TV News LIES

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an "online persona management service" that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.

The US has been sending unarmed drones over Mexico since February to gather intelligence on major drug cartels, the New York Times reports. Useful information has already been turned over to Mexican authorities, US officials told the paper.

The missions had been kept secret because of Mexican legal restraints and sensitivities over sovereignty. Mexico's northern border areas have seen much of the violence that has left more than 34,000 dead since late 2006.

The Army is reprimanding nine officers for leadership failures in connection with the shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, and their failure to detect problems with the accused shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan (ahb-DEL'-hah-leem HAH'-san).

The Army says in a statement that although no single event directly led to the tragedy, certain officers failed to meet expected standards. A Pentagon review last year found that Hasan's supervisors expressed serious concerns about his questionable behavior and poor judgment but failed to heed the warnings.

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The majority of American soldiers undergoing amputation for war wounds last fall lost more than one limb, according to data presented Tuesday to the Defense Health Board, a committee of experts that advises the Defense Department on medical matters.

Military officials had previously released data showing that amputations, and especially multiple-limb losses, increased last year. The information presented to the 20-member board is the first evidence that the steepest increase occurred over the last four months of the year.

For women in the military, there's a cold, hard reality: Their marriages are more than twice as likely to end in divorce as those of their male comrades - and up to three times as likely for enlisted women. And military women get divorced at higher rates than their peers outside the military, while military men divorce at lower rates than their civilian peers.

About 220,000 women have served in Afghanistan and Iraq in roles ranging from helicopter pilots to police officers. Last year, 7.8 percent of women in the military got a divorce, compared with 3 percent of military men, according to Pentagon statistics.

The U.S. military is too white and too male at the top and needs to change recruiting and promotion policies and lift its ban on women in combat, an independent report for Congress said Monday.

Seventy-seven percent of senior officers in the active-duty military are white, while only 8 percent are black, 5 percent are Hispanic and 16 percent are women, the report by an independent panel said, quoting data from September 2008.