A list of 182 people believed to have been subjects of background checks from a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer includes the Tennessean reporter who revealed the Highway Patrol's probe into the officer's unauthorized activities.
Brad Schrade, who has reported on the Highway Patrol for years and first reported the probe earlier this month, received a call Saturday morning from a Highway Patrol special agent who said that Lt. Ronnie Shirley, the subject of the probe, had accessed Schrade's background information.
"For a state police agency or one of its agents to investigate a reporter who has produced legitimate and critically important coverage of the agency smacks of the intimidation and retribution you would expect to find in a totalitarian state," Silverman said.
Two new studies showing that vaccines increase the risk of diabetes have been published in the Open Pediatric Medicine Journal.
A band of pre-eminent scientists and war-fighters has concluded that the nation's military might isn't powerful enough for the 21st Century; and so the National Research Council (NRC), an independent, congressionally-chartered body charged with assessing scientific issues, is urging the Pentagon and Congress to get cracking on developing a weapon capable of hitting any target in the world within an hour of being launched.
New documents from within the Bush administration and US intelligence community during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq reveal that the White House began assembling a case for war before it had compiled the intel that ostensibly formed the basis of that case.
