Air scare diplomat was to meet jailed terrorist: (NBC) Qatari official touched off bomb scare by smoking in jetliner bathroom.
A Qatari diplomat was on his way to an official visit with an imprisoned al-Qaida sleeper agent when he touched off a bomb scare by slipping into an airliner bathroom for a smoke, officials said Thursday as the diplomat prepared to leave the U.S.
The diplomat, Mohammed Al-Madadi, was going to pay a consular visit to the prisoner, said Alison Bradley, a public relations executive hired to speak for the Qatari Embassy, and a State Department official.
The prisoner, Ali Al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar, is serving eight years after pleading guilty last year to conspiring to support terrorism. Al-Marri was arrested after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, accused of being a sleeper agent researching poisonous gasses and plotting a cyberattack.
Consular officials frequently visit foreigners held in the United States to make sure they are being treated well.
Bradley said Qatari diplomats have made multiple visits to Al-Marri in prison since he pleaded guilty. The right to such visits is guaranteed by international agreements, and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons had approved this visit by Al-Madadi in advance.
Why flout security rules?
Questions remained about why a diplomat on an official trip, like Al-Madadi, would apparently flout airline security rules. Law enforcement officials said Al-Madadi later joked that he had been trying to light his shoe — an apparent reference to the 2001 so-called shoe bomber, Richard Reid...
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Considering America and Russia warehouse and control literally 90% of the world's nukes it's a good idea that we both exercise self-discipline and power down. Besides, it's an aging arsenal that is expensive to maintain. It's in the interest of our national treasuries to dial back high inventories of nukes.
Obama, Medvedev sign historic arms deal: (NBC) ‘Important milestone’ commits nations to cut nuclear warheads by one-third
Seeking to end years of rancor, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday signed the biggest nuclear arms pact in a generation and envisioned a day when they can compromise on the divisive issue of missile defense.
The new treaty, the first of its kind in two decades and nearly a year in the making, signaled a bold new opening in relations between the former Cold War foes. Both leaders hoped for more progress on economic matters and potentially even deeper cuts in their robust nuclear arsenals, while the Russian president still warned of potential pitfalls ahead.
The pact will shrink the limit of nuclear warheads to 1,550 per country over seven years. That still allows for mutual destruction several times over. But it is intended to send a strong signal that Russia and the U.S. — which between them own more than 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons — are serious about disarmament.
Obama and Medvedev reaffirmed their commitment to considering new sanctions against Iran if the Islamic republic continues to refuse to suspend uranium enrichment and start talks on its nuclear program.
Medvedev said it's regrettable that Iran has not responded to many constructive proposals the international community has offered, and it's possible the United Nations Security Council will have to take up the issue. And Obama said the U.S. will not tolerate any actions by Iran that risk an arms race in the Middle East or threaten the credibility of the international community...
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U.S. developing new non-nuclear missiles: (NBC) Conventional warheads could strike anywhere in less than an hour.
As the White House pushes for cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, the Pentagon is developing a weapon to help fill the gap: missiles armed with conventional warheads that could strike anywhere in the world in less than an hour.
U.S. military officials say the intercontinental ballistic missiles, known as Prompt Global Strike weapons, are a necessary new form of deterrence against terrorist networks and other adversaries. As envisioned, the conventional missiles would give the White House a fresh military option to consider in a crisis that would not result in a radioactive mushroom cloud.
The Prompt Global Strike program, which the Pentagon has been developing for several years, is already raising hackles in Moscow, where Russian officials predict it could trigger a non-nuclear arms race and complicate President Obama's long-term vision of ridding the world of nuclear weapons. U.S. military officials are also struggling to solve a separate major obstacle: the risk that Russia or China could mistake the launch of a conventional Prompt Global Strike missile for a nuclear one...
The White House says that development of Prompt Global Strike is not affected by the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev are scheduled to sign Thursday in Prague. Analysts say, however, that any conventional ballistic missiles would count the same as nuclear ones under the treaty, which places new limits on each country's stockpile.
Deployment of a conventional ballistic missile is not expected until 2015 at the earliest. But the program has received a recent boost from the Obama administration, which sees the missiles as one cog in an array of defensive and offensive weapons that could ultimately replace nuclear arms.
The administration has asked Congress for $240 million for next year's Prompt Global Strike development programs, a 45 percent increase from the current budget. The military forecasts a total of $2 billion in development costs through 2015 — a relative bargain by Pentagon standards.
After years of preparation, the Air Force is scheduled to perform an initial flight test of a prototype next month...
The Air Force prototype Prompt Global Strike design is a modified Peacekeeper III intercontinental ballistic missile. If it is successful, the plan is to deploy a handful of the missiles at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
The weapons would be overseen by the U.S. Strategic Command, which is responsible for the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Air Force Gen. Kevin P. Chilton, who leads the command, based near Omaha, has said he sees Prompt Global Strike as a niche weapon, not one that could substitute for nuclear arms...
To alleviate the risk of an accidental Russian nuclear retaliation, the Air Force is developing a conventional, land-based ballistic missile that would fire into space at a much lower altitude than nuclear warheads, something that could be detected by Russian early-warning radar systems. U.S. military officials have also said they might be willing to grant access to Russian inspectors, or warn Moscow about a conventional strike on a third-party target...
Now here's a story to kick up your anger management meter a few notches:
Half of U.S. pays no federal income tax: (NBC) Credits for low- and middle-income families exempt many. Tax Day is a dreaded deadline for millions, but for nearly half of U.S. households it's simply somebody else's problem.
About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability. That's according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research organization.
Most people still are required to file returns by the April 15 deadline. The penalty for skipping it is limited to the amount of taxes owed, but it's still almost always better to file: That's the only way to get a refund of all the income taxes withheld by employers.
In recent years, credits for low- and middle-income families have grown so much that a family of four making as much as $50,000 will owe no federal income tax for 2009, as long as there are two children younger than 17, according to a separate analysis by the consulting firm Deloitte Tax.
Tax cuts enacted in the past decade have been generous to wealthy taxpayers, too, making them a target for President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress. Less noticed were tax cuts for low- and middle-income families, which were expanded when Obama signed the massive economic recovery package last year.
The result is a tax system that exempts almost half the country from paying for programs that benefit everyone, including national defense, public safety, infrastructure and education. It is a system in which the top 10 percent of earners — households making an average of $366,400 in 2006 — paid about 73 percent of the income taxes collected by the federal government.
The bottom 40 percent, on average, make a profit from the federal income tax, meaning they get more money in tax credits than they would otherwise owe in taxes. For those people, the government sends them a payment.
"We have 50 percent of people who are getting something for nothing," said Curtis Dubay, senior tax policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation...
We have all been wondering how these rescuers have been faring these years later with such horrific issues:
9/11 rescuers may have long-term lung damage: (NBC) Breathing tests show lung function not improving over time.
Among emergency medical technicians, the numbers were worse. Of the nearly 2,000 EMTs included in the analysis, 22 percent of the nonsmokers scored below normal on their most recent breathing test.
The research is in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.
The study dims hopes that workers who developed respiratory problems after being exposed to the trade center’s powdery and smoking remnants would gradually return to normal.
Firefighters commonly suffer some lung damage after being exposed to heavy smoke, but the problem is not usually long term. Previous studies of firefighters who lost breathing capacity after battling chemical and forest fires found that they generally recovered within days or weeks.
That hasn’t happened with 9/11 responders, said Dr. David Prezant, the Fire Department’s chief medical officer and a lead author of the study. He and other researchers noted that the particle cloud released by the trade center collapse was unique.
In the immediate aftermath, they were exposed to “unprecedented density of dust, smoke, all kinds of materials that they don’t encounter in a routine course of firefighting,” said Dr. Thomas Aldrich, professor of medicine at Albert Einstein.
Overall, firefighters in the study experienced, in one event, the normal loss of lung function caused by aging 12 years, Prezant said.
The research was based on tests that measure how fast a person can exhale...
Researchers don’t know what is causing the loss of lung function to persist, Prezant said. He said the problems may be due to chronic inflammation, originally caused by particles or chemical exposure, that is causing the airways to remain partially obstructed.
Dr. Philip Landrigan, who oversees the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program at Mount Sinai Hospital, said the study does contain a positive note: It also shows that the firefighters who lost lung function generally aren’t getting worse over time, aside from the normal decline due to aging.
When adult allergies attack, you can fight back: (NBC) Symptoms can strike at any age, but there are ways to beat the sniffles.
Robert never had any allergies — nary a sniffle or a wheeze his entire life. Then he met his sister's new dog, a Lab named Finn. On a recent visit, Finn's copious dander ambushed the 39-year-old, causing sniffling, wheezing, runny eyes, scratchy throat, and relentless sneezing fits. "I'd never had reactions to any animals," he said. "Now I won't come in the door without drugging myself up."
Allergists and immunologists are seeing more men like Robert, men who've been blindsided by new allergies. "We used to think you couldn't develop allergies later in life," says immunologist Donata Vercelli, M.D., a professor of cell biology and anatomy at the University of Arizona. "They usually arrived when you were young, and you typically outgrew them."
Adult-onset allergies may be part of a broader phenomenon. Scientists call it the hygiene hypothesis: The less you've been exposed to allergens in your life, the more likely you may be to develop allergies as an adult, according to a 2009 Australian review in Allergy. The theory is that when your system is out of practice, it becomes sloppy, Dr. Vercelli says. Instead of idly standing by, it launches all-out attacks against harmless dander and pollen, leaving you congested, itchy, and inflamed. "Your immune system will work, not less effectively, but less appropriately," Dr. Vercelli says.
The next time your boss blames your productivity dip on slacking, tell him it may be something in the air. Allergic rhinitis — a reaction that occurs inside the nasal passages and upper airways — costs employers millions in lost productivity and absenteeism each year. Often mistaken for bronchitis because both conditions cause coughing, it's actually triggered by pollen, pet dander, or dust mites.
When you're confronted with these invaders, a flood of chemicals — including histamine, bradykinin, and leukotrienes — dilates your mucous membranes, inflames your nose and throat, and causes your eyes to itch. Taking antihistamines such as generic Zyrtec or generic Claritin can help prevent allergic rhinitis symptoms in most people — as long as they take the meds early in the day and not just when the symptoms appear. But these drugs target only one part of your reaction, histamine, says pulmonologist Paul Enright, M.D., a professor of medicine at the University of Arizona. This may not be enough to clear you up.
Your strategies: When your throat starts to itch, raid the spice rack. "Hot pepper, especially cayenne pepper, turns on mucus production," says James Dillard, M.D., Men's Health's integrative-medicine advisor. "So if you have pollen sitting there, you may be able to rinse it out just by adding some pepper to your dish..."
At home, turn down the thermostat. Warm indoor temperatures in winter can bring on a stuffy nose, irritated eyes, and wheezing, according to a recent U.S. government study. Make sure your house stays below 73ºF, the temperature at which the symptoms began in study participants. When it comes to pets, if you have an allergy and will be visiting a pet-friendly home, start using a nasal steroid spray 5 days beforehand, says George Pyrgos, M.D., an allergy and immunology fellow at Johns Hopkins University. These products, including Nasonex and Flonase, help prevent the inflammation caused by pet dander...
It's about time our government took action against this traitor. He is a disgrace to those who gave him safe quarter when he was growing up in America and to others who gave him respect as a fellow American. There is nothing holy about this man. He is an imposter as a representative of God or just plain insane - or both.
As to the current White House claiming how rare it is to target other Americans for killing, well, that's not true. It is true under Democratic administrations. It has never been true under Republican administrations who kill on a whim and at will regularly. Republicans have never been known for doing their due diligence as thoroughly and properly investigating whether allegations are true or not against other Americans, whether they are overseas or not. Nor do the targeted Americans ever get the chance to prove the allegations are wrong. They are just slaughtered.
Depraved Republican Presidents, notably Nixon, have been known to target American children for killing just to get an international incident with one country or another. And that is the core of why I NEVER vote for a Republican in the White House - they just can't stop themselves from callous depraved indifference toward the American people they are supposed to serve and protect.
Republican Presidents use the king mentality and have exercised kill orders on a constant and willful basis in every Republican administration. A notable exception was President Eisenhower who was war weary after World World 2 just like the rest of the country. His military-Big Business industrial complex was quite another - they had a blood lust and wanted to kill on a petty ego's whim. President Kennedy should have taken outgoing President Eisenhower's warning more seriously about the heads of the military and their Big Business handlers. It cost him his life.
The fact that the Obama administration took this long to decide to issue a kill order against another American, a radical terrorist Muslim at that, tells me they took the time to investigate if he was truly a threat.
U.S. approves killing of American cleric: (NBC) New Mexico - born extremist is believed to be recruiting terrorists in Yemen.
The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Tuesday.
Mr. Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico and spent years in the United States as an imam, is in hiding in Yemen. He has been the focus of intense scrutiny since he was linked to Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., in November, and then to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Dec. 25.
American counterterrorism officials say Mr. Awlaki is an operative of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the affiliate of the terror network in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. They say they believe that he has become a recruiter for the terrorist network, feeding prospects into plots aimed at the United States and at Americans abroad, the officials said.
It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing, officials said. A former senior legal official in the administration of George W. Bush said he did not know of any American who was approved for targeted killing under the former president.
But the director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, told a House hearing in February that such a step was possible. “We take direct actions against terrorists in the intelligence community,” he said. “If we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that.” He did not name Mr. Awlaki as a target.
The step taken against Mr. Awlaki, which occurred earlier this year, is a vivid illustration of his rise to prominence in the constellation of terrorist leaders. But his popularity as a cleric, whose lectures on Islamic scripture have a large following among English-speaking Muslims, means any action against him could rebound against the United States in the larger ideological campaign against Al Qaeda.
The possibility that Mr. Awlaki might be added to the target list was reported by The Los Angeles Times in January, and Reuters reported on Tuesday that he was approved for capture or killing.
“The danger Awlaki poses to this country is no longer confined to words,” said an American official, who like other current and former officials interviewed for this article spoke of the classified counterterrorism measures on the condition of anonymity. “He’s gotten involved in plots.”
The official added: “The United States works, exactly as the American people expect, to overcome threats to their security, and this individual — through his own actions — has become one. Awlaki knows what he’s done, and he knows he won’t be met with handshakes and flowers. None of this should surprise anyone.”
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