nuclear accident for a quarter of a century.
Blood test predicts Alzheimer's disease
In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers have developed a blood test for Alzheimer's disease that predicts with astonishing accuracy whether a healthy person will develop the disease.
Though much work still needs to be done, it is hoped the test will someday be available in doctors' offices, since the only methods for predicting Alzheimer's right now, such as PET scans and spinal taps, are expensive, impractical, often unreliable and sometimes risky.
Four New Man-Made Gases Found That Harm Ozone Layer
Scientists have detected four new man-made gases that damage the Earth's protective ozone layer, despite bans on almost all production of similar gases under a 1987 treaty, a study showed on Sunday.
The experts were trying to pinpoint industrial sources of tiny traces of the new gases, perhaps used in making pesticides or refrigerants, that were found in Greenland's ice and in air samples in Tasmania, Australia.
Nuns kidnapped in Syria have been freed, officials say
About a dozen nuns held in Syria for more than three months have been released and are on their way to Damascus via Lebanon, a Lebanese security source and church officials said on Sunday.
The security source said the nuns had been transferred to the Lebanese town of Arsal earlier in the week and were on their way to Syria on Sunday.
The nuns went missing in December after Islamist fighters took the ancient quarter of the Christian town of Maaloula north of Damascus.
Deades of Disability Abuse in Iowa Turkey Plant
For more than 30 years, [Clayton Berg] and a few dozen other men with intellectual disabilities — affecting their reasoning and learning — lived in a dot of a place called Atalissa, about 100 miles south of here. Every morning before dawn, they were sent to eviscerate turkeys at a processing plant, in return for food, lodging, the occasional diversion and $65 a month. For more than 30 years.
Their supervisors never received specialized training; never tapped into Iowa ’s social service system; never gave the men the choices in life granted by decades of advancement in disability civil rights. Increasingly neglected and abused, the men remained in heartland servitude for most of their adult lives.
Debris seen in water is not from missing plane, Malaysia says
Malaysia's Department of Civil Aviation said Sunday debris found near Vietnam's Tho Chu Island was not part of the airliner missing since Saturday morning.
Director-General Datuk Azhauruddin Abdul Rahman said authorities confirmed the objects found in the Gulf of Thailand did not match the missing aircraft.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, disappeared over the South China Sea about an hour after departing for Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
50,000 Orthodox Jews in NYC protest Israel's proposed draft of religious citizens
Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews filled the streets in lower Manhattan on Sunday to protest Israel's proposal to draft strictly religious citizens into its army.
The gathering took up a stretch of 10 blocks, with dark-clothed demonstrators standing behind police barricades amid tight security. Organizers kept to tradition, with men and women in separate groups as they are at religious events.
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