TV News LIES

Two members of the US Coast Guard in Alaska have been found dead, prompting concerns that a killer could have struck at a remote island outpost. A captain at the Kodiak Island Station said they were unsure what happened and a suspect could still be at large.

The base and schools in the area were put on lockdown and residents of the island were told to remain vigilant. The names of the victims will be released after their families have been notified, the coast guard said.

American scientists have drawn up plans for a new generation of nuclear-powered drones capable of flying over remote regions of the world for months on end without refuelling.

The blueprints for the new drones, which have been developed by Sandia National Laboratories – the US government's principal nuclear research and development agency – and defence contractor Northrop Grumman, were designed to increase flying time "from days to months" while making more power available for operating equipment, according to a project summary published by Sandia.

Explosions rocked four cities across Iraq today, including a bombing near the Foreign Ministry in Baghdad where the annual Arab League summit is due to be held next week.

A total of 27 people were killed and 161 wounded in the explosions in the capital as well as in Kirkuk, Salaheddin, Karbala, Hilla and Ramadi, according to Health Ministry and police officials. The highest toll was in Karbala, where 13 people were killed and 58 others wounded, Health Ministry local spokesman Jamal Mehdi said in a telephone interview.

The firings came shortly after the two whistleblowers protested an order to saw off the fused arm bone of a dead Marine so he could fit in his dress uniform and casket.

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The Air Force said Friday it will impose harsher penalties on the former commander and chief deputy of the Dover Air Force Base mortuary after a federal probe found they retaliated against subordinates for reporting systematic problems there, including cases in which body parts were lost.

The announcement was made in response to an investigation by the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal agency that protects whistleblowers. The probe found that Edmondson, Dean and another supervisor had provided phony reasons to fire or punish four mortuary workers who had exposed problems there.

Can being an atheist in America get you killed? If police in the small Texas town of Petrolia are to be believed, the answer to that question is yes.

It is also not yet clear if Ramirez really was an atheist, or if that was the real reason for the killing. The two nameless tipsters told police that’s what Green said to them to justify him actions, and claimed that Ramirez had reached for a gun as well. It is possible that the two had a separate disagreement leading up to the alleged murder.

The UN special rapporteur on torture has formally accused the US government of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment towards Bradley Manning, the US soldier who was held in solitary confinement for almost a year on suspicion of being the WikiLeaks source.

Juan Mendez has completed a 14-month investigation into the treatment of Manning since the soldier's arrest at a US military base in May 2010. He concludes that the US military was at least culpable of cruel and inhumane treatment in keeping Manning locked up alone for 23 hours a day over an 11-month period in conditions that he also found might have constituted torture.

The US Marine Corps has discharged the man convicted over the killing of Iraqi civilians in Haditha, a spokesman said. Former Sgt Frank Wuterich, 31, was given a general discharge under honourable conditions and completed his service on Friday, he added.

Wuterich avoided imprisonment after reaching a plea deal, but had earlier faced several counts of manslaughter. Twenty-four people died in the 2005 killings, including women and children, after a roadside bomb killed a Marine.

TVNL Comment:  A general discharge, and no other penalites for a man responsible for kiling 24 unarmed civilians.  Oh yes, they hate us for our freedom...

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A U.S. Marine sniper team in Afghanistan posed for a photograph in front of a flag with symbols representing Adolph Hitler's notorious SS unit, the Pentagon confirmed to The Associated Press.

The photo was eventually circulated on the Internet. According to a post on the Knight's Armament Blog, where the photo appears to have been posted in May, the Marines adopted the blue “SS” flag in reference to “scout sniper.”

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