TV News LIES

A federal appeals court has rejected an appeal of contempt of court findings against a now-defunct email firm which reportedly provided services to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.

In a ruling issued Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said email provider Lavabit LLC and owner Ladar Levison failed to present to a district court their key arguments against the government's tactics seeking encryption keys and information about one of the firm's customers. That customer is not identified in public court papers but is believed to be Snowden.

A multi-story ferry carrying 459 people, mostly high school students on an overnight trip to a tourist island, sank off South Korea's southern coast Wednesday, leaving nearly 300 people missing despite a frantic, hours-long rescue by ships and helicopters. At least three people were confirmed dead and 55 injured.

The high number of people unaccounted for — likely trapped in the ship or floating in the ocean — raised fears that the death toll could rise drastically, making it one of South Korea's biggest ferry disasters since 1993 when 292 people died.

Pope Francis asked Friday for forgiveness from the victims of pedophile priests in some of his strongest words to date about the Catholic Church's sex abuse crisis.

NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports from Rome that: "The pope has come under fire from advocacy groups for a perceived lack of attention to the issue.

"Friday, in off-the-cuff remarks to members of the International Catholic Child Bureau, Francis said he felt compelled to take it upon himself to ask forgiveness for the evil that some priests had committed in sexually abusing children."

New scientific tests have turned up no evidence of modern forgery in a text written on ancient Egyptian papyrus that refers to Jesus as being married, according to a long-awaited article to be published Thursday in the Harvard Theological Review.

The findings support the argument of Harvard professor Karen L. King that the controversial text, the first-known explicit reference to a married Jesus, is almost certainly an authentic document.

The “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” was introduced to the world by King at a conference in Rome 18 months ago. The announcement made headlines around the world, and many of King’s academic peers, as well as the Vatican newspaper, swiftly dismissed it as a fake.

Toyota is recalling more than 6.5m cars worldwide to fix a variety of problems, including faulty steering wheels and seats.

The company said there had been no reported accidents or injuries relating to the problems identified. Some 27 Toyota models are affected, including the Corolla, RAV4, Hilux, Yaris, Tacoma, Urban Cruiser and Scion xD.

The global recall tally is a huge blow to the world's biggest selling carmaker that has seen its reputation battered by a string of damaging recalls.

An alarming lapse in Internet security has exposed millions of passwords, credit card numbers and other sensitive bits of information to potential theft by computer hackers who may have been secretly exploiting the problem before its discovery.

The breakdown revealed this week affects the encryption technology that is supposed to protect online accounts for emails, instant messaging and a wide range of electronic commerce.

Security researchers who uncovered the threat, known as "Heartbleed," are particularly worried about the breach because it went undetected for more than two years.